Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n\nWith more study, this is proving to be less true then we thought for a long time. Mass shootings outside of gang violence tend to be a complicated form of suicide.\n\nWe know that suicides can be somewhat contagious and driven by the news media, which can also connect the increase shootings we see as a result of that coverage.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf2rcy0","parent_id":"12cij50","score":0,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"RevolutionaryBug8528","body":"It's not even a problem with the proper American mindset. Any shortfall in future consumer laborers resulting from mass shootings (improbable that it would amount to anything significant) can be made up for with the proper immigration and \"healthcare\" policies.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf2wujm","parent_id":"12cij50","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"SliptheSkid","body":"A solution does exist, but I think it's too extreme / complex to be actually adopted. At its core gun reform and fixing gun violence requires a dramatic shift in culture away from pro-gun behaviour. This includes forking over rights to own a gun easily, because as long as there are so many guns and so many people own them, we cannot prevent them from being resold, shared, or otherwise being given to people who are mentally ill or likely to be violent and enact shootings.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf2yox7","parent_id":"12cij50","score":3,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"IndyPoker979","body":"I just need to point out about your last point. I'm sure it's already been covered, but first-person shooters do not increase or decrease the likelihood of gun violence. There was a big push in the 80s and '90s by a guy by the name of Jack Thompson who decided that violent video games and movies were responsible for the ills of society. Since then, this argument has been destroyed on every single logical front. There is no correlation between people who play these games and gun violence. There are much more closer correlations that you could point to instead. However, the idea that you could put these types of games in a school to give an outlet is not effective.\n\nIn all the situations in which gun violence at schools has occurred, none of them have been simply because they couldn't play a video game. That isn't the common factor. Instead of bullying and mental health and mental crisis or rejection or emotional immaturity, making someone unable to handle a situation? Those are the factors that lead to violence in schools.\n\nTo put it simply, no one is suddenly a race car driver just because they play Forza. Counter-Strike players do not automatically become good at paintball. This is not a good example of a healthy outlet for an individual at risk","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf2z565","parent_id":"12cij50","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">I just need to point out about your last point. I'm sure it's already been covered, but first-person shooters do not increase or decrease the likelihood of gun violence. There was a big push in the 80s and '90s by a guy by the name of Jack Thompson who decided that violent video games and movies were responsible for the ills of society. Since then, this argument has been destroyed on every single logical front. There is no correlation between people who play these games and gun violence. There are much more closer correlations that you could point to instead. However, the idea that you could put these types of games in a school to give an outlet is not effective.\n\nThe point I made in the post details is that I don't think it would solve the mass shooter problem if the education system provided FPS games to fulfil the desire to shoot. I know so many people who play FPS games, and none of them are itching to fire into an innocent crowd. \n\n>In all the situations in which gun violence at schools has occurred, none of them have been simply because they couldn't play a video game. That isn't the common factor. Instead of bullying and mental health and mental crisis or rejection or emotional immaturity, making someone unable to handle a situation? Those are the factors that lead to violence in schools.\r \n\r\n\nI do support universal healthcare and improved mental healthcare.","date":"2023-04-09","id":"jfk1xi8","parent_id":"jf2z565","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"Obsidian743","body":"I see no reason that if we pass laws that make guns et. al. difficult if not impossible to buy/own/use, then over time, the overall gun/ammo/accessory/culture supply will disappear. The only obstacle is passing those laws. I always hear arguments against the \"practicality\" of getting people to turn in or sell their guns. We don't need to do that. We simply strangle the supply and let time do the rest of the work.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf31rvn","parent_id":"12cij50","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"Navlgazer","body":"Gun control won’t and doesn’t work .\n\nJust look at chicago .\n\nThe people who want to ban guns and think that 25-40 million “assault weapons “ can be confiscated and stolen from their owners , are also the exact same people who say that 15 million illegal immigrants is too many to round up and deport . \n\nSee the hypocrisy here ?\n\nAnd no one except liberals trust the govt .\nPeople with a brain know the govt is corrupt and bought and laid for by lobbyists and special interest groups and does as they are told by their donors.\n\nThe same govt that says they will protect you if you give up your right and means to protect yourself , are the same govt that can’t secure a border . Yet tells you everyday that the border is secure even though two million illegals waltz across every month , and bring tons of fentanyl with them . The same fentanyl that kills ten times more people than are murdered with guns .\n\nAnd liberals don’t care about people being killed .\nIf those school kids had been aborted babies instead , the liberals would have been praising the mothers for killing them before they were born . \nLiberals won’t ever talk about how many people are killed in Chicago every weekend.\nBecause Chicago is and has been run by democrats for decades .\n\nMurder is against the law , every school is a “ gun free zone “\n \nThe ONLY thing that stops a nut job crazy person with a gun , is a good guy with a gun.\n\nThe faster the good guy shows up with a gun , the less innocent people killed .","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf3hmn9","parent_id":"12cij50","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">Gun control won’t and doesn’t work .\n\n>Just look at chicago .\n\nChicago is an embarrassment to left wingers everywhere, even in Australia.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf3zyxw","parent_id":"jf3hmn9","score":0,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"Sinfultitan_001","body":"We don't have a gun violence problem we have a **MASSIVE MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS** that no one wants to talk about because that rug would pull out from under too many feet.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf3ijy9","parent_id":"12cij50","score":4,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">We don't have a gun violence problem we have a MASSIVE MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS that no one wants to talk about because that rug would pull out from under too many feet.\n\nSo does Australia and a lot of other countries. Yet our gun violence rate is lower. Would you link that to our gun control laws or our universal healthcare?","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf3zks9","parent_id":"jf3ijy9","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"buttholefluid","body":"I know what won’t, more laws.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf3xhxv","parent_id":"12cij50","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"CITYCATZCOUSIN","body":"Your first paragraph...!","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf3z3v1","parent_id":"12cij50","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"themetahumancrusader","body":"As an Australian, I disagree with you on Australia having a similar right vs left culture war. Our “culture war” is very subdued in comparison to the US.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf43tu4","parent_id":"12cij50","score":3,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"burnblue","body":"Pass the gun restrictions, let who needs to panic buy guns go ahead and panic buy before the law kicks in, then let people get over it and needing licenses or checks to get firearms will just be the normal law of the land the same way other things are.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf44bub","parent_id":"12cij50","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"PrincessTrunks125","body":"1) make gun purchases more readily traceable \n\n\n2) the original purchaser of the gun is responsible for all crimes committed with it \n\nThat would be a huge start.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf45s9x","parent_id":"12cij50","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"AdamicAtom","body":"America doesn't have a gun violence problem, or a racism problem or any other problem more important than this: America has a culture problem. And everyone everywhere knows it is at the core of all of this but will never admit that between classes and cultures in America, there will never be consensus or compromise.\n\nAnd the media and all the politicians know it and do everything they can to keep it this way.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf46qms","parent_id":"12cij50","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"Mindless-Umpire7420","body":"America has criminal gangs and cartel from the south, Australia is a massive island continent. The reason Australia’s gun control works is because it’s an island nation, it’s harder to smuggle guns through an ocean than the Mexican border","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf48p8f","parent_id":"12cij50","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"Green_and_black","body":"Gun violence is actually not that big a problem (it’s Americans shooting Americans). The bigger problem is BOMB violence. This is worse because the seppos are exporting the violence.\nThe best way to prevent bomb violence is Balkanisation of the USA.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf4d3k9","parent_id":"12cij50","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"canwepleasejustnot","body":"The reality is that we have a much larger problem in this country, an existential one, that is resulting in everyone becoming more and more fractured and isolated, and violent. Taking legally obtained guns out of the hands of law abiding citizens won't really fix that problem and I genuinely believe that a large faction of Americans believe this deep down. Those calling for full bans tend to think that people are generally good and law abiding but it's just not true. If it comes down to it I'd rather be able to defend myself.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf56ckw","parent_id":"12cij50","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"pilzn3r","body":"We have a mental health crisis in America.","date":"2023-04-06","id":"jf5atv1","parent_id":"12cij50","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"I won't deny that but it's daft to think that you're the only country with a mental health crisis. Would you support universal health care to help tackle this crisis?","date":"2023-04-08","id":"jfeuuzf","parent_id":"jf5atv1","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"Psycheau","body":"If we take a more pragmatic military look at the USA they have Russia on one side. If Putin went completely mental and decided to invade the US and the military was spread to far across the globe for a quick response a land invasion on US soil would be a very problematic assault. When the people are armed a land assault could be easily thwarted by local militia holding their ground. Especially when lots of the public have automatic assault rifles it would be a simple matter to put together a small militia in each city to hold ground while the military get the logistics sorted. \n\nWhen people look at the gun situation in the USA they never seem to acknowledge the fact that they are in a very unique geological situation having a border with a potential enemy. There are other threats as well as Russia but it is the most obvious potential threat. Of course many people will know that Russia doesn't have the resources to attack the USA, but that does not mean they will never try, even in desperation.","date":"2023-04-06","id":"jf5g21c","parent_id":"12cij50","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"If Russia (or any other hostile nation) were to obliterate the American military and put boots on the ground in the USA, you can bet that nukes will launch. That's probably a greater deterrent than having an armed populace.","date":"2023-04-08","id":"jfeu5jb","parent_id":"jf5g21c","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"StarMNF","body":"I've given this some thought, and I think I have a gun control measure that would eliminate most mass shootings in the U.S. without effecting most gun owners.\n\nThe idea is simple. To buy a gun, you need to get affidavits from 5 people who have known you well for at least a decade, who are willing to vouch that you can be trusted with the gun -- that you're of good character, mentally stable, and not likely to use the gun in an unlawful manner.\n\nYou can make the process pretty painless. You show up at Walmart with your 5 friends, you walk out with your gun. Heck, make gun buying a social activity.\n\nRednecks will still get their guns. People who are planning to stockpile ammunitions for the next Waco shootout with the feds will still be able to get their guns. The mafia will still get their guns.\n\nSo it won't completely stop gun violence in the country. However, it will be a major road block for the typical \"lone wolf shooter\" who does these mass shootings.\n\nPeople who know these shooters know they're mentally unstable and shouldn't have guns. In the case of the Covenant shooter, their parents knew they shouldn't own a gun. Even if they went to other friends who maybe don't know them so well, they would get a lot of questions about suddenly wanting to buy up enough guns for a small army.\n\nWhile most of these shooters have mental illnesses, and mental healthcare needs to be significantly improved, the reality is that a significant number of people with serious mental illnesses are never even diagnosed. Banning anyone diagnosed with a mental illness from owning a gun with result in even fewer people seeking treatment or being diagnosed, because most mental illnesses are diagnosed through voluntary therapy. \n\nThere are also cases where someone officially diagnosed with a mental illness has a justifiable need for a gun. For instance, a woman suffering PTSD from domestic violence might need a gun to protect themselves from their ex-partner who wants to kill them.","date":"2023-04-06","id":"jf6qvfu","parent_id":"12cij50","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"LigPortman69","body":"You’re correct. A full 60% are in strong favor of the Second Amendment. It’s not going anywhere. I doubt the military would enforce any “decree” from above.","date":"2023-04-06","id":"jf9ngjr","parent_id":"12cij50","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"philmarcracken","body":">In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable \n\nThe spike wouldn't prevent them from being able to surrender them later on; the grace period would no doubt account for this phenomenon.\n\n>Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it\n\nThis doesn't have much to do with our actual polices on gun control. It just shows our politicians aren't content with their citizens bloodshed at the hands of a few lunatics. It was still bigly unpopular for howard at the time, and political heads rolled over doing it.\n\n>Mental healthcare might help\n\nHeard this one quite a bit. Mental health issues aren't unique to the US, their access to guns is.\n\n>Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings\n\nA violation of their first amendment\n\n>Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n\nA few things stops ours from being the all-in celebrity contest that america holds. We don't vote for our candidates directly, only their parties. And we have compulsory voting, which has the majority vote when they don't care about who they cast for. The more extreme you act(as is common in america) the less you score these voters.\n\n>Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot\n\nThis would not nearly be as effective as just copy pasting our gun control laws. License and lockup storage. Caliber restrictions. Self defense is not a legit reason to obtain and hold your license etc.\n\nAlso, Wendover did a pretty [decent look](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0aGGOK4kAM) at the relative effectiveness of our laws since their passing.","date":"2023-04-07","id":"jfarqj9","parent_id":"12cij50","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"jajabingo2","body":"Australia does not have a raging left vs right battle anything like the USA 😂 \n\nAnd our proportional voting and donations oversight gives us a way different type of government here","date":"2023-04-07","id":"jfbljg6","parent_id":"12cij50","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"TheDanimator","body":"We need to put more guns into the hands of good people so we can stop shootings.\nI dont believe this would solve everything, I do think it would help the problem though.","date":"2023-04-07","id":"jfefxs3","parent_id":"12cij50","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"D_Balgarus","body":"First off, gun violence statistics are inflated since they include suicides. \n\nSecond, most actual violence is gang violence in the big cities.\n\nIf we want to tackle gun violence then we need to annihilate gangs in the cities. That would require people be tough on crime and bring back the stigma of having a criminal record. Sadly people in the problematic areas don’t have the backbone to do this.","date":"2023-04-08","id":"jfgy5nr","parent_id":"12cij50","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">If we want to tackle gun violence then we need to annihilate gangs in the cities. That would require people be tough on crime and bring back the stigma of having a criminal record. Sadly people in the problematic areas don’t have the backbone to do this.\n\nHow isn't the USA already tough on crime if it has the world's highest incarnation rate?","date":"2023-04-09","id":"jfk6z8d","parent_id":"jfgy5nr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}]],"string":"[\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Khal-Frodo\",\n \"body\": \"To clarify, when you say \\\"I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA\\\" are you saying that such an initiative would never pass, or that it wouldn't be effective even if it hypothetically did?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf1jzav\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 7,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">To clarify, when you say \\\"I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA\\\" are you saying that such an initiative would never pass, or that it wouldn't be effective even if it hypothetically did?\\n\\nI am saying the latter. Say Joe Biden manages to pull off some masterful political puppeteering to enact gun control legislations similar to what John Howard did in 1996. It doesn't matter if it gets passed because past trends have shown us that the USA will experience panic buying of guns whenever there is a suspicion that gun control will be enacted.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf1kyf4\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jf1jzav\",\n \"score\": 6,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"pgold05\",\n \"body\": \"If an effective gun control law actualy passes, the initial spike in gun ownership won't matter because ultimately the number of guns will go down in the long run. \\n\\nThere is no reason to consider that spike to mean it's impossible, it barley matters in the larger scheme of things.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf1kk0w\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 39,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">If an effective gun control law actualy passes, the initial spike in gun ownership won't matter because ultimately the number of guns will go down in the long run.\\n\\nFirstly, while this did happen in Australia, will this phenomenon necessarily happen too in the USA? \\n\\nSecondly, how many lives will it cost? Imagine the cops trying to seize guns from an angry gun owner - it would either result in a few cops getting killed, the gun owners getting killed, or both.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf1lcz8\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jf1kk0w\",\n \"score\": 6,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Squirt_memes\",\n \"body\": \">\\tAny attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n\\nI’d say the gun control fails because it’s very difficult to make a gun control bill that will pass all three branches of our government. Even just getting it past the representatives is quite difficult and the courts are unreceptive to violations of the second amendment. \\n\\n>\\tMental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention,\\n\\nThat really depends what you mean by “mass shooting”. In your wiki list, I think there’s 4 mass shooting so far this year that were unrelated to gang violence. And a couple dozen gang shooting that make it seem like mass shootings randomly happen all the time. \\n\\nGun violence is way bigger in America than most comparable countries, but it’s really easy to let emotions cloud your brain. The vast majority of “mass shootings” pose no threat to normal people who don’t live in a gang’s turf. \\n\\n>\\tSuppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n\\nI’d say the media’s obsession with coverage also makes it hard to know the true scale of the problem. It’s crazy how many people I’ll talk to who are TERRIFIED to send their kids to school. So I’ll ask them “do you have any idea what the statistical chances are of a shooting involving your kid?” Then they’ll get pissed off and accuse me of hating children or something. \\n\\nThis whole issue is fed by a lack of objective information and a reliance on emotional arguments. \\n\\n>\\tGiving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences\\n\\nYou need to go back a few decades if you want to claim violent video games increase violent activity without being made fun of. \\n\\n>\\tThe USA’s gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it’s getting worse, if Wikipedia’s list of mass shootings is to be believed.\\n\\nIt is tragic. Its also not well understood. The vast majority of the shooters on that list are black teenagers in active gangs. So are the majority of victims. \\n\\nSo what’s the goal? Do we ignore one and target the other? Because one policy won’t fit a gang using illegal weapons to protect their drug turf AND a kid taking their parents gun to school for revenge.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf1kow3\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 65,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">It is tragic. Its also not well understood. The vast majority of the shooters on that list are black teenagers in active gangs. So are the majority of victims. \\n> \\n>So what’s the goal? Do we ignore one and target the other? Because one policy won’t fit a gang using illegal weapons to protect their drug turf AND a kid taking their parents gun to school for revenge.\\r \\n\\r\\n\\nOK, but either way, this just goes to prove my point that I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem. While I didn't put it in the post details, gun control legislation can't fix the gang crime problem either.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf1lly5\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jf1kow3\",\n \"score\": 6,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"NelsonMeme\",\n \"body\": \"> Firstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it).\\n\\nThis doesn’t make sense.\\n\\nFirst, it isn’t true. The U.S. developed the rudiments of its gun culture living in frontiers, where guns were commonly used as weapons in armed combat or to secure game. This culture further developed when we forcefully secured our independence. \\n\\nAustralia is independent, did not have to become so forcefully, and did not develop our same culture after independence.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf1l307\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 14,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"NegroniHater\",\n \"body\": \"The Wild West is a myth. And no, gun culture started in America when the second right guaranteed to every American is keeping and bearing arms. Gun control was created to keep former slaves from having those rights, which for almost 100 years had never been touched by the government. \\n\\nFucking Ben Franklin said you shouldn’t go for a walk without a gun, Thomas Jefferson said guns stop homicides, George Washington said every American [probably only meant men] should be armed and trained. It’s always been part of American culture, and sure as fuck didn’t start on an Italian movie set with Clint Eastwood, because you apparently think that’s an accurate depiction of history.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf2fp1v\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jf1l307\",\n \"score\": 5,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"ProLifePanda\",\n \"body\": \">As for solutions to the problem?\\n\\nSo just to start, there is no \\\"100% solution\\\" to gun violence, just like there's no \\\"100% solution\\\" to car crashes, knife stabbings, bar fights, etc. As long as something is allowed (like owning cars, guns, being able to drink, etc.) there will be some negative consequences. So there are no gun control laws or regulations that will reduce gun violence/deaths to 0 (or even close to it).\\n\\nBut a big improvement would be the implementation of pervasive \\\"red flag\\\" laws. Many of the school shootings you see are done by people who show red flags beforehand. The Oxford shooter was literally in the principal's office for being a suspected school shooter the day he did the shooting. The recent Tennessee shooter messaged her friends beforehand with concerning messages before the shooting. There are a lot of other examples, but that's the idea that if we can \\\"take the guns first, due process later\\\", we can stop some of the shootings by obviously troubled individuals.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf1of4b\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": -1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Purely_Theoretical\",\n \"body\": \"You can't possibly red flag the Nashville shooter that sent messages just minutes beforehand. \\n\\nThe real problem with red flag laws is they brush aside due process.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf1sdva\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jf1of4b\",\n \"score\": 6,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Rufus_Reddit\",\n \"body\": \"\\\"Gun violence problem\\\" seems like newspeak - it's the sort of thing that politicians say when they want an emotional reaction but don't really want to say anything. Can you describe what you mean by \\\"gun violence problem\\\" in more concrete terms?\\nIs there some way to check whether the \\\"gun violence problem\\\" has been solved that isn't just \\\"I know it when I see it\\\"? Suppose, for example, that there were no more shootings in school and no more breathless media coverage but homicide rates in inner cities continued to rise, would that be an improvement in the \\\"gun violence problem\\\" or not?\\n\\nDo you think that all of the gun control laws that were passed in the US over the last 40 years were credible attempts to address gun violence, or is it possible that at least some of them were political pandering instead?\\n\\n> ... The USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if Wikipedia's list of mass shootings is to be believed. ...\\n\\nAt the same time, the trend is toward the same or less gun ownership. ( https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/gun-ownership.html ). Do you think that gun availability has substantively changed in the US over the last 30 years? Do you think that changes in \\\"mental health issues\\\" (more newspeak) and increased media coverage of gun violence explain all of the \\\"getting worse\\\" or not?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf1r31m\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": -1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"pudding7\",\n \"body\": \"I would assume that \\\"Gun violence problem\\\" means people being intentionally shot with a gun.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf1s9cp\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jf1r31m\",\n \"score\": 7,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"oddball667\",\n \"body\": \"USA is in a weird not so cold civil war, this will last generations and it will prevent any major issue from being resolved\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf1vtje\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"kgxv\",\n \"body\": \"The first step to solving the gun problem is to make lobbying illegal. Corporations also shouldn’t be able to donate to campaigns.\\n\\nOnce you take NRA money out of the equation, it becomes much easier to tackle.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf1xl7g\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": -2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Lobbying is huge in Australia. If we can have gun control despite that, so can the USA.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf1yc6v\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jf1xl7g\",\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Thintegrator\",\n \"body\": \"This is correct. We Americans have finally accepted that gun violence is an integral part of the American experience and that children dying from gunshot wounds in our schools is a small price to pay for the right to own weapons designed to kill. It is our core freedom. Anyone who thinks otherwise just stay the fuck out of our country. We got this.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf1zj9y\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": -5,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Are you being sarcastic or sincere?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf1zo34\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jf1zj9y\",\n \"score\": 3,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"trash332\",\n \"body\": \"We like our guns. I would like to see more stringent background checks and maybe 30 day wait periods, but only because every mass shooter has purchased their guns legally. Really, some people have to be more honest about their crazy ass family members.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf1zwpg\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Sandy_hook_lemy\",\n \"body\": \"Nonsense. Why is it always \\\"it can't work in the US\\\"? Has it been tried? Literally worked for every country so why not the US?\\n\\nThis is the same type of shit I see for why America cant have railway systems like Europeans. Try it first let's see. It cant be worse than it is now\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf21ioj\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"blade740\",\n \"body\": \"I mostly agree with this take - the US and Australia are VERY different, namely the fact that the US has SIGNIFICANTLY higher levels of firearm proliferation than Australia ever did. While Australia's ban/buybacks were able to make firearms relatively scarce, the amount of guns that would need to be taken off the street in the US to get us to roughly the same level is something like 90%. It's just not feasible. \\n\\nThat said, there is one point from your post in particular I want to debate:\\n\\n>Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n\\nI am not arguing for forcibly SUPPRESSING media coverage, but I do think that the media circus that surrounds these events is a HUGE factor in driving mass shootings due to the media contagion effect. I think that some best practice guidelines for major media organizations to (hopefully) voluntarily follow could help reduce the level at which children are introduced and accustomed to the idea of \\\"mass shootings\\\" in the first place, similar to the way the press (voluntarily) covers suicides to minimize media contagion. \\n\\nTo address your point, I don't believe that the kind of media coverage we have today is necessary (or even helpful) in measuring the \\\"full scale\\\" of the problem. If anything the scale of the problem is blown vastly out of proportion by the outsized attention media gives to these events. The scale of the problem should be measured by scientific studies and good data collection, not by public outrage created by clickbait-driven capitalist news organizations.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf228mw\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"FearLeadsToAnger\",\n \"body\": \"> Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n\\nThis is a fundamental problem with the individualistic nature of 'the american dream' the lone ranger archetype, and the reinforcement of the view that everyone else is stupid and only I know what i'm doing.\\n\\nOur main new sources are hot on the themes of 'everyone else' being stupid, sneaky and selfish, so it's only fair for you to do it too - 'I gadda git ma own'.\\n\\nLike you say, mental healthcare isn't the solution, the whole of society needs to be reframed through a more compassionate lens before anything improves.\\n\\n> After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable\\n\\nMy point of disagreement is here, what you'd need to do is make it highly illegal to the point where it's not worth being anywhere near a gun, which frankly is what a weapon of potential mass murder deserves anyway. Sure, people would still stash guns, but if all hell rains down you any time you get it out, you're never going to get it out and it becomes irrelevant anyway.\\n\\nThe whole shtick about protecting yourself from the government if it goes rogue is archaic, if the government turns on the people we're fucked either way, what are AR15's going to do against modern electronic warfare? Our strength is in our numbers, not our arms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf22xmj\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Permit_Current\",\n \"body\": \"> My point of disagreement is here, what you'd need to do is make it highly illegal to the point where it's not worth being anywhere near a gun\\n\\n....Like we did with drugs and alcohol?\\n\\n> what are AR15's going to do against modern electronic warfare? \\n\\nAsymmetric warfare can be a bitch. a fun poem about it: https://twitter.com/Huff4Congress/status/1623747713316581376\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf2ov0s\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jf22xmj\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"ILikeNeurons\",\n \"body\": \"[Stronger gun policies are associated with lower rates of firearm homicide, even after adjusting for demographic and sociological factors](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/article-abstract/2582989)\\n\\n[96% of Americans favor requiring background checks for all gun purchases](http://news.gallup.com/poll/1645/guns.aspx)\\n\\n[There are things experts agree will work that the public also supports](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/10/05/upshot/how-to-reduce-mass-shooting-deaths-experts-say-these-gun-laws-could-help.html)\\n\\n> [After adjustment for relevant covariates, the three state laws most strongly associated with reduced overall firearm mortality were universal background checks for firearm purchase (multivariable IRR 0·39 [95% CI 0·23–0·67]; p=0·001), ammunition background checks (0·18 [0·09–0·36]; p<0·0001), and identification requirement for firearms (0·16 [0·09–0·29]; p<0·0001). Projected federal-level implementation of universal background checks for firearm purchase could reduce national firearm mortality from 10·35 to 4·46 deaths per 100 000 people, background checks for ammunition purchase could reduce it to 1·99 per 100 000, and firearm identification to 1·81 per 100 000.](http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2815%2901026-0/abstract)\\n\\nWe even know what we need to do to get it:\\n\\n[46% of gun owners in the NRA have contacted a public official to express their opinion on gun policy](http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/07/05/among-gun-owners-nra-members-have-a-unique-set-of-views-and-experiences/)\\n\\n[15% of gun owners not in the NRA have ever contacted a public official to express their opinion on gun policy](http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/07/05/among-gun-owners-nra-members-have-a-unique-set-of-views-and-experiences/)\\n\\n[The NRA is powerful, but not because of its money](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/5/16430684/nra-congress-money-no).\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf233c7\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"HomoSupremacy\",\n \"body\": \">As an Australian\\n\\nDon't care\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf23ea6\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": -3,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Thebrotherleftbehind\",\n \"body\": \"As an American, and former Republican, I want to disclose, I want gun control. That being said, democrats are just as much to blame for the lack of gun control as republicans.\\n\\nOutside of domestic violence involving guns, I think the biggest problem we have with guns are the “mass” shootings. The problem is, they group all shootings in together. Suicide is also considered as homicide in gun stats. That is misleading and makes you seem untrustworthy. If two rival gangs get in a shootout, let’s stop calling that a mass shooting. If someone writes a manifesto and shoots up a school, that to me is a mass shooting.\\n\\nYou don’t solve gun violence with gangs by banning them, you tackle the socioeconomic issues that create the gangs in the first place.\\n\\nThe gun control conversation needs to be had with a MULTI pronged approach with clear definitions of what we are attributing to the violence and how to stop each thing. Yeah republicans offer thoughts and prayers instead of gun control legislation (sometimes going the opposite way in fact, Florida anyone?), and democrats use misleading and false information instead of legislation. We really need more parties in the USA.\\n\\nI see a lot of the same problems in both parties. Most of the elected officials on both sides say what their constituents want them to say, but what they actually do is really all about themselves and stayed in power. Yes dnc, you have the same problem as the gop, ie aoc. Aoc is all about aoc and will always be about aoc. But she’s very social media savvy and knows what to say to her constituents. Look at how she speaks depending on the color of the skin of her audience. I’ll admit, the dnc is slightly better, like with the Texas cold snap etc, but call me jaded, but to me I think they just have better marketing than the gop. I admit between the two though, I hate the gop much much more\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf252f2\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 6,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"johnhtman\",\n \"body\": \"Mass shootings are one of the least serious problems when it comes to guns or homicides. Going by the FBI numbers between 2000-2019 they averaged 53.1 people killed a year, with 2017 being the deadliest year with 138 people killed, 60 in the Vegas Shooting alone. That same year a total of 17,294 people were murdered, which means mass shootings during the worst year on record were responsible for 0.8% of total murders.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf4lir3\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jf252f2\",\n \"score\": 4,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Ok-Independent-5782\",\n \"body\": \"American's will never give up their firearms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf2550y\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"yelkca\",\n \"body\": \"For those of us who live here, giving up isn't really an option. But thanks for your input\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf27z5d\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Look, I'm getting a lot of commenters whose points boil down to \\\"*[ackshually, it's all a gang problem](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/jf1kow3?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3)*\\\" or \\\"*[we need guns to defend ourselves](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/jf2fhr9?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3)*\\\", or \\\"*[look at Chicago's problems](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/jf3hmn9?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3)*\\\". How can I rebut them?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf3ywsa\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jf27z5d\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"El_Burrito_Grande\",\n \"body\": \"There's a solution to mass shootings, at least. It's in your post. The people who do it get attention. The media facilitates that. There were a lot of guns before mass shootings became such a big trend. THE reason there are so many school shootings/mass shootings is the rise of the sensationalistic 24 hour news cycle/social media. It's a copycat thing/trend. If the media squelched it and didn't talk about the shooters it would die down. It's THE solution. I don't see that happening though.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf29m7m\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Character_Ad_7058\",\n \"body\": \"The main reason there cannot be *ANY* effective control on guns in the US is the second amendment to the Constitution of the United States (and the broad court precedents in interpreting it.) In the US, for example, if we tried such a buyback program we would react as you indicated, in terms of selling record amounts of new guns and ammunition. But, an additional reaction (that makes such a program a non-starter) is that funding for it would never be approved. Even if, my some miracle, it did, it would be extremely vulnerable to a court challenge and would eventually be denied.\\n\\nFew other nations have such a supreme, blanket right to guns as we have in the US. And, we’re essentially stuck with it because the only option would be to further amend the constitution, which is a non-starter as it requires a 2/3 vote in both houses of Congress (or 2/3 of State Legislatures.) Such a majority in either State or Federal legislatures just isn’t conceivable in the foreseeable future.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf2e3af\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"NuJoisi\",\n \"body\": \"There's no way for you to get an actual reply or information from Reddit, the real information is banned.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf2euoo\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": -1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"ShutYourDumbUglyFace\",\n \"body\": \"I don't have any idea what the solution is to our problem (I mean, I think it's making it harder to buy a gun - but I have no idea how we get there), but I will say that I don't think it stems from the revolution. I think it's more related to the Wild West and the glorification of the perceived violence and lawlessness - and fierce independence - that pervaded that era. The irony is that most towns at that time, in the west, [were gun-free](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/gun-control-old-west-180968013/) and you had to leave your firearm with the sheriff. \\n\\nThis narrative ties in with the (false) narrative that guns increase safety. In the Wild West, there were various \\\"enemies\\\" that you had to contend with - thieves and wild animals, and of course, pissed off native Americans. Your gun kept you safe. Nowadays, people still believe that having a gun in their home keeps them safe - despite statistics to the contrary. Anecdotal evidence will always reign supreme over statistical data for these people. One 70-year-old man who fends off a home invasion will always carry more weight than statistics showing that a gun in the home increases the likelihood of (successful) [suicide](https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2020/06/handgun-ownership-associated-with-much-higher-suicide-risk.html) by 8x for men and 35x for women.\\n\\nFurther, I think our politicians and talking heads (and those everywhere, honestly) are able to tap into a profound fear that Americans have about all kinds of things - home invasions, brown people coming to take jobs, etc. Fear is the underlying motivator for humans, so tapping into that produces incredible results. And there are sects that use government interference like at Waco and Ruby Ridge to stoke fear of government overreach - and how you need to have a gun to protect yourself from that (although, as I've noted in the past, the US government has an arsenal that no quantity AR-15's is going to rival).\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf2f2pz\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"THSea_Aye111\",\n \"body\": \"Gin buy back programs do work in the US, even in conservative areas: https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2022/08/30/gun-buybacks-are-popular-but-are-they-effective\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf2f4wr\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": -1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Permit_Current\",\n \"body\": \"The link you cited seems to say the opposite? That a few hundred generally older, and less functional guns are turned in, doesn't seem to me to scream great success in a county with hundreds of millions?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf2olr4\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jf2f4wr\",\n \"score\": 5,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"src88\",\n \"body\": \"Sorry but there are over 2 million defensive gun incidents a year where good people save themselves. Less guns would have resulted in more death. Considering most of our gun stats come from gang violence (mainly in the biggest cities) and suicide. The argument has been and always will be weak. \\n\\nAlso we ain't Australia with covid internment camps because we are armed and the government knows it's not in complete control. Hence, why they want to disarm the public using the bodies of children. Absolute power corrupts. Our founding fathers knew it.\\n\\nJust took a look at the top comments and all their sources are left wing sites. Hmmm\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf2hjw7\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Zncon\",\n \"body\": \">Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n\\nWith more study, this is proving to be less true then we thought for a long time. Mass shootings outside of gang violence tend to be a complicated form of suicide.\\n\\nWe know that suicides can be somewhat contagious and driven by the news media, which can also connect the increase shootings we see as a result of that coverage.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf2rcy0\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"RevolutionaryBug8528\",\n \"body\": \"It's not even a problem with the proper American mindset. Any shortfall in future consumer laborers resulting from mass shootings (improbable that it would amount to anything significant) can be made up for with the proper immigration and \\\"healthcare\\\" policies.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf2wujm\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"SliptheSkid\",\n \"body\": \"A solution does exist, but I think it's too extreme / complex to be actually adopted. At its core gun reform and fixing gun violence requires a dramatic shift in culture away from pro-gun behaviour. This includes forking over rights to own a gun easily, because as long as there are so many guns and so many people own them, we cannot prevent them from being resold, shared, or otherwise being given to people who are mentally ill or likely to be violent and enact shootings.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf2yox7\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 3,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"IndyPoker979\",\n \"body\": \"I just need to point out about your last point. I'm sure it's already been covered, but first-person shooters do not increase or decrease the likelihood of gun violence. There was a big push in the 80s and '90s by a guy by the name of Jack Thompson who decided that violent video games and movies were responsible for the ills of society. Since then, this argument has been destroyed on every single logical front. There is no correlation between people who play these games and gun violence. There are much more closer correlations that you could point to instead. However, the idea that you could put these types of games in a school to give an outlet is not effective.\\n\\nIn all the situations in which gun violence at schools has occurred, none of them have been simply because they couldn't play a video game. That isn't the common factor. Instead of bullying and mental health and mental crisis or rejection or emotional immaturity, making someone unable to handle a situation? Those are the factors that lead to violence in schools.\\n\\nTo put it simply, no one is suddenly a race car driver just because they play Forza. Counter-Strike players do not automatically become good at paintball. This is not a good example of a healthy outlet for an individual at risk\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf2z565\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">I just need to point out about your last point. I'm sure it's already been covered, but first-person shooters do not increase or decrease the likelihood of gun violence. There was a big push in the 80s and '90s by a guy by the name of Jack Thompson who decided that violent video games and movies were responsible for the ills of society. Since then, this argument has been destroyed on every single logical front. There is no correlation between people who play these games and gun violence. There are much more closer correlations that you could point to instead. However, the idea that you could put these types of games in a school to give an outlet is not effective.\\n\\nThe point I made in the post details is that I don't think it would solve the mass shooter problem if the education system provided FPS games to fulfil the desire to shoot. I know so many people who play FPS games, and none of them are itching to fire into an innocent crowd. \\n\\n>In all the situations in which gun violence at schools has occurred, none of them have been simply because they couldn't play a video game. That isn't the common factor. Instead of bullying and mental health and mental crisis or rejection or emotional immaturity, making someone unable to handle a situation? Those are the factors that lead to violence in schools.\\r \\n\\r\\n\\nI do support universal healthcare and improved mental healthcare.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-09\",\n \"id\": \"jfk1xi8\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jf2z565\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Obsidian743\",\n \"body\": \"I see no reason that if we pass laws that make guns et. al. difficult if not impossible to buy/own/use, then over time, the overall gun/ammo/accessory/culture supply will disappear. The only obstacle is passing those laws. I always hear arguments against the \\\"practicality\\\" of getting people to turn in or sell their guns. We don't need to do that. We simply strangle the supply and let time do the rest of the work.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf31rvn\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Navlgazer\",\n \"body\": \"Gun control won’t and doesn’t work .\\n\\nJust look at chicago .\\n\\nThe people who want to ban guns and think that 25-40 million “assault weapons “ can be confiscated and stolen from their owners , are also the exact same people who say that 15 million illegal immigrants is too many to round up and deport . \\n\\nSee the hypocrisy here ?\\n\\nAnd no one except liberals trust the govt .\\nPeople with a brain know the govt is corrupt and bought and laid for by lobbyists and special interest groups and does as they are told by their donors.\\n\\nThe same govt that says they will protect you if you give up your right and means to protect yourself , are the same govt that can’t secure a border . Yet tells you everyday that the border is secure even though two million illegals waltz across every month , and bring tons of fentanyl with them . The same fentanyl that kills ten times more people than are murdered with guns .\\n\\nAnd liberals don’t care about people being killed .\\nIf those school kids had been aborted babies instead , the liberals would have been praising the mothers for killing them before they were born . \\nLiberals won’t ever talk about how many people are killed in Chicago every weekend.\\nBecause Chicago is and has been run by democrats for decades .\\n\\nMurder is against the law , every school is a “ gun free zone “\\n \\nThe ONLY thing that stops a nut job crazy person with a gun , is a good guy with a gun.\\n\\nThe faster the good guy shows up with a gun , the less innocent people killed .\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf3hmn9\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">Gun control won’t and doesn’t work .\\n\\n>Just look at chicago .\\n\\nChicago is an embarrassment to left wingers everywhere, even in Australia.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf3zyxw\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jf3hmn9\",\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Sinfultitan_001\",\n \"body\": \"We don't have a gun violence problem we have a **MASSIVE MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS** that no one wants to talk about because that rug would pull out from under too many feet.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf3ijy9\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 4,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">We don't have a gun violence problem we have a MASSIVE MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS that no one wants to talk about because that rug would pull out from under too many feet.\\n\\nSo does Australia and a lot of other countries. Yet our gun violence rate is lower. Would you link that to our gun control laws or our universal healthcare?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf3zks9\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jf3ijy9\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"buttholefluid\",\n \"body\": \"I know what won’t, more laws.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf3xhxv\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CITYCATZCOUSIN\",\n \"body\": \"Your first paragraph...!\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf3z3v1\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"themetahumancrusader\",\n \"body\": \"As an Australian, I disagree with you on Australia having a similar right vs left culture war. Our “culture war” is very subdued in comparison to the US.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf43tu4\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 3,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"burnblue\",\n \"body\": \"Pass the gun restrictions, let who needs to panic buy guns go ahead and panic buy before the law kicks in, then let people get over it and needing licenses or checks to get firearms will just be the normal law of the land the same way other things are.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf44bub\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"PrincessTrunks125\",\n \"body\": \"1) make gun purchases more readily traceable \\n\\n\\n2) the original purchaser of the gun is responsible for all crimes committed with it \\n\\nThat would be a huge start.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf45s9x\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"AdamicAtom\",\n \"body\": \"America doesn't have a gun violence problem, or a racism problem or any other problem more important than this: America has a culture problem. And everyone everywhere knows it is at the core of all of this but will never admit that between classes and cultures in America, there will never be consensus or compromise.\\n\\nAnd the media and all the politicians know it and do everything they can to keep it this way.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf46qms\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Mindless-Umpire7420\",\n \"body\": \"America has criminal gangs and cartel from the south, Australia is a massive island continent. The reason Australia’s gun control works is because it’s an island nation, it’s harder to smuggle guns through an ocean than the Mexican border\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf48p8f\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Green_and_black\",\n \"body\": \"Gun violence is actually not that big a problem (it’s Americans shooting Americans). The bigger problem is BOMB violence. This is worse because the seppos are exporting the violence.\\nThe best way to prevent bomb violence is Balkanisation of the USA.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf4d3k9\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"canwepleasejustnot\",\n \"body\": \"The reality is that we have a much larger problem in this country, an existential one, that is resulting in everyone becoming more and more fractured and isolated, and violent. Taking legally obtained guns out of the hands of law abiding citizens won't really fix that problem and I genuinely believe that a large faction of Americans believe this deep down. Those calling for full bans tend to think that people are generally good and law abiding but it's just not true. If it comes down to it I'd rather be able to defend myself.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf56ckw\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"pilzn3r\",\n \"body\": \"We have a mental health crisis in America.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-06\",\n \"id\": \"jf5atv1\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"I won't deny that but it's daft to think that you're the only country with a mental health crisis. Would you support universal health care to help tackle this crisis?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-08\",\n \"id\": \"jfeuuzf\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jf5atv1\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Psycheau\",\n \"body\": \"If we take a more pragmatic military look at the USA they have Russia on one side. If Putin went completely mental and decided to invade the US and the military was spread to far across the globe for a quick response a land invasion on US soil would be a very problematic assault. When the people are armed a land assault could be easily thwarted by local militia holding their ground. Especially when lots of the public have automatic assault rifles it would be a simple matter to put together a small militia in each city to hold ground while the military get the logistics sorted. \\n\\nWhen people look at the gun situation in the USA they never seem to acknowledge the fact that they are in a very unique geological situation having a border with a potential enemy. There are other threats as well as Russia but it is the most obvious potential threat. Of course many people will know that Russia doesn't have the resources to attack the USA, but that does not mean they will never try, even in desperation.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-06\",\n \"id\": \"jf5g21c\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"If Russia (or any other hostile nation) were to obliterate the American military and put boots on the ground in the USA, you can bet that nukes will launch. That's probably a greater deterrent than having an armed populace.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-08\",\n \"id\": \"jfeu5jb\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jf5g21c\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"StarMNF\",\n \"body\": \"I've given this some thought, and I think I have a gun control measure that would eliminate most mass shootings in the U.S. without effecting most gun owners.\\n\\nThe idea is simple. To buy a gun, you need to get affidavits from 5 people who have known you well for at least a decade, who are willing to vouch that you can be trusted with the gun -- that you're of good character, mentally stable, and not likely to use the gun in an unlawful manner.\\n\\nYou can make the process pretty painless. You show up at Walmart with your 5 friends, you walk out with your gun. Heck, make gun buying a social activity.\\n\\nRednecks will still get their guns. People who are planning to stockpile ammunitions for the next Waco shootout with the feds will still be able to get their guns. The mafia will still get their guns.\\n\\nSo it won't completely stop gun violence in the country. However, it will be a major road block for the typical \\\"lone wolf shooter\\\" who does these mass shootings.\\n\\nPeople who know these shooters know they're mentally unstable and shouldn't have guns. In the case of the Covenant shooter, their parents knew they shouldn't own a gun. Even if they went to other friends who maybe don't know them so well, they would get a lot of questions about suddenly wanting to buy up enough guns for a small army.\\n\\nWhile most of these shooters have mental illnesses, and mental healthcare needs to be significantly improved, the reality is that a significant number of people with serious mental illnesses are never even diagnosed. Banning anyone diagnosed with a mental illness from owning a gun with result in even fewer people seeking treatment or being diagnosed, because most mental illnesses are diagnosed through voluntary therapy. \\n\\nThere are also cases where someone officially diagnosed with a mental illness has a justifiable need for a gun. For instance, a woman suffering PTSD from domestic violence might need a gun to protect themselves from their ex-partner who wants to kill them.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-06\",\n \"id\": \"jf6qvfu\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"LigPortman69\",\n \"body\": \"You’re correct. A full 60% are in strong favor of the Second Amendment. It’s not going anywhere. I doubt the military would enforce any “decree” from above.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-06\",\n \"id\": \"jf9ngjr\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"philmarcracken\",\n \"body\": \">In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable \\n\\nThe spike wouldn't prevent them from being able to surrender them later on; the grace period would no doubt account for this phenomenon.\\n\\n>Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it\\n\\nThis doesn't have much to do with our actual polices on gun control. It just shows our politicians aren't content with their citizens bloodshed at the hands of a few lunatics. It was still bigly unpopular for howard at the time, and political heads rolled over doing it.\\n\\n>Mental healthcare might help\\n\\nHeard this one quite a bit. Mental health issues aren't unique to the US, their access to guns is.\\n\\n>Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings\\n\\nA violation of their first amendment\\n\\n>Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n\\nA few things stops ours from being the all-in celebrity contest that america holds. We don't vote for our candidates directly, only their parties. And we have compulsory voting, which has the majority vote when they don't care about who they cast for. The more extreme you act(as is common in america) the less you score these voters.\\n\\n>Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot\\n\\nThis would not nearly be as effective as just copy pasting our gun control laws. License and lockup storage. Caliber restrictions. Self defense is not a legit reason to obtain and hold your license etc.\\n\\nAlso, Wendover did a pretty [decent look](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0aGGOK4kAM) at the relative effectiveness of our laws since their passing.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-07\",\n \"id\": \"jfarqj9\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"jajabingo2\",\n \"body\": \"Australia does not have a raging left vs right battle anything like the USA 😂 \\n\\nAnd our proportional voting and donations oversight gives us a way different type of government here\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-07\",\n \"id\": \"jfbljg6\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"TheDanimator\",\n \"body\": \"We need to put more guns into the hands of good people so we can stop shootings.\\nI dont believe this would solve everything, I do think it would help the problem though.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-07\",\n \"id\": \"jfefxs3\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"D_Balgarus\",\n \"body\": \"First off, gun violence statistics are inflated since they include suicides. \\n\\nSecond, most actual violence is gang violence in the big cities.\\n\\nIf we want to tackle gun violence then we need to annihilate gangs in the cities. That would require people be tough on crime and bring back the stigma of having a criminal record. Sadly people in the problematic areas don’t have the backbone to do this.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-08\",\n \"id\": \"jfgy5nr\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">If we want to tackle gun violence then we need to annihilate gangs in the cities. That would require people be tough on crime and bring back the stigma of having a criminal record. Sadly people in the problematic areas don’t have the backbone to do this.\\n\\nHow isn't the USA already tough on crime if it has the world's highest incarnation rate?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-09\",\n \"id\": \"jfk6z8d\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jfgy5nr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ]\n]","isConversational":false},"2":{"kind":"string","value":"moderate"}}},{"rowIdx":33,"cells":{"0":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"MuaddibMcFly","body":"I think the reason you believe that nothing can stop the gun violence problem in the US is that you're mistakenly thinking that the underlying/dominant problem is *guns* when it's actually the *violence.* Do you know what the US's homicide rate would look like if every single gun homicide victim magically got up alive and well? [It would *still* look bad compared to the rest of the anglosphere](https://imgur.com/a/VMfVqqB) (NZ not included, but it's not my infographic originally, sorry, Kiwis)\n\nWe don't have a *gun* problem in the United States, we have a *violence* problem, and *that* is solvable, if we simply look at the right thing.\n\nOne of the biggest predictors of crime, including violence, is wealth inequality. Not necessarily in *absolute* terms, but compared to one's neighbors. This probably has evolutionary reasons, because if your neighbors have more resources than you, they're going to be able to outcompete you, their genes are more likely to propagate than yours, and, well, people who didn't do something about that inequality were less likely to have their genes passed on.\n\nAnd we've known about this [for literally decades](https://web.worldbank.org/archive/website01241/WEB/IMAGES/INEQUALI.PDF)\n\nThere are plenty of things to help close that gap. \n\n* Some things would make it harder for the rich to exploit the system (e.g., eliminating tax breaks that only the rich can afford to exploit, making it so that they can't live on [untaxed] loans, which they pay off with more [untaxed] loans, which they pay off with more loans, which finally get paid off with [untaxed] capital gains upon their death, etc)\n* Some things would be actively helping people who need more help (food stamps, unemployment payments, welfare, etc)\n* Some things are making the wealthy carry more of the load than the poor do (e.g. a progressive tax system, *ideally* with a [Negative Income Tax bracket](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtpgkX588nM)) Regarding the negative income tax bracket, we have a less effective version of that, the Earned Income Tax Credit, which has been one of the most effective ways to get people out of poverty we've come up with to date.\n* Some things are making things that everybody technically has access to that help the poor more (foods, such as from the grocery store, often aren't taxed. Massachusetts allows clothes to be tax-free. Capped tax rebates for renovations that lower your utility bills, etc)\n* *Getting out of the way* of people trying to help themselves. \n Business licensure (not clearly and directly related to *literal* health & safety) does nothing but make it harder for the poor to make their own money, not just as workers, but as owners & capitalists. Zoning blocks homeowners from operating businesses out of their homes, making it cost *even more* money in order to make money. Zoning also prevents property owners from building additional rooms/units on their property, that could be rented (at a lower cost) to people who aren't able to rent larger places (pensioners who lost their spouse, or simply want to downsize; college students; people who lost their jobs; people who would otherwise be homeless; etc). \n* Cutting back on things that have the obvious and predictable result of hurting those who most need our help. The Drug War disproportionately impacts poorer communities who (A) have more people partaking because they feel hopeless and (B) have more people who don't have any better job prospects than slinging dope, because of (B1) the drug war and/or (B2) because the government puts barriers in their way of *creating* those better job prospects for themselves (and their neighbors!)\n\n\nImplementing those things would be *freaking huge* benefit, would massively cut down on wealth inequality, which would drastically cut down on crime in general (including violence, homicide, etc). \n\nAll without even *touching* gun control (which, I might add, hurts those who are most unable to protect themselves, such as the 50kg coed who *can't* manually fight off a would-be rapist, but *could* shoot them).\n\nSo, yeah, there's a problem, and focusing on guns will *never* work, but *guns aren't actually the problem.*","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf3q0b5","parent_id":"12cij50","score":6,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">I think the reason you believe that nothing can stop the gun violence problem in the US is that you're mistakenly thinking that the underlying/dominant problem is guns when it's actually the violence. Do you know what the US's homicide rate would look like if every single gun homicide victim magically got up alive and well? [It would still look bad compared to the rest of the anglosphere](https://imgur.com/a/VMfVqqB) (NZ not included, but it's not my infographic originally, sorry, Kiwis) \n> \n>We don't have a gun problem in the United States, we have a violence problem, and that is solvable, if we simply look at the right thing.\n\n!delta\n\nGun violence in the USA is just a facet of a much bigger violent crime problem. Even successfully implementing gun control will only tackle the gun component of this violent crime problem, while leaving the overall problem untouched. This needs to be tackled through a social safety net and universal healthcare.","date":"2023-04-09","id":"jfk48mo","parent_id":"jf3q0b5","score":3,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"DeltaBot","body":"Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/MuaddibMcFly ([49∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/MuaddibMcFly)).\n\n^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)","date":"2023-04-09","id":"jfk4bnh","parent_id":"jfk48mo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],"string":"[\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"MuaddibMcFly\",\n \"body\": \"I think the reason you believe that nothing can stop the gun violence problem in the US is that you're mistakenly thinking that the underlying/dominant problem is *guns* when it's actually the *violence.* Do you know what the US's homicide rate would look like if every single gun homicide victim magically got up alive and well? [It would *still* look bad compared to the rest of the anglosphere](https://imgur.com/a/VMfVqqB) (NZ not included, but it's not my infographic originally, sorry, Kiwis)\\n\\nWe don't have a *gun* problem in the United States, we have a *violence* problem, and *that* is solvable, if we simply look at the right thing.\\n\\nOne of the biggest predictors of crime, including violence, is wealth inequality. Not necessarily in *absolute* terms, but compared to one's neighbors. This probably has evolutionary reasons, because if your neighbors have more resources than you, they're going to be able to outcompete you, their genes are more likely to propagate than yours, and, well, people who didn't do something about that inequality were less likely to have their genes passed on.\\n\\nAnd we've known about this [for literally decades](https://web.worldbank.org/archive/website01241/WEB/IMAGES/INEQUALI.PDF)\\n\\nThere are plenty of things to help close that gap. \\n\\n* Some things would make it harder for the rich to exploit the system (e.g., eliminating tax breaks that only the rich can afford to exploit, making it so that they can't live on [untaxed] loans, which they pay off with more [untaxed] loans, which they pay off with more loans, which finally get paid off with [untaxed] capital gains upon their death, etc)\\n* Some things would be actively helping people who need more help (food stamps, unemployment payments, welfare, etc)\\n* Some things are making the wealthy carry more of the load than the poor do (e.g. a progressive tax system, *ideally* with a [Negative Income Tax bracket](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtpgkX588nM)) Regarding the negative income tax bracket, we have a less effective version of that, the Earned Income Tax Credit, which has been one of the most effective ways to get people out of poverty we've come up with to date.\\n* Some things are making things that everybody technically has access to that help the poor more (foods, such as from the grocery store, often aren't taxed. Massachusetts allows clothes to be tax-free. Capped tax rebates for renovations that lower your utility bills, etc)\\n* *Getting out of the way* of people trying to help themselves. \\n Business licensure (not clearly and directly related to *literal* health & safety) does nothing but make it harder for the poor to make their own money, not just as workers, but as owners & capitalists. Zoning blocks homeowners from operating businesses out of their homes, making it cost *even more* money in order to make money. Zoning also prevents property owners from building additional rooms/units on their property, that could be rented (at a lower cost) to people who aren't able to rent larger places (pensioners who lost their spouse, or simply want to downsize; college students; people who lost their jobs; people who would otherwise be homeless; etc). \\n* Cutting back on things that have the obvious and predictable result of hurting those who most need our help. The Drug War disproportionately impacts poorer communities who (A) have more people partaking because they feel hopeless and (B) have more people who don't have any better job prospects than slinging dope, because of (B1) the drug war and/or (B2) because the government puts barriers in their way of *creating* those better job prospects for themselves (and their neighbors!)\\n\\n\\nImplementing those things would be *freaking huge* benefit, would massively cut down on wealth inequality, which would drastically cut down on crime in general (including violence, homicide, etc). \\n\\nAll without even *touching* gun control (which, I might add, hurts those who are most unable to protect themselves, such as the 50kg coed who *can't* manually fight off a would-be rapist, but *could* shoot them).\\n\\nSo, yeah, there's a problem, and focusing on guns will *never* work, but *guns aren't actually the problem.*\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf3q0b5\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 6,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">I think the reason you believe that nothing can stop the gun violence problem in the US is that you're mistakenly thinking that the underlying/dominant problem is guns when it's actually the violence. Do you know what the US's homicide rate would look like if every single gun homicide victim magically got up alive and well? [It would still look bad compared to the rest of the anglosphere](https://imgur.com/a/VMfVqqB) (NZ not included, but it's not my infographic originally, sorry, Kiwis) \\n> \\n>We don't have a gun problem in the United States, we have a violence problem, and that is solvable, if we simply look at the right thing.\\n\\n!delta\\n\\nGun violence in the USA is just a facet of a much bigger violent crime problem. Even successfully implementing gun control will only tackle the gun component of this violent crime problem, while leaving the overall problem untouched. This needs to be tackled through a social safety net and universal healthcare.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-09\",\n \"id\": \"jfk48mo\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jf3q0b5\",\n \"score\": 3,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"DeltaBot\",\n \"body\": \"Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/MuaddibMcFly ([49∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/MuaddibMcFly)).\\n\\n^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-09\",\n \"id\": \"jfk4bnh\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jfk48mo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n]","isConversational":false},"1":{"kind":"list like","value":[[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"Khal-Frodo","body":"To clarify, when you say \"I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA\" are you saying that such an initiative would never pass, or that it wouldn't be effective even if it hypothetically did?","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf1jzav","parent_id":"12cij50","score":7,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">To clarify, when you say \"I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA\" are you saying that such an initiative would never pass, or that it wouldn't be effective even if it hypothetically did?\n\nI am saying the latter. Say Joe Biden manages to pull off some masterful political puppeteering to enact gun control legislations similar to what John Howard did in 1996. It doesn't matter if it gets passed because past trends have shown us that the USA will experience panic buying of guns whenever there is a suspicion that gun control will be enacted.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf1kyf4","parent_id":"jf1jzav","score":6,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"pgold05","body":"If an effective gun control law actualy passes, the initial spike in gun ownership won't matter because ultimately the number of guns will go down in the long run. \n\nThere is no reason to consider that spike to mean it's impossible, it barley matters in the larger scheme of things.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf1kk0w","parent_id":"12cij50","score":39,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">If an effective gun control law actualy passes, the initial spike in gun ownership won't matter because ultimately the number of guns will go down in the long run.\n\nFirstly, while this did happen in Australia, will this phenomenon necessarily happen too in the USA? \n\nSecondly, how many lives will it cost? Imagine the cops trying to seize guns from an angry gun owner - it would either result in a few cops getting killed, the gun owners getting killed, or both.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf1lcz8","parent_id":"jf1kk0w","score":6,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"Squirt_memes","body":">\tAny attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n\nI’d say the gun control fails because it’s very difficult to make a gun control bill that will pass all three branches of our government. Even just getting it past the representatives is quite difficult and the courts are unreceptive to violations of the second amendment. \n\n>\tMental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention,\n\nThat really depends what you mean by “mass shooting”. In your wiki list, I think there’s 4 mass shooting so far this year that were unrelated to gang violence. And a couple dozen gang shooting that make it seem like mass shootings randomly happen all the time. \n\nGun violence is way bigger in America than most comparable countries, but it’s really easy to let emotions cloud your brain. The vast majority of “mass shootings” pose no threat to normal people who don’t live in a gang’s turf. \n\n>\tSuppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n\nI’d say the media’s obsession with coverage also makes it hard to know the true scale of the problem. It’s crazy how many people I’ll talk to who are TERRIFIED to send their kids to school. So I’ll ask them “do you have any idea what the statistical chances are of a shooting involving your kid?” Then they’ll get pissed off and accuse me of hating children or something. \n\nThis whole issue is fed by a lack of objective information and a reliance on emotional arguments. \n\n>\tGiving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences\n\nYou need to go back a few decades if you want to claim violent video games increase violent activity without being made fun of. \n\n>\tThe USA’s gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it’s getting worse, if Wikipedia’s list of mass shootings is to be believed.\n\nIt is tragic. Its also not well understood. The vast majority of the shooters on that list are black teenagers in active gangs. So are the majority of victims. \n\nSo what’s the goal? Do we ignore one and target the other? Because one policy won’t fit a gang using illegal weapons to protect their drug turf AND a kid taking their parents gun to school for revenge.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf1kow3","parent_id":"12cij50","score":65,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">It is tragic. Its also not well understood. The vast majority of the shooters on that list are black teenagers in active gangs. So are the majority of victims. \n> \n>So what’s the goal? Do we ignore one and target the other? Because one policy won’t fit a gang using illegal weapons to protect their drug turf AND a kid taking their parents gun to school for revenge.\r \n\r\n\nOK, but either way, this just goes to prove my point that I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem. While I didn't put it in the post details, gun control legislation can't fix the gang crime problem either.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf1lly5","parent_id":"jf1kow3","score":6,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"NelsonMeme","body":"> Firstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it).\n\nThis doesn’t make sense.\n\nFirst, it isn’t true. The U.S. developed the rudiments of its gun culture living in frontiers, where guns were commonly used as weapons in armed combat or to secure game. This culture further developed when we forcefully secured our independence. \n\nAustralia is independent, did not have to become so forcefully, and did not develop our same culture after independence.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf1l307","parent_id":"12cij50","score":14,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"NegroniHater","body":"The Wild West is a myth. And no, gun culture started in America when the second right guaranteed to every American is keeping and bearing arms. Gun control was created to keep former slaves from having those rights, which for almost 100 years had never been touched by the government. \n\nFucking Ben Franklin said you shouldn’t go for a walk without a gun, Thomas Jefferson said guns stop homicides, George Washington said every American [probably only meant men] should be armed and trained. It’s always been part of American culture, and sure as fuck didn’t start on an Italian movie set with Clint Eastwood, because you apparently think that’s an accurate depiction of history.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf2fp1v","parent_id":"jf1l307","score":5,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"ProLifePanda","body":">As for solutions to the problem?\n\nSo just to start, there is no \"100% solution\" to gun violence, just like there's no \"100% solution\" to car crashes, knife stabbings, bar fights, etc. As long as something is allowed (like owning cars, guns, being able to drink, etc.) there will be some negative consequences. So there are no gun control laws or regulations that will reduce gun violence/deaths to 0 (or even close to it).\n\nBut a big improvement would be the implementation of pervasive \"red flag\" laws. Many of the school shootings you see are done by people who show red flags beforehand. The Oxford shooter was literally in the principal's office for being a suspected school shooter the day he did the shooting. The recent Tennessee shooter messaged her friends beforehand with concerning messages before the shooting. There are a lot of other examples, but that's the idea that if we can \"take the guns first, due process later\", we can stop some of the shootings by obviously troubled individuals.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf1of4b","parent_id":"12cij50","score":-1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Purely_Theoretical","body":"You can't possibly red flag the Nashville shooter that sent messages just minutes beforehand. \n\nThe real problem with red flag laws is they brush aside due process.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf1sdva","parent_id":"jf1of4b","score":6,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"Rufus_Reddit","body":"\"Gun violence problem\" seems like newspeak - it's the sort of thing that politicians say when they want an emotional reaction but don't really want to say anything. Can you describe what you mean by \"gun violence problem\" in more concrete terms?\nIs there some way to check whether the \"gun violence problem\" has been solved that isn't just \"I know it when I see it\"? Suppose, for example, that there were no more shootings in school and no more breathless media coverage but homicide rates in inner cities continued to rise, would that be an improvement in the \"gun violence problem\" or not?\n\nDo you think that all of the gun control laws that were passed in the US over the last 40 years were credible attempts to address gun violence, or is it possible that at least some of them were political pandering instead?\n\n> ... The USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if Wikipedia's list of mass shootings is to be believed. ...\n\nAt the same time, the trend is toward the same or less gun ownership. ( https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/gun-ownership.html ). Do you think that gun availability has substantively changed in the US over the last 30 years? Do you think that changes in \"mental health issues\" (more newspeak) and increased media coverage of gun violence explain all of the \"getting worse\" or not?","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf1r31m","parent_id":"12cij50","score":-1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"pudding7","body":"I would assume that \"Gun violence problem\" means people being intentionally shot with a gun.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf1s9cp","parent_id":"jf1r31m","score":7,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"oddball667","body":"USA is in a weird not so cold civil war, this will last generations and it will prevent any major issue from being resolved","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf1vtje","parent_id":"12cij50","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"kgxv","body":"The first step to solving the gun problem is to make lobbying illegal. Corporations also shouldn’t be able to donate to campaigns.\n\nOnce you take NRA money out of the equation, it becomes much easier to tackle.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf1xl7g","parent_id":"12cij50","score":-2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Lobbying is huge in Australia. If we can have gun control despite that, so can the USA.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf1yc6v","parent_id":"jf1xl7g","score":0,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"Thintegrator","body":"This is correct. We Americans have finally accepted that gun violence is an integral part of the American experience and that children dying from gunshot wounds in our schools is a small price to pay for the right to own weapons designed to kill. It is our core freedom. Anyone who thinks otherwise just stay the fuck out of our country. We got this.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf1zj9y","parent_id":"12cij50","score":-5,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Are you being sarcastic or sincere?","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf1zo34","parent_id":"jf1zj9y","score":3,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"trash332","body":"We like our guns. I would like to see more stringent background checks and maybe 30 day wait periods, but only because every mass shooter has purchased their guns legally. Really, some people have to be more honest about their crazy ass family members.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf1zwpg","parent_id":"12cij50","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"Sandy_hook_lemy","body":"Nonsense. Why is it always \"it can't work in the US\"? Has it been tried? Literally worked for every country so why not the US?\n\nThis is the same type of shit I see for why America cant have railway systems like Europeans. Try it first let's see. It cant be worse than it is now","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf21ioj","parent_id":"12cij50","score":0,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"blade740","body":"I mostly agree with this take - the US and Australia are VERY different, namely the fact that the US has SIGNIFICANTLY higher levels of firearm proliferation than Australia ever did. While Australia's ban/buybacks were able to make firearms relatively scarce, the amount of guns that would need to be taken off the street in the US to get us to roughly the same level is something like 90%. It's just not feasible. \n\nThat said, there is one point from your post in particular I want to debate:\n\n>Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n\nI am not arguing for forcibly SUPPRESSING media coverage, but I do think that the media circus that surrounds these events is a HUGE factor in driving mass shootings due to the media contagion effect. I think that some best practice guidelines for major media organizations to (hopefully) voluntarily follow could help reduce the level at which children are introduced and accustomed to the idea of \"mass shootings\" in the first place, similar to the way the press (voluntarily) covers suicides to minimize media contagion. \n\nTo address your point, I don't believe that the kind of media coverage we have today is necessary (or even helpful) in measuring the \"full scale\" of the problem. If anything the scale of the problem is blown vastly out of proportion by the outsized attention media gives to these events. The scale of the problem should be measured by scientific studies and good data collection, not by public outrage created by clickbait-driven capitalist news organizations.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf228mw","parent_id":"12cij50","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"FearLeadsToAnger","body":"> Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n\nThis is a fundamental problem with the individualistic nature of 'the american dream' the lone ranger archetype, and the reinforcement of the view that everyone else is stupid and only I know what i'm doing.\n\nOur main new sources are hot on the themes of 'everyone else' being stupid, sneaky and selfish, so it's only fair for you to do it too - 'I gadda git ma own'.\n\nLike you say, mental healthcare isn't the solution, the whole of society needs to be reframed through a more compassionate lens before anything improves.\n\n> After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable\n\nMy point of disagreement is here, what you'd need to do is make it highly illegal to the point where it's not worth being anywhere near a gun, which frankly is what a weapon of potential mass murder deserves anyway. Sure, people would still stash guns, but if all hell rains down you any time you get it out, you're never going to get it out and it becomes irrelevant anyway.\n\nThe whole shtick about protecting yourself from the government if it goes rogue is archaic, if the government turns on the people we're fucked either way, what are AR15's going to do against modern electronic warfare? Our strength is in our numbers, not our arms.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf22xmj","parent_id":"12cij50","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Permit_Current","body":"> My point of disagreement is here, what you'd need to do is make it highly illegal to the point where it's not worth being anywhere near a gun\n\n....Like we did with drugs and alcohol?\n\n> what are AR15's going to do against modern electronic warfare? \n\nAsymmetric warfare can be a bitch. a fun poem about it: https://twitter.com/Huff4Congress/status/1623747713316581376","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf2ov0s","parent_id":"jf22xmj","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"ILikeNeurons","body":"[Stronger gun policies are associated with lower rates of firearm homicide, even after adjusting for demographic and sociological factors](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/article-abstract/2582989)\n\n[96% of Americans favor requiring background checks for all gun purchases](http://news.gallup.com/poll/1645/guns.aspx)\n\n[There are things experts agree will work that the public also supports](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/10/05/upshot/how-to-reduce-mass-shooting-deaths-experts-say-these-gun-laws-could-help.html)\n\n> [After adjustment for relevant covariates, the three state laws most strongly associated with reduced overall firearm mortality were universal background checks for firearm purchase (multivariable IRR 0·39 [95% CI 0·23–0·67]; p=0·001), ammunition background checks (0·18 [0·09–0·36]; p<0·0001), and identification requirement for firearms (0·16 [0·09–0·29]; p<0·0001). Projected federal-level implementation of universal background checks for firearm purchase could reduce national firearm mortality from 10·35 to 4·46 deaths per 100 000 people, background checks for ammunition purchase could reduce it to 1·99 per 100 000, and firearm identification to 1·81 per 100 000.](http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2815%2901026-0/abstract)\n\nWe even know what we need to do to get it:\n\n[46% of gun owners in the NRA have contacted a public official to express their opinion on gun policy](http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/07/05/among-gun-owners-nra-members-have-a-unique-set-of-views-and-experiences/)\n\n[15% of gun owners not in the NRA have ever contacted a public official to express their opinion on gun policy](http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/07/05/among-gun-owners-nra-members-have-a-unique-set-of-views-and-experiences/)\n\n[The NRA is powerful, but not because of its money](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/5/16430684/nra-congress-money-no).","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf233c7","parent_id":"12cij50","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"HomoSupremacy","body":">As an Australian\n\nDon't care","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf23ea6","parent_id":"12cij50","score":-3,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"Thebrotherleftbehind","body":"As an American, and former Republican, I want to disclose, I want gun control. That being said, democrats are just as much to blame for the lack of gun control as republicans.\n\nOutside of domestic violence involving guns, I think the biggest problem we have with guns are the “mass” shootings. The problem is, they group all shootings in together. Suicide is also considered as homicide in gun stats. That is misleading and makes you seem untrustworthy. If two rival gangs get in a shootout, let’s stop calling that a mass shooting. If someone writes a manifesto and shoots up a school, that to me is a mass shooting.\n\nYou don’t solve gun violence with gangs by banning them, you tackle the socioeconomic issues that create the gangs in the first place.\n\nThe gun control conversation needs to be had with a MULTI pronged approach with clear definitions of what we are attributing to the violence and how to stop each thing. Yeah republicans offer thoughts and prayers instead of gun control legislation (sometimes going the opposite way in fact, Florida anyone?), and democrats use misleading and false information instead of legislation. We really need more parties in the USA.\n\nI see a lot of the same problems in both parties. Most of the elected officials on both sides say what their constituents want them to say, but what they actually do is really all about themselves and stayed in power. Yes dnc, you have the same problem as the gop, ie aoc. Aoc is all about aoc and will always be about aoc. But she’s very social media savvy and knows what to say to her constituents. Look at how she speaks depending on the color of the skin of her audience. I’ll admit, the dnc is slightly better, like with the Texas cold snap etc, but call me jaded, but to me I think they just have better marketing than the gop. I admit between the two though, I hate the gop much much more","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf252f2","parent_id":"12cij50","score":6,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"johnhtman","body":"Mass shootings are one of the least serious problems when it comes to guns or homicides. Going by the FBI numbers between 2000-2019 they averaged 53.1 people killed a year, with 2017 being the deadliest year with 138 people killed, 60 in the Vegas Shooting alone. That same year a total of 17,294 people were murdered, which means mass shootings during the worst year on record were responsible for 0.8% of total murders.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf4lir3","parent_id":"jf252f2","score":4,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"Ok-Independent-5782","body":"American's will never give up their firearms.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf2550y","parent_id":"12cij50","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"yelkca","body":"For those of us who live here, giving up isn't really an option. But thanks for your input","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf27z5d","parent_id":"12cij50","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Look, I'm getting a lot of commenters whose points boil down to \"*[ackshually, it's all a gang problem](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/jf1kow3?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3)*\" or \"*[we need guns to defend ourselves](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/jf2fhr9?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3)*\", or \"*[look at Chicago's problems](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/jf3hmn9?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3)*\". How can I rebut them?","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf3ywsa","parent_id":"jf27z5d","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"El_Burrito_Grande","body":"There's a solution to mass shootings, at least. It's in your post. The people who do it get attention. The media facilitates that. There were a lot of guns before mass shootings became such a big trend. THE reason there are so many school shootings/mass shootings is the rise of the sensationalistic 24 hour news cycle/social media. It's a copycat thing/trend. If the media squelched it and didn't talk about the shooters it would die down. It's THE solution. I don't see that happening though.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf29m7m","parent_id":"12cij50","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"Character_Ad_7058","body":"The main reason there cannot be *ANY* effective control on guns in the US is the second amendment to the Constitution of the United States (and the broad court precedents in interpreting it.) In the US, for example, if we tried such a buyback program we would react as you indicated, in terms of selling record amounts of new guns and ammunition. But, an additional reaction (that makes such a program a non-starter) is that funding for it would never be approved. Even if, my some miracle, it did, it would be extremely vulnerable to a court challenge and would eventually be denied.\n\nFew other nations have such a supreme, blanket right to guns as we have in the US. And, we’re essentially stuck with it because the only option would be to further amend the constitution, which is a non-starter as it requires a 2/3 vote in both houses of Congress (or 2/3 of State Legislatures.) Such a majority in either State or Federal legislatures just isn’t conceivable in the foreseeable future.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf2e3af","parent_id":"12cij50","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"NuJoisi","body":"There's no way for you to get an actual reply or information from Reddit, the real information is banned.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf2euoo","parent_id":"12cij50","score":-1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"ShutYourDumbUglyFace","body":"I don't have any idea what the solution is to our problem (I mean, I think it's making it harder to buy a gun - but I have no idea how we get there), but I will say that I don't think it stems from the revolution. I think it's more related to the Wild West and the glorification of the perceived violence and lawlessness - and fierce independence - that pervaded that era. The irony is that most towns at that time, in the west, [were gun-free](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/gun-control-old-west-180968013/) and you had to leave your firearm with the sheriff. \n\nThis narrative ties in with the (false) narrative that guns increase safety. In the Wild West, there were various \"enemies\" that you had to contend with - thieves and wild animals, and of course, pissed off native Americans. Your gun kept you safe. Nowadays, people still believe that having a gun in their home keeps them safe - despite statistics to the contrary. Anecdotal evidence will always reign supreme over statistical data for these people. One 70-year-old man who fends off a home invasion will always carry more weight than statistics showing that a gun in the home increases the likelihood of (successful) [suicide](https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2020/06/handgun-ownership-associated-with-much-higher-suicide-risk.html) by 8x for men and 35x for women.\n\nFurther, I think our politicians and talking heads (and those everywhere, honestly) are able to tap into a profound fear that Americans have about all kinds of things - home invasions, brown people coming to take jobs, etc. Fear is the underlying motivator for humans, so tapping into that produces incredible results. And there are sects that use government interference like at Waco and Ruby Ridge to stoke fear of government overreach - and how you need to have a gun to protect yourself from that (although, as I've noted in the past, the US government has an arsenal that no quantity AR-15's is going to rival).","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf2f2pz","parent_id":"12cij50","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"THSea_Aye111","body":"Gin buy back programs do work in the US, even in conservative areas: https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2022/08/30/gun-buybacks-are-popular-but-are-they-effective","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf2f4wr","parent_id":"12cij50","score":-1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Permit_Current","body":"The link you cited seems to say the opposite? That a few hundred generally older, and less functional guns are turned in, doesn't seem to me to scream great success in a county with hundreds of millions?","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf2olr4","parent_id":"jf2f4wr","score":5,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"src88","body":"Sorry but there are over 2 million defensive gun incidents a year where good people save themselves. Less guns would have resulted in more death. Considering most of our gun stats come from gang violence (mainly in the biggest cities) and suicide. The argument has been and always will be weak. \n\nAlso we ain't Australia with covid internment camps because we are armed and the government knows it's not in complete control. Hence, why they want to disarm the public using the bodies of children. Absolute power corrupts. Our founding fathers knew it.\n\nJust took a look at the top comments and all their sources are left wing sites. Hmmm","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf2hjw7","parent_id":"12cij50","score":0,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"Zncon","body":">Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n\nWith more study, this is proving to be less true then we thought for a long time. Mass shootings outside of gang violence tend to be a complicated form of suicide.\n\nWe know that suicides can be somewhat contagious and driven by the news media, which can also connect the increase shootings we see as a result of that coverage.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf2rcy0","parent_id":"12cij50","score":0,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"RevolutionaryBug8528","body":"It's not even a problem with the proper American mindset. Any shortfall in future consumer laborers resulting from mass shootings (improbable that it would amount to anything significant) can be made up for with the proper immigration and \"healthcare\" policies.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf2wujm","parent_id":"12cij50","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"SliptheSkid","body":"A solution does exist, but I think it's too extreme / complex to be actually adopted. At its core gun reform and fixing gun violence requires a dramatic shift in culture away from pro-gun behaviour. This includes forking over rights to own a gun easily, because as long as there are so many guns and so many people own them, we cannot prevent them from being resold, shared, or otherwise being given to people who are mentally ill or likely to be violent and enact shootings.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf2yox7","parent_id":"12cij50","score":3,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"IndyPoker979","body":"I just need to point out about your last point. I'm sure it's already been covered, but first-person shooters do not increase or decrease the likelihood of gun violence. There was a big push in the 80s and '90s by a guy by the name of Jack Thompson who decided that violent video games and movies were responsible for the ills of society. Since then, this argument has been destroyed on every single logical front. There is no correlation between people who play these games and gun violence. There are much more closer correlations that you could point to instead. However, the idea that you could put these types of games in a school to give an outlet is not effective.\n\nIn all the situations in which gun violence at schools has occurred, none of them have been simply because they couldn't play a video game. That isn't the common factor. Instead of bullying and mental health and mental crisis or rejection or emotional immaturity, making someone unable to handle a situation? Those are the factors that lead to violence in schools.\n\nTo put it simply, no one is suddenly a race car driver just because they play Forza. Counter-Strike players do not automatically become good at paintball. This is not a good example of a healthy outlet for an individual at risk","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf2z565","parent_id":"12cij50","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">I just need to point out about your last point. I'm sure it's already been covered, but first-person shooters do not increase or decrease the likelihood of gun violence. There was a big push in the 80s and '90s by a guy by the name of Jack Thompson who decided that violent video games and movies were responsible for the ills of society. Since then, this argument has been destroyed on every single logical front. There is no correlation between people who play these games and gun violence. There are much more closer correlations that you could point to instead. However, the idea that you could put these types of games in a school to give an outlet is not effective.\n\nThe point I made in the post details is that I don't think it would solve the mass shooter problem if the education system provided FPS games to fulfil the desire to shoot. I know so many people who play FPS games, and none of them are itching to fire into an innocent crowd. \n\n>In all the situations in which gun violence at schools has occurred, none of them have been simply because they couldn't play a video game. That isn't the common factor. Instead of bullying and mental health and mental crisis or rejection or emotional immaturity, making someone unable to handle a situation? Those are the factors that lead to violence in schools.\r \n\r\n\nI do support universal healthcare and improved mental healthcare.","date":"2023-04-09","id":"jfk1xi8","parent_id":"jf2z565","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"Obsidian743","body":"I see no reason that if we pass laws that make guns et. al. difficult if not impossible to buy/own/use, then over time, the overall gun/ammo/accessory/culture supply will disappear. The only obstacle is passing those laws. I always hear arguments against the \"practicality\" of getting people to turn in or sell their guns. We don't need to do that. We simply strangle the supply and let time do the rest of the work.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf31rvn","parent_id":"12cij50","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"Navlgazer","body":"Gun control won’t and doesn’t work .\n\nJust look at chicago .\n\nThe people who want to ban guns and think that 25-40 million “assault weapons “ can be confiscated and stolen from their owners , are also the exact same people who say that 15 million illegal immigrants is too many to round up and deport . \n\nSee the hypocrisy here ?\n\nAnd no one except liberals trust the govt .\nPeople with a brain know the govt is corrupt and bought and laid for by lobbyists and special interest groups and does as they are told by their donors.\n\nThe same govt that says they will protect you if you give up your right and means to protect yourself , are the same govt that can’t secure a border . Yet tells you everyday that the border is secure even though two million illegals waltz across every month , and bring tons of fentanyl with them . The same fentanyl that kills ten times more people than are murdered with guns .\n\nAnd liberals don’t care about people being killed .\nIf those school kids had been aborted babies instead , the liberals would have been praising the mothers for killing them before they were born . \nLiberals won’t ever talk about how many people are killed in Chicago every weekend.\nBecause Chicago is and has been run by democrats for decades .\n\nMurder is against the law , every school is a “ gun free zone “\n \nThe ONLY thing that stops a nut job crazy person with a gun , is a good guy with a gun.\n\nThe faster the good guy shows up with a gun , the less innocent people killed .","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf3hmn9","parent_id":"12cij50","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">Gun control won’t and doesn’t work .\n\n>Just look at chicago .\n\nChicago is an embarrassment to left wingers everywhere, even in Australia.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf3zyxw","parent_id":"jf3hmn9","score":0,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"Sinfultitan_001","body":"We don't have a gun violence problem we have a **MASSIVE MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS** that no one wants to talk about because that rug would pull out from under too many feet.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf3ijy9","parent_id":"12cij50","score":4,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">We don't have a gun violence problem we have a MASSIVE MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS that no one wants to talk about because that rug would pull out from under too many feet.\n\nSo does Australia and a lot of other countries. Yet our gun violence rate is lower. Would you link that to our gun control laws or our universal healthcare?","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf3zks9","parent_id":"jf3ijy9","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"buttholefluid","body":"I know what won’t, more laws.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf3xhxv","parent_id":"12cij50","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"CITYCATZCOUSIN","body":"Your first paragraph...!","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf3z3v1","parent_id":"12cij50","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"themetahumancrusader","body":"As an Australian, I disagree with you on Australia having a similar right vs left culture war. Our “culture war” is very subdued in comparison to the US.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf43tu4","parent_id":"12cij50","score":3,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"burnblue","body":"Pass the gun restrictions, let who needs to panic buy guns go ahead and panic buy before the law kicks in, then let people get over it and needing licenses or checks to get firearms will just be the normal law of the land the same way other things are.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf44bub","parent_id":"12cij50","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"PrincessTrunks125","body":"1) make gun purchases more readily traceable \n\n\n2) the original purchaser of the gun is responsible for all crimes committed with it \n\nThat would be a huge start.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf45s9x","parent_id":"12cij50","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"AdamicAtom","body":"America doesn't have a gun violence problem, or a racism problem or any other problem more important than this: America has a culture problem. And everyone everywhere knows it is at the core of all of this but will never admit that between classes and cultures in America, there will never be consensus or compromise.\n\nAnd the media and all the politicians know it and do everything they can to keep it this way.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf46qms","parent_id":"12cij50","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"Mindless-Umpire7420","body":"America has criminal gangs and cartel from the south, Australia is a massive island continent. The reason Australia’s gun control works is because it’s an island nation, it’s harder to smuggle guns through an ocean than the Mexican border","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf48p8f","parent_id":"12cij50","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"Green_and_black","body":"Gun violence is actually not that big a problem (it’s Americans shooting Americans). The bigger problem is BOMB violence. This is worse because the seppos are exporting the violence.\nThe best way to prevent bomb violence is Balkanisation of the USA.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf4d3k9","parent_id":"12cij50","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"canwepleasejustnot","body":"The reality is that we have a much larger problem in this country, an existential one, that is resulting in everyone becoming more and more fractured and isolated, and violent. Taking legally obtained guns out of the hands of law abiding citizens won't really fix that problem and I genuinely believe that a large faction of Americans believe this deep down. Those calling for full bans tend to think that people are generally good and law abiding but it's just not true. If it comes down to it I'd rather be able to defend myself.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf56ckw","parent_id":"12cij50","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"pilzn3r","body":"We have a mental health crisis in America.","date":"2023-04-06","id":"jf5atv1","parent_id":"12cij50","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"I won't deny that but it's daft to think that you're the only country with a mental health crisis. Would you support universal health care to help tackle this crisis?","date":"2023-04-08","id":"jfeuuzf","parent_id":"jf5atv1","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"Psycheau","body":"If we take a more pragmatic military look at the USA they have Russia on one side. If Putin went completely mental and decided to invade the US and the military was spread to far across the globe for a quick response a land invasion on US soil would be a very problematic assault. When the people are armed a land assault could be easily thwarted by local militia holding their ground. Especially when lots of the public have automatic assault rifles it would be a simple matter to put together a small militia in each city to hold ground while the military get the logistics sorted. \n\nWhen people look at the gun situation in the USA they never seem to acknowledge the fact that they are in a very unique geological situation having a border with a potential enemy. There are other threats as well as Russia but it is the most obvious potential threat. Of course many people will know that Russia doesn't have the resources to attack the USA, but that does not mean they will never try, even in desperation.","date":"2023-04-06","id":"jf5g21c","parent_id":"12cij50","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"If Russia (or any other hostile nation) were to obliterate the American military and put boots on the ground in the USA, you can bet that nukes will launch. That's probably a greater deterrent than having an armed populace.","date":"2023-04-08","id":"jfeu5jb","parent_id":"jf5g21c","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"StarMNF","body":"I've given this some thought, and I think I have a gun control measure that would eliminate most mass shootings in the U.S. without effecting most gun owners.\n\nThe idea is simple. To buy a gun, you need to get affidavits from 5 people who have known you well for at least a decade, who are willing to vouch that you can be trusted with the gun -- that you're of good character, mentally stable, and not likely to use the gun in an unlawful manner.\n\nYou can make the process pretty painless. You show up at Walmart with your 5 friends, you walk out with your gun. Heck, make gun buying a social activity.\n\nRednecks will still get their guns. People who are planning to stockpile ammunitions for the next Waco shootout with the feds will still be able to get their guns. The mafia will still get their guns.\n\nSo it won't completely stop gun violence in the country. However, it will be a major road block for the typical \"lone wolf shooter\" who does these mass shootings.\n\nPeople who know these shooters know they're mentally unstable and shouldn't have guns. In the case of the Covenant shooter, their parents knew they shouldn't own a gun. Even if they went to other friends who maybe don't know them so well, they would get a lot of questions about suddenly wanting to buy up enough guns for a small army.\n\nWhile most of these shooters have mental illnesses, and mental healthcare needs to be significantly improved, the reality is that a significant number of people with serious mental illnesses are never even diagnosed. Banning anyone diagnosed with a mental illness from owning a gun with result in even fewer people seeking treatment or being diagnosed, because most mental illnesses are diagnosed through voluntary therapy. \n\nThere are also cases where someone officially diagnosed with a mental illness has a justifiable need for a gun. For instance, a woman suffering PTSD from domestic violence might need a gun to protect themselves from their ex-partner who wants to kill them.","date":"2023-04-06","id":"jf6qvfu","parent_id":"12cij50","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"LigPortman69","body":"You’re correct. A full 60% are in strong favor of the Second Amendment. It’s not going anywhere. I doubt the military would enforce any “decree” from above.","date":"2023-04-06","id":"jf9ngjr","parent_id":"12cij50","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"philmarcracken","body":">In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable \n\nThe spike wouldn't prevent them from being able to surrender them later on; the grace period would no doubt account for this phenomenon.\n\n>Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it\n\nThis doesn't have much to do with our actual polices on gun control. It just shows our politicians aren't content with their citizens bloodshed at the hands of a few lunatics. It was still bigly unpopular for howard at the time, and political heads rolled over doing it.\n\n>Mental healthcare might help\n\nHeard this one quite a bit. Mental health issues aren't unique to the US, their access to guns is.\n\n>Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings\n\nA violation of their first amendment\n\n>Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n\nA few things stops ours from being the all-in celebrity contest that america holds. We don't vote for our candidates directly, only their parties. And we have compulsory voting, which has the majority vote when they don't care about who they cast for. The more extreme you act(as is common in america) the less you score these voters.\n\n>Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot\n\nThis would not nearly be as effective as just copy pasting our gun control laws. License and lockup storage. Caliber restrictions. Self defense is not a legit reason to obtain and hold your license etc.\n\nAlso, Wendover did a pretty [decent look](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0aGGOK4kAM) at the relative effectiveness of our laws since their passing.","date":"2023-04-07","id":"jfarqj9","parent_id":"12cij50","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"jajabingo2","body":"Australia does not have a raging left vs right battle anything like the USA 😂 \n\nAnd our proportional voting and donations oversight gives us a way different type of government here","date":"2023-04-07","id":"jfbljg6","parent_id":"12cij50","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"TheDanimator","body":"We need to put more guns into the hands of good people so we can stop shootings.\nI dont believe this would solve everything, I do think it would help the problem though.","date":"2023-04-07","id":"jfefxs3","parent_id":"12cij50","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\n\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\n\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\n\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \"greatest gun salesman in America\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\n\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\n\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\n\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\n\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cij50","parent_id":null,"score":772,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/"},{"author":"D_Balgarus","body":"First off, gun violence statistics are inflated since they include suicides. \n\nSecond, most actual violence is gang violence in the big cities.\n\nIf we want to tackle gun violence then we need to annihilate gangs in the cities. That would require people be tough on crime and bring back the stigma of having a criminal record. Sadly people in the problematic areas don’t have the backbone to do this.","date":"2023-04-08","id":"jfgy5nr","parent_id":"12cij50","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">If we want to tackle gun violence then we need to annihilate gangs in the cities. That would require people be tough on crime and bring back the stigma of having a criminal record. Sadly people in the problematic areas don’t have the backbone to do this.\n\nHow isn't the USA already tough on crime if it has the world's highest incarnation rate?","date":"2023-04-09","id":"jfk6z8d","parent_id":"jfgy5nr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}]],"string":"[\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Khal-Frodo\",\n \"body\": \"To clarify, when you say \\\"I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA\\\" are you saying that such an initiative would never pass, or that it wouldn't be effective even if it hypothetically did?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf1jzav\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 7,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">To clarify, when you say \\\"I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA\\\" are you saying that such an initiative would never pass, or that it wouldn't be effective even if it hypothetically did?\\n\\nI am saying the latter. Say Joe Biden manages to pull off some masterful political puppeteering to enact gun control legislations similar to what John Howard did in 1996. It doesn't matter if it gets passed because past trends have shown us that the USA will experience panic buying of guns whenever there is a suspicion that gun control will be enacted.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf1kyf4\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jf1jzav\",\n \"score\": 6,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"pgold05\",\n \"body\": \"If an effective gun control law actualy passes, the initial spike in gun ownership won't matter because ultimately the number of guns will go down in the long run. \\n\\nThere is no reason to consider that spike to mean it's impossible, it barley matters in the larger scheme of things.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf1kk0w\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 39,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">If an effective gun control law actualy passes, the initial spike in gun ownership won't matter because ultimately the number of guns will go down in the long run.\\n\\nFirstly, while this did happen in Australia, will this phenomenon necessarily happen too in the USA? \\n\\nSecondly, how many lives will it cost? Imagine the cops trying to seize guns from an angry gun owner - it would either result in a few cops getting killed, the gun owners getting killed, or both.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf1lcz8\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jf1kk0w\",\n \"score\": 6,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Squirt_memes\",\n \"body\": \">\\tAny attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n\\nI’d say the gun control fails because it’s very difficult to make a gun control bill that will pass all three branches of our government. Even just getting it past the representatives is quite difficult and the courts are unreceptive to violations of the second amendment. \\n\\n>\\tMental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention,\\n\\nThat really depends what you mean by “mass shooting”. In your wiki list, I think there’s 4 mass shooting so far this year that were unrelated to gang violence. And a couple dozen gang shooting that make it seem like mass shootings randomly happen all the time. \\n\\nGun violence is way bigger in America than most comparable countries, but it’s really easy to let emotions cloud your brain. The vast majority of “mass shootings” pose no threat to normal people who don’t live in a gang’s turf. \\n\\n>\\tSuppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n\\nI’d say the media’s obsession with coverage also makes it hard to know the true scale of the problem. It’s crazy how many people I’ll talk to who are TERRIFIED to send their kids to school. So I’ll ask them “do you have any idea what the statistical chances are of a shooting involving your kid?” Then they’ll get pissed off and accuse me of hating children or something. \\n\\nThis whole issue is fed by a lack of objective information and a reliance on emotional arguments. \\n\\n>\\tGiving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences\\n\\nYou need to go back a few decades if you want to claim violent video games increase violent activity without being made fun of. \\n\\n>\\tThe USA’s gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it’s getting worse, if Wikipedia’s list of mass shootings is to be believed.\\n\\nIt is tragic. Its also not well understood. The vast majority of the shooters on that list are black teenagers in active gangs. So are the majority of victims. \\n\\nSo what’s the goal? Do we ignore one and target the other? Because one policy won’t fit a gang using illegal weapons to protect their drug turf AND a kid taking their parents gun to school for revenge.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf1kow3\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 65,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">It is tragic. Its also not well understood. The vast majority of the shooters on that list are black teenagers in active gangs. So are the majority of victims. \\n> \\n>So what’s the goal? Do we ignore one and target the other? Because one policy won’t fit a gang using illegal weapons to protect their drug turf AND a kid taking their parents gun to school for revenge.\\r \\n\\r\\n\\nOK, but either way, this just goes to prove my point that I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem. While I didn't put it in the post details, gun control legislation can't fix the gang crime problem either.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf1lly5\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jf1kow3\",\n \"score\": 6,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"NelsonMeme\",\n \"body\": \"> Firstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it).\\n\\nThis doesn’t make sense.\\n\\nFirst, it isn’t true. The U.S. developed the rudiments of its gun culture living in frontiers, where guns were commonly used as weapons in armed combat or to secure game. This culture further developed when we forcefully secured our independence. \\n\\nAustralia is independent, did not have to become so forcefully, and did not develop our same culture after independence.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf1l307\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 14,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"NegroniHater\",\n \"body\": \"The Wild West is a myth. And no, gun culture started in America when the second right guaranteed to every American is keeping and bearing arms. Gun control was created to keep former slaves from having those rights, which for almost 100 years had never been touched by the government. \\n\\nFucking Ben Franklin said you shouldn’t go for a walk without a gun, Thomas Jefferson said guns stop homicides, George Washington said every American [probably only meant men] should be armed and trained. It’s always been part of American culture, and sure as fuck didn’t start on an Italian movie set with Clint Eastwood, because you apparently think that’s an accurate depiction of history.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf2fp1v\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jf1l307\",\n \"score\": 5,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"ProLifePanda\",\n \"body\": \">As for solutions to the problem?\\n\\nSo just to start, there is no \\\"100% solution\\\" to gun violence, just like there's no \\\"100% solution\\\" to car crashes, knife stabbings, bar fights, etc. As long as something is allowed (like owning cars, guns, being able to drink, etc.) there will be some negative consequences. So there are no gun control laws or regulations that will reduce gun violence/deaths to 0 (or even close to it).\\n\\nBut a big improvement would be the implementation of pervasive \\\"red flag\\\" laws. Many of the school shootings you see are done by people who show red flags beforehand. The Oxford shooter was literally in the principal's office for being a suspected school shooter the day he did the shooting. The recent Tennessee shooter messaged her friends beforehand with concerning messages before the shooting. There are a lot of other examples, but that's the idea that if we can \\\"take the guns first, due process later\\\", we can stop some of the shootings by obviously troubled individuals.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf1of4b\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": -1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Purely_Theoretical\",\n \"body\": \"You can't possibly red flag the Nashville shooter that sent messages just minutes beforehand. \\n\\nThe real problem with red flag laws is they brush aside due process.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf1sdva\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jf1of4b\",\n \"score\": 6,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Rufus_Reddit\",\n \"body\": \"\\\"Gun violence problem\\\" seems like newspeak - it's the sort of thing that politicians say when they want an emotional reaction but don't really want to say anything. Can you describe what you mean by \\\"gun violence problem\\\" in more concrete terms?\\nIs there some way to check whether the \\\"gun violence problem\\\" has been solved that isn't just \\\"I know it when I see it\\\"? Suppose, for example, that there were no more shootings in school and no more breathless media coverage but homicide rates in inner cities continued to rise, would that be an improvement in the \\\"gun violence problem\\\" or not?\\n\\nDo you think that all of the gun control laws that were passed in the US over the last 40 years were credible attempts to address gun violence, or is it possible that at least some of them were political pandering instead?\\n\\n> ... The USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if Wikipedia's list of mass shootings is to be believed. ...\\n\\nAt the same time, the trend is toward the same or less gun ownership. ( https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/gun-ownership.html ). Do you think that gun availability has substantively changed in the US over the last 30 years? Do you think that changes in \\\"mental health issues\\\" (more newspeak) and increased media coverage of gun violence explain all of the \\\"getting worse\\\" or not?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf1r31m\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": -1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"pudding7\",\n \"body\": \"I would assume that \\\"Gun violence problem\\\" means people being intentionally shot with a gun.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf1s9cp\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jf1r31m\",\n \"score\": 7,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"oddball667\",\n \"body\": \"USA is in a weird not so cold civil war, this will last generations and it will prevent any major issue from being resolved\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf1vtje\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"kgxv\",\n \"body\": \"The first step to solving the gun problem is to make lobbying illegal. Corporations also shouldn’t be able to donate to campaigns.\\n\\nOnce you take NRA money out of the equation, it becomes much easier to tackle.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf1xl7g\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": -2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Lobbying is huge in Australia. If we can have gun control despite that, so can the USA.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf1yc6v\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jf1xl7g\",\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Thintegrator\",\n \"body\": \"This is correct. We Americans have finally accepted that gun violence is an integral part of the American experience and that children dying from gunshot wounds in our schools is a small price to pay for the right to own weapons designed to kill. It is our core freedom. Anyone who thinks otherwise just stay the fuck out of our country. We got this.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf1zj9y\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": -5,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Are you being sarcastic or sincere?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf1zo34\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jf1zj9y\",\n \"score\": 3,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"trash332\",\n \"body\": \"We like our guns. I would like to see more stringent background checks and maybe 30 day wait periods, but only because every mass shooter has purchased their guns legally. Really, some people have to be more honest about their crazy ass family members.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf1zwpg\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Sandy_hook_lemy\",\n \"body\": \"Nonsense. Why is it always \\\"it can't work in the US\\\"? Has it been tried? Literally worked for every country so why not the US?\\n\\nThis is the same type of shit I see for why America cant have railway systems like Europeans. Try it first let's see. It cant be worse than it is now\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf21ioj\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"blade740\",\n \"body\": \"I mostly agree with this take - the US and Australia are VERY different, namely the fact that the US has SIGNIFICANTLY higher levels of firearm proliferation than Australia ever did. While Australia's ban/buybacks were able to make firearms relatively scarce, the amount of guns that would need to be taken off the street in the US to get us to roughly the same level is something like 90%. It's just not feasible. \\n\\nThat said, there is one point from your post in particular I want to debate:\\n\\n>Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n\\nI am not arguing for forcibly SUPPRESSING media coverage, but I do think that the media circus that surrounds these events is a HUGE factor in driving mass shootings due to the media contagion effect. I think that some best practice guidelines for major media organizations to (hopefully) voluntarily follow could help reduce the level at which children are introduced and accustomed to the idea of \\\"mass shootings\\\" in the first place, similar to the way the press (voluntarily) covers suicides to minimize media contagion. \\n\\nTo address your point, I don't believe that the kind of media coverage we have today is necessary (or even helpful) in measuring the \\\"full scale\\\" of the problem. If anything the scale of the problem is blown vastly out of proportion by the outsized attention media gives to these events. The scale of the problem should be measured by scientific studies and good data collection, not by public outrage created by clickbait-driven capitalist news organizations.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf228mw\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"FearLeadsToAnger\",\n \"body\": \"> Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n\\nThis is a fundamental problem with the individualistic nature of 'the american dream' the lone ranger archetype, and the reinforcement of the view that everyone else is stupid and only I know what i'm doing.\\n\\nOur main new sources are hot on the themes of 'everyone else' being stupid, sneaky and selfish, so it's only fair for you to do it too - 'I gadda git ma own'.\\n\\nLike you say, mental healthcare isn't the solution, the whole of society needs to be reframed through a more compassionate lens before anything improves.\\n\\n> After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable\\n\\nMy point of disagreement is here, what you'd need to do is make it highly illegal to the point where it's not worth being anywhere near a gun, which frankly is what a weapon of potential mass murder deserves anyway. Sure, people would still stash guns, but if all hell rains down you any time you get it out, you're never going to get it out and it becomes irrelevant anyway.\\n\\nThe whole shtick about protecting yourself from the government if it goes rogue is archaic, if the government turns on the people we're fucked either way, what are AR15's going to do against modern electronic warfare? Our strength is in our numbers, not our arms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf22xmj\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Permit_Current\",\n \"body\": \"> My point of disagreement is here, what you'd need to do is make it highly illegal to the point where it's not worth being anywhere near a gun\\n\\n....Like we did with drugs and alcohol?\\n\\n> what are AR15's going to do against modern electronic warfare? \\n\\nAsymmetric warfare can be a bitch. a fun poem about it: https://twitter.com/Huff4Congress/status/1623747713316581376\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf2ov0s\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jf22xmj\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"ILikeNeurons\",\n \"body\": \"[Stronger gun policies are associated with lower rates of firearm homicide, even after adjusting for demographic and sociological factors](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/article-abstract/2582989)\\n\\n[96% of Americans favor requiring background checks for all gun purchases](http://news.gallup.com/poll/1645/guns.aspx)\\n\\n[There are things experts agree will work that the public also supports](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/10/05/upshot/how-to-reduce-mass-shooting-deaths-experts-say-these-gun-laws-could-help.html)\\n\\n> [After adjustment for relevant covariates, the three state laws most strongly associated with reduced overall firearm mortality were universal background checks for firearm purchase (multivariable IRR 0·39 [95% CI 0·23–0·67]; p=0·001), ammunition background checks (0·18 [0·09–0·36]; p<0·0001), and identification requirement for firearms (0·16 [0·09–0·29]; p<0·0001). Projected federal-level implementation of universal background checks for firearm purchase could reduce national firearm mortality from 10·35 to 4·46 deaths per 100 000 people, background checks for ammunition purchase could reduce it to 1·99 per 100 000, and firearm identification to 1·81 per 100 000.](http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2815%2901026-0/abstract)\\n\\nWe even know what we need to do to get it:\\n\\n[46% of gun owners in the NRA have contacted a public official to express their opinion on gun policy](http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/07/05/among-gun-owners-nra-members-have-a-unique-set-of-views-and-experiences/)\\n\\n[15% of gun owners not in the NRA have ever contacted a public official to express their opinion on gun policy](http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/07/05/among-gun-owners-nra-members-have-a-unique-set-of-views-and-experiences/)\\n\\n[The NRA is powerful, but not because of its money](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/5/16430684/nra-congress-money-no).\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf233c7\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"HomoSupremacy\",\n \"body\": \">As an Australian\\n\\nDon't care\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf23ea6\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": -3,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Thebrotherleftbehind\",\n \"body\": \"As an American, and former Republican, I want to disclose, I want gun control. That being said, democrats are just as much to blame for the lack of gun control as republicans.\\n\\nOutside of domestic violence involving guns, I think the biggest problem we have with guns are the “mass” shootings. The problem is, they group all shootings in together. Suicide is also considered as homicide in gun stats. That is misleading and makes you seem untrustworthy. If two rival gangs get in a shootout, let’s stop calling that a mass shooting. If someone writes a manifesto and shoots up a school, that to me is a mass shooting.\\n\\nYou don’t solve gun violence with gangs by banning them, you tackle the socioeconomic issues that create the gangs in the first place.\\n\\nThe gun control conversation needs to be had with a MULTI pronged approach with clear definitions of what we are attributing to the violence and how to stop each thing. Yeah republicans offer thoughts and prayers instead of gun control legislation (sometimes going the opposite way in fact, Florida anyone?), and democrats use misleading and false information instead of legislation. We really need more parties in the USA.\\n\\nI see a lot of the same problems in both parties. Most of the elected officials on both sides say what their constituents want them to say, but what they actually do is really all about themselves and stayed in power. Yes dnc, you have the same problem as the gop, ie aoc. Aoc is all about aoc and will always be about aoc. But she’s very social media savvy and knows what to say to her constituents. Look at how she speaks depending on the color of the skin of her audience. I’ll admit, the dnc is slightly better, like with the Texas cold snap etc, but call me jaded, but to me I think they just have better marketing than the gop. I admit between the two though, I hate the gop much much more\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf252f2\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 6,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"johnhtman\",\n \"body\": \"Mass shootings are one of the least serious problems when it comes to guns or homicides. Going by the FBI numbers between 2000-2019 they averaged 53.1 people killed a year, with 2017 being the deadliest year with 138 people killed, 60 in the Vegas Shooting alone. That same year a total of 17,294 people were murdered, which means mass shootings during the worst year on record were responsible for 0.8% of total murders.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf4lir3\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jf252f2\",\n \"score\": 4,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Ok-Independent-5782\",\n \"body\": \"American's will never give up their firearms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf2550y\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"yelkca\",\n \"body\": \"For those of us who live here, giving up isn't really an option. But thanks for your input\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf27z5d\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Look, I'm getting a lot of commenters whose points boil down to \\\"*[ackshually, it's all a gang problem](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/jf1kow3?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3)*\\\" or \\\"*[we need guns to defend ourselves](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/jf2fhr9?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3)*\\\", or \\\"*[look at Chicago's problems](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/jf3hmn9?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3)*\\\". How can I rebut them?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf3ywsa\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jf27z5d\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"El_Burrito_Grande\",\n \"body\": \"There's a solution to mass shootings, at least. It's in your post. The people who do it get attention. The media facilitates that. There were a lot of guns before mass shootings became such a big trend. THE reason there are so many school shootings/mass shootings is the rise of the sensationalistic 24 hour news cycle/social media. It's a copycat thing/trend. If the media squelched it and didn't talk about the shooters it would die down. It's THE solution. I don't see that happening though.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf29m7m\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Character_Ad_7058\",\n \"body\": \"The main reason there cannot be *ANY* effective control on guns in the US is the second amendment to the Constitution of the United States (and the broad court precedents in interpreting it.) In the US, for example, if we tried such a buyback program we would react as you indicated, in terms of selling record amounts of new guns and ammunition. But, an additional reaction (that makes such a program a non-starter) is that funding for it would never be approved. Even if, my some miracle, it did, it would be extremely vulnerable to a court challenge and would eventually be denied.\\n\\nFew other nations have such a supreme, blanket right to guns as we have in the US. And, we’re essentially stuck with it because the only option would be to further amend the constitution, which is a non-starter as it requires a 2/3 vote in both houses of Congress (or 2/3 of State Legislatures.) Such a majority in either State or Federal legislatures just isn’t conceivable in the foreseeable future.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf2e3af\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"NuJoisi\",\n \"body\": \"There's no way for you to get an actual reply or information from Reddit, the real information is banned.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf2euoo\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": -1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"ShutYourDumbUglyFace\",\n \"body\": \"I don't have any idea what the solution is to our problem (I mean, I think it's making it harder to buy a gun - but I have no idea how we get there), but I will say that I don't think it stems from the revolution. I think it's more related to the Wild West and the glorification of the perceived violence and lawlessness - and fierce independence - that pervaded that era. The irony is that most towns at that time, in the west, [were gun-free](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/gun-control-old-west-180968013/) and you had to leave your firearm with the sheriff. \\n\\nThis narrative ties in with the (false) narrative that guns increase safety. In the Wild West, there were various \\\"enemies\\\" that you had to contend with - thieves and wild animals, and of course, pissed off native Americans. Your gun kept you safe. Nowadays, people still believe that having a gun in their home keeps them safe - despite statistics to the contrary. Anecdotal evidence will always reign supreme over statistical data for these people. One 70-year-old man who fends off a home invasion will always carry more weight than statistics showing that a gun in the home increases the likelihood of (successful) [suicide](https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2020/06/handgun-ownership-associated-with-much-higher-suicide-risk.html) by 8x for men and 35x for women.\\n\\nFurther, I think our politicians and talking heads (and those everywhere, honestly) are able to tap into a profound fear that Americans have about all kinds of things - home invasions, brown people coming to take jobs, etc. Fear is the underlying motivator for humans, so tapping into that produces incredible results. And there are sects that use government interference like at Waco and Ruby Ridge to stoke fear of government overreach - and how you need to have a gun to protect yourself from that (although, as I've noted in the past, the US government has an arsenal that no quantity AR-15's is going to rival).\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf2f2pz\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"THSea_Aye111\",\n \"body\": \"Gin buy back programs do work in the US, even in conservative areas: https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2022/08/30/gun-buybacks-are-popular-but-are-they-effective\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf2f4wr\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": -1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Permit_Current\",\n \"body\": \"The link you cited seems to say the opposite? That a few hundred generally older, and less functional guns are turned in, doesn't seem to me to scream great success in a county with hundreds of millions?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf2olr4\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jf2f4wr\",\n \"score\": 5,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"src88\",\n \"body\": \"Sorry but there are over 2 million defensive gun incidents a year where good people save themselves. Less guns would have resulted in more death. Considering most of our gun stats come from gang violence (mainly in the biggest cities) and suicide. The argument has been and always will be weak. \\n\\nAlso we ain't Australia with covid internment camps because we are armed and the government knows it's not in complete control. Hence, why they want to disarm the public using the bodies of children. Absolute power corrupts. Our founding fathers knew it.\\n\\nJust took a look at the top comments and all their sources are left wing sites. Hmmm\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf2hjw7\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Zncon\",\n \"body\": \">Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n\\nWith more study, this is proving to be less true then we thought for a long time. Mass shootings outside of gang violence tend to be a complicated form of suicide.\\n\\nWe know that suicides can be somewhat contagious and driven by the news media, which can also connect the increase shootings we see as a result of that coverage.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf2rcy0\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"RevolutionaryBug8528\",\n \"body\": \"It's not even a problem with the proper American mindset. Any shortfall in future consumer laborers resulting from mass shootings (improbable that it would amount to anything significant) can be made up for with the proper immigration and \\\"healthcare\\\" policies.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf2wujm\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"SliptheSkid\",\n \"body\": \"A solution does exist, but I think it's too extreme / complex to be actually adopted. At its core gun reform and fixing gun violence requires a dramatic shift in culture away from pro-gun behaviour. This includes forking over rights to own a gun easily, because as long as there are so many guns and so many people own them, we cannot prevent them from being resold, shared, or otherwise being given to people who are mentally ill or likely to be violent and enact shootings.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf2yox7\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 3,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"IndyPoker979\",\n \"body\": \"I just need to point out about your last point. I'm sure it's already been covered, but first-person shooters do not increase or decrease the likelihood of gun violence. There was a big push in the 80s and '90s by a guy by the name of Jack Thompson who decided that violent video games and movies were responsible for the ills of society. Since then, this argument has been destroyed on every single logical front. There is no correlation between people who play these games and gun violence. There are much more closer correlations that you could point to instead. However, the idea that you could put these types of games in a school to give an outlet is not effective.\\n\\nIn all the situations in which gun violence at schools has occurred, none of them have been simply because they couldn't play a video game. That isn't the common factor. Instead of bullying and mental health and mental crisis or rejection or emotional immaturity, making someone unable to handle a situation? Those are the factors that lead to violence in schools.\\n\\nTo put it simply, no one is suddenly a race car driver just because they play Forza. Counter-Strike players do not automatically become good at paintball. This is not a good example of a healthy outlet for an individual at risk\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf2z565\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">I just need to point out about your last point. I'm sure it's already been covered, but first-person shooters do not increase or decrease the likelihood of gun violence. There was a big push in the 80s and '90s by a guy by the name of Jack Thompson who decided that violent video games and movies were responsible for the ills of society. Since then, this argument has been destroyed on every single logical front. There is no correlation between people who play these games and gun violence. There are much more closer correlations that you could point to instead. However, the idea that you could put these types of games in a school to give an outlet is not effective.\\n\\nThe point I made in the post details is that I don't think it would solve the mass shooter problem if the education system provided FPS games to fulfil the desire to shoot. I know so many people who play FPS games, and none of them are itching to fire into an innocent crowd. \\n\\n>In all the situations in which gun violence at schools has occurred, none of them have been simply because they couldn't play a video game. That isn't the common factor. Instead of bullying and mental health and mental crisis or rejection or emotional immaturity, making someone unable to handle a situation? Those are the factors that lead to violence in schools.\\r \\n\\r\\n\\nI do support universal healthcare and improved mental healthcare.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-09\",\n \"id\": \"jfk1xi8\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jf2z565\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Obsidian743\",\n \"body\": \"I see no reason that if we pass laws that make guns et. al. difficult if not impossible to buy/own/use, then over time, the overall gun/ammo/accessory/culture supply will disappear. The only obstacle is passing those laws. I always hear arguments against the \\\"practicality\\\" of getting people to turn in or sell their guns. We don't need to do that. We simply strangle the supply and let time do the rest of the work.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf31rvn\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Navlgazer\",\n \"body\": \"Gun control won’t and doesn’t work .\\n\\nJust look at chicago .\\n\\nThe people who want to ban guns and think that 25-40 million “assault weapons “ can be confiscated and stolen from their owners , are also the exact same people who say that 15 million illegal immigrants is too many to round up and deport . \\n\\nSee the hypocrisy here ?\\n\\nAnd no one except liberals trust the govt .\\nPeople with a brain know the govt is corrupt and bought and laid for by lobbyists and special interest groups and does as they are told by their donors.\\n\\nThe same govt that says they will protect you if you give up your right and means to protect yourself , are the same govt that can’t secure a border . Yet tells you everyday that the border is secure even though two million illegals waltz across every month , and bring tons of fentanyl with them . The same fentanyl that kills ten times more people than are murdered with guns .\\n\\nAnd liberals don’t care about people being killed .\\nIf those school kids had been aborted babies instead , the liberals would have been praising the mothers for killing them before they were born . \\nLiberals won’t ever talk about how many people are killed in Chicago every weekend.\\nBecause Chicago is and has been run by democrats for decades .\\n\\nMurder is against the law , every school is a “ gun free zone “\\n \\nThe ONLY thing that stops a nut job crazy person with a gun , is a good guy with a gun.\\n\\nThe faster the good guy shows up with a gun , the less innocent people killed .\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf3hmn9\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">Gun control won’t and doesn’t work .\\n\\n>Just look at chicago .\\n\\nChicago is an embarrassment to left wingers everywhere, even in Australia.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf3zyxw\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jf3hmn9\",\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Sinfultitan_001\",\n \"body\": \"We don't have a gun violence problem we have a **MASSIVE MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS** that no one wants to talk about because that rug would pull out from under too many feet.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf3ijy9\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 4,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">We don't have a gun violence problem we have a MASSIVE MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS that no one wants to talk about because that rug would pull out from under too many feet.\\n\\nSo does Australia and a lot of other countries. Yet our gun violence rate is lower. Would you link that to our gun control laws or our universal healthcare?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf3zks9\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jf3ijy9\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"buttholefluid\",\n \"body\": \"I know what won’t, more laws.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf3xhxv\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CITYCATZCOUSIN\",\n \"body\": \"Your first paragraph...!\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf3z3v1\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"themetahumancrusader\",\n \"body\": \"As an Australian, I disagree with you on Australia having a similar right vs left culture war. Our “culture war” is very subdued in comparison to the US.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf43tu4\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 3,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"burnblue\",\n \"body\": \"Pass the gun restrictions, let who needs to panic buy guns go ahead and panic buy before the law kicks in, then let people get over it and needing licenses or checks to get firearms will just be the normal law of the land the same way other things are.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf44bub\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"PrincessTrunks125\",\n \"body\": \"1) make gun purchases more readily traceable \\n\\n\\n2) the original purchaser of the gun is responsible for all crimes committed with it \\n\\nThat would be a huge start.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf45s9x\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"AdamicAtom\",\n \"body\": \"America doesn't have a gun violence problem, or a racism problem or any other problem more important than this: America has a culture problem. And everyone everywhere knows it is at the core of all of this but will never admit that between classes and cultures in America, there will never be consensus or compromise.\\n\\nAnd the media and all the politicians know it and do everything they can to keep it this way.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf46qms\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Mindless-Umpire7420\",\n \"body\": \"America has criminal gangs and cartel from the south, Australia is a massive island continent. The reason Australia’s gun control works is because it’s an island nation, it’s harder to smuggle guns through an ocean than the Mexican border\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf48p8f\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Green_and_black\",\n \"body\": \"Gun violence is actually not that big a problem (it’s Americans shooting Americans). The bigger problem is BOMB violence. This is worse because the seppos are exporting the violence.\\nThe best way to prevent bomb violence is Balkanisation of the USA.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf4d3k9\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"canwepleasejustnot\",\n \"body\": \"The reality is that we have a much larger problem in this country, an existential one, that is resulting in everyone becoming more and more fractured and isolated, and violent. Taking legally obtained guns out of the hands of law abiding citizens won't really fix that problem and I genuinely believe that a large faction of Americans believe this deep down. Those calling for full bans tend to think that people are generally good and law abiding but it's just not true. If it comes down to it I'd rather be able to defend myself.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf56ckw\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"pilzn3r\",\n \"body\": \"We have a mental health crisis in America.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-06\",\n \"id\": \"jf5atv1\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"I won't deny that but it's daft to think that you're the only country with a mental health crisis. Would you support universal health care to help tackle this crisis?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-08\",\n \"id\": \"jfeuuzf\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jf5atv1\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Psycheau\",\n \"body\": \"If we take a more pragmatic military look at the USA they have Russia on one side. If Putin went completely mental and decided to invade the US and the military was spread to far across the globe for a quick response a land invasion on US soil would be a very problematic assault. When the people are armed a land assault could be easily thwarted by local militia holding their ground. Especially when lots of the public have automatic assault rifles it would be a simple matter to put together a small militia in each city to hold ground while the military get the logistics sorted. \\n\\nWhen people look at the gun situation in the USA they never seem to acknowledge the fact that they are in a very unique geological situation having a border with a potential enemy. There are other threats as well as Russia but it is the most obvious potential threat. Of course many people will know that Russia doesn't have the resources to attack the USA, but that does not mean they will never try, even in desperation.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-06\",\n \"id\": \"jf5g21c\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"If Russia (or any other hostile nation) were to obliterate the American military and put boots on the ground in the USA, you can bet that nukes will launch. That's probably a greater deterrent than having an armed populace.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-08\",\n \"id\": \"jfeu5jb\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jf5g21c\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"StarMNF\",\n \"body\": \"I've given this some thought, and I think I have a gun control measure that would eliminate most mass shootings in the U.S. without effecting most gun owners.\\n\\nThe idea is simple. To buy a gun, you need to get affidavits from 5 people who have known you well for at least a decade, who are willing to vouch that you can be trusted with the gun -- that you're of good character, mentally stable, and not likely to use the gun in an unlawful manner.\\n\\nYou can make the process pretty painless. You show up at Walmart with your 5 friends, you walk out with your gun. Heck, make gun buying a social activity.\\n\\nRednecks will still get their guns. People who are planning to stockpile ammunitions for the next Waco shootout with the feds will still be able to get their guns. The mafia will still get their guns.\\n\\nSo it won't completely stop gun violence in the country. However, it will be a major road block for the typical \\\"lone wolf shooter\\\" who does these mass shootings.\\n\\nPeople who know these shooters know they're mentally unstable and shouldn't have guns. In the case of the Covenant shooter, their parents knew they shouldn't own a gun. Even if they went to other friends who maybe don't know them so well, they would get a lot of questions about suddenly wanting to buy up enough guns for a small army.\\n\\nWhile most of these shooters have mental illnesses, and mental healthcare needs to be significantly improved, the reality is that a significant number of people with serious mental illnesses are never even diagnosed. Banning anyone diagnosed with a mental illness from owning a gun with result in even fewer people seeking treatment or being diagnosed, because most mental illnesses are diagnosed through voluntary therapy. \\n\\nThere are also cases where someone officially diagnosed with a mental illness has a justifiable need for a gun. For instance, a woman suffering PTSD from domestic violence might need a gun to protect themselves from their ex-partner who wants to kill them.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-06\",\n \"id\": \"jf6qvfu\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"LigPortman69\",\n \"body\": \"You’re correct. A full 60% are in strong favor of the Second Amendment. It’s not going anywhere. I doubt the military would enforce any “decree” from above.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-06\",\n \"id\": \"jf9ngjr\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"philmarcracken\",\n \"body\": \">In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable \\n\\nThe spike wouldn't prevent them from being able to surrender them later on; the grace period would no doubt account for this phenomenon.\\n\\n>Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it\\n\\nThis doesn't have much to do with our actual polices on gun control. It just shows our politicians aren't content with their citizens bloodshed at the hands of a few lunatics. It was still bigly unpopular for howard at the time, and political heads rolled over doing it.\\n\\n>Mental healthcare might help\\n\\nHeard this one quite a bit. Mental health issues aren't unique to the US, their access to guns is.\\n\\n>Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings\\n\\nA violation of their first amendment\\n\\n>Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n\\nA few things stops ours from being the all-in celebrity contest that america holds. We don't vote for our candidates directly, only their parties. And we have compulsory voting, which has the majority vote when they don't care about who they cast for. The more extreme you act(as is common in america) the less you score these voters.\\n\\n>Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot\\n\\nThis would not nearly be as effective as just copy pasting our gun control laws. License and lockup storage. Caliber restrictions. Self defense is not a legit reason to obtain and hold your license etc.\\n\\nAlso, Wendover did a pretty [decent look](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0aGGOK4kAM) at the relative effectiveness of our laws since their passing.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-07\",\n \"id\": \"jfarqj9\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"jajabingo2\",\n \"body\": \"Australia does not have a raging left vs right battle anything like the USA 😂 \\n\\nAnd our proportional voting and donations oversight gives us a way different type of government here\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-07\",\n \"id\": \"jfbljg6\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"TheDanimator\",\n \"body\": \"We need to put more guns into the hands of good people so we can stop shootings.\\nI dont believe this would solve everything, I do think it would help the problem though.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-07\",\n \"id\": \"jfefxs3\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"This post is inspired by the news of yet another mass shooting - namely the [2023 Covenant School shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Covenant_School_shooting).\\n\\nFirstly, I need to mention that the USA's gun violence problem provides leverage to monarchists here in Australia. The fact that the USA developed a gun culture after breaking free from the British crown is something I need to answer for as an Australian republican (and I have no good answer for it). [See here for an example](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/).\\n\\nSecondly, Australia's success in tackling gun violence [is frequently mentioned as an example for the USA to follow](https://www.businessinsider.com/does-gun-control-work-2018-2). However, I see some key differences which are why I don't think our model will work in the USA:\\n\\n* After the Port Arthur Massacre, which inspired tougher gun control, the government ran a gun buyback scheme - and the government played its cards very well as the buyback went relatively smoothly. In contrast, in the USA, any suspicion that the government might tighten gun control inspires a spike in buying guns in case they become unavailable - even pro-Democrat sources like CNN [say that former President Barack Obama was the \\\"greatest gun salesman in America\\\"](https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/06/news/obama-gun-control-sales).\\n* Also regarding the Port Arthur Massacre - the prime minister who toughened gun control was right-wing, and the left-wing parties were also on board with it, meaning that gun control opponents had no major party championing their cause. In contrast, the Republican Party in the USA doesn't pass up the opportunity to cater to gun control opponents for their votes.\\n\\nAs for solutions to the problem? I can't think of any.\\n\\n* Any attempt at gun control backfires because people panic buy guns.\\n* Mental healthcare might help, but since a lot of mass shootings are by people who crave attention, I can't think of ways to make attention-hungry people stop being attention-hungry.\\n* Suppressing media coverage of mass shootings only makes it impossible to know the full scale of the problem.\\n* Also, I don't think the raging right vs. left culture war is to blame for the USA's gun violence problem because we have that same problem too in Australia.\\n* Giving kids an outlet for the desire to shoot (e.g. having an official policy of putting first-person-shooter games on school computers) has other negative consequences (e.g. lower productivity).\\n\\nThe USA's gun violence problem is tragic - and it seems like it's getting worse, if [Wikipedia's list of mass shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) is to be believed.\\n\\n**Edit:** Some people claim that the USA's gun violence problem is fuelled by fact that it's a major weapons producer. But so are Russia, Germany, the UK, France and Israel - and all have lower gun violence rates. Plus, countries like Venezuela have even higher gun violence rates despite not being major weapons producers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 772,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: As an Australian, I don't think our response to gun violence will work in the USA. In fact, I see no realistic way to tackle the USA's gun violence problem.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cij50/cmv_as_an_australian_i_dont_think_our_response_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"D_Balgarus\",\n \"body\": \"First off, gun violence statistics are inflated since they include suicides. \\n\\nSecond, most actual violence is gang violence in the big cities.\\n\\nIf we want to tackle gun violence then we need to annihilate gangs in the cities. That would require people be tough on crime and bring back the stigma of having a criminal record. Sadly people in the problematic areas don’t have the backbone to do this.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-08\",\n \"id\": \"jfgy5nr\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cij50\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">If we want to tackle gun violence then we need to annihilate gangs in the cities. That would require people be tough on crime and bring back the stigma of having a criminal record. Sadly people in the problematic areas don’t have the backbone to do this.\\n\\nHow isn't the USA already tough on crime if it has the world's highest incarnation rate?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-09\",\n \"id\": \"jfk6z8d\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jfgy5nr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ]\n]","isConversational":false},"2":{"kind":"string","value":"moderate"}}},{"rowIdx":34,"cells":{"0":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"author":"kingpatzer","body":"Office buildings are empty. While it would be expensive to retrofit office towers into housing, it is possible. There's just a significant up-front cost. \n\n\nHowever, with numerous businesses not having workers in the office anymore, numerous towers in large cities are almost fully void of people, even if much of the space may still be rented. \n\n\nMost major cities are short of affordable housing, leading to considerable increases in housing costs. [Chicago](https://www.chicagotribune.com/real-estate/ct-re-affordable-housing-in-chicago-0409-20210412-tzcbnjsslbdoxmnwdo27h7lehi-story.html) is shy 120,000 units of needed housing, for example. \n\n\nHowever, the movement to retrofit office buildings into apartments is moving slowly, and only creating at best a few thousand units in most places. \n\n\nBecause cities are not taking this opportunity to drive the creation of significant housing recreation, these buildings are going to sit empty and dilapidated through disuse rather than be used to solve the immediate housing crisis -- a solution that would be better for downtown businesses, for residents, and for the city as a whole.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cndht","parent_id":null,"score":71,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The WFH movement post-COVID presents a unique historic opportunity to address housing availability and cost in US cities that will be missed","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cndht/cmv_the_wfh_movement_postcovid_presents_a_unique/"},{"author":"DuhChappers","body":"The main problem with this is that while WFH has definitively reduced the number of workers in the office, there are relatively few buildings that are actually completely empty. Since most buildings house a number of companies and most companies are retaining at least partial in office requirements, it's hard to pick out many individual buildings that would work for this program without kicking workers out. If we had some sort of program to consolidate 2 half empty office buildings into one full office building, this would be more feasible, but governments generally do not have that level of control over where businesses rent space.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf2ec5k","parent_id":"12cndht","score":31,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"kingpatzer","body":"!delta for the fact that truly empty buildings are limited. I guess I would think that local governments could rezone blocks to make buildings mixed use or something, but that won't completely address the issue.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf2kezk","parent_id":"jf2ec5k","score":11,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"DeltaBot","body":"Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/DuhChappers ([37∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/DuhChappers)).\n\n^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf2kgi7","parent_id":"jf2kezk","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],"string":"[\n {\n \"author\": \"kingpatzer\",\n \"body\": \"Office buildings are empty. While it would be expensive to retrofit office towers into housing, it is possible. There's just a significant up-front cost. \\n\\n\\nHowever, with numerous businesses not having workers in the office anymore, numerous towers in large cities are almost fully void of people, even if much of the space may still be rented. \\n\\n\\nMost major cities are short of affordable housing, leading to considerable increases in housing costs. [Chicago](https://www.chicagotribune.com/real-estate/ct-re-affordable-housing-in-chicago-0409-20210412-tzcbnjsslbdoxmnwdo27h7lehi-story.html) is shy 120,000 units of needed housing, for example. \\n\\n\\nHowever, the movement to retrofit office buildings into apartments is moving slowly, and only creating at best a few thousand units in most places. \\n\\n\\nBecause cities are not taking this opportunity to drive the creation of significant housing recreation, these buildings are going to sit empty and dilapidated through disuse rather than be used to solve the immediate housing crisis -- a solution that would be better for downtown businesses, for residents, and for the city as a whole.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cndht\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 71,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The WFH movement post-COVID presents a unique historic opportunity to address housing availability and cost in US cities that will be missed\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cndht/cmv_the_wfh_movement_postcovid_presents_a_unique/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"DuhChappers\",\n \"body\": \"The main problem with this is that while WFH has definitively reduced the number of workers in the office, there are relatively few buildings that are actually completely empty. Since most buildings house a number of companies and most companies are retaining at least partial in office requirements, it's hard to pick out many individual buildings that would work for this program without kicking workers out. If we had some sort of program to consolidate 2 half empty office buildings into one full office building, this would be more feasible, but governments generally do not have that level of control over where businesses rent space.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf2ec5k\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cndht\",\n \"score\": 31,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"kingpatzer\",\n \"body\": \"!delta for the fact that truly empty buildings are limited. I guess I would think that local governments could rezone blocks to make buildings mixed use or something, but that won't completely address the issue.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf2kezk\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jf2ec5k\",\n \"score\": 11,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"DeltaBot\",\n \"body\": \"Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/DuhChappers ([37∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/DuhChappers)).\\n\\n^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf2kgi7\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jf2kezk\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n]","isConversational":false},"1":{"kind":"list like","value":[[{"author":"kingpatzer","body":"Office buildings are empty. While it would be expensive to retrofit office towers into housing, it is possible. There's just a significant up-front cost. \n\n\nHowever, with numerous businesses not having workers in the office anymore, numerous towers in large cities are almost fully void of people, even if much of the space may still be rented. \n\n\nMost major cities are short of affordable housing, leading to considerable increases in housing costs. [Chicago](https://www.chicagotribune.com/real-estate/ct-re-affordable-housing-in-chicago-0409-20210412-tzcbnjsslbdoxmnwdo27h7lehi-story.html) is shy 120,000 units of needed housing, for example. \n\n\nHowever, the movement to retrofit office buildings into apartments is moving slowly, and only creating at best a few thousand units in most places. \n\n\nBecause cities are not taking this opportunity to drive the creation of significant housing recreation, these buildings are going to sit empty and dilapidated through disuse rather than be used to solve the immediate housing crisis -- a solution that would be better for downtown businesses, for residents, and for the city as a whole.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cndht","parent_id":null,"score":71,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The WFH movement post-COVID presents a unique historic opportunity to address housing availability and cost in US cities that will be missed","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cndht/cmv_the_wfh_movement_postcovid_presents_a_unique/"},{"author":"onetwo3four5","body":"I'm too lazy to look up the statistics, but housing availability isn't really limited by the existence of physical homes. There are enough vacant houses and apartments in the US to provide a home for every homeless or housing insecure person. There just isn't the political will and funding to pay for it. I don't think the existence of vacant office space matters here. If we have the will and/or funding to pay to house people, the houses already exist, we don't need to retrofit offices to do it.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf26604","parent_id":"12cndht","score":8,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"monty845","body":"Sure, but shipping off homeless people from Los Angeles, to rural states with cheap housing, without a plan for how those people are going to support themselves in the new location, isn't really a solution.\n\nThe housing crisis in the US is that there aren't enough houses in the places with high demand, which covers the entire commuting distances from a number of major cities.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf26uch","parent_id":"jf26604","score":9,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"kingpatzer","body":"Office buildings are empty. While it would be expensive to retrofit office towers into housing, it is possible. There's just a significant up-front cost. \n\n\nHowever, with numerous businesses not having workers in the office anymore, numerous towers in large cities are almost fully void of people, even if much of the space may still be rented. \n\n\nMost major cities are short of affordable housing, leading to considerable increases in housing costs. [Chicago](https://www.chicagotribune.com/real-estate/ct-re-affordable-housing-in-chicago-0409-20210412-tzcbnjsslbdoxmnwdo27h7lehi-story.html) is shy 120,000 units of needed housing, for example. \n\n\nHowever, the movement to retrofit office buildings into apartments is moving slowly, and only creating at best a few thousand units in most places. \n\n\nBecause cities are not taking this opportunity to drive the creation of significant housing recreation, these buildings are going to sit empty and dilapidated through disuse rather than be used to solve the immediate housing crisis -- a solution that would be better for downtown businesses, for residents, and for the city as a whole.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cndht","parent_id":null,"score":71,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The WFH movement post-COVID presents a unique historic opportunity to address housing availability and cost in US cities that will be missed","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cndht/cmv_the_wfh_movement_postcovid_presents_a_unique/"},{"author":"shadowbca","body":"The biggest issue isn't so much that it's not happening but more so that when buildings are retrofitted they aren't made into affordable housing but instead into expensive housing.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf26ak8","parent_id":"12cndht","score":5,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"kingpatzer","body":"I haven't even seen that happening at any scale where I am. But even if it was made into expensive housing -- if supply exceeds demand, then all housing will get less expensive.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf28cyv","parent_id":"jf26ak8","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"kingpatzer","body":"Office buildings are empty. While it would be expensive to retrofit office towers into housing, it is possible. There's just a significant up-front cost. \n\n\nHowever, with numerous businesses not having workers in the office anymore, numerous towers in large cities are almost fully void of people, even if much of the space may still be rented. \n\n\nMost major cities are short of affordable housing, leading to considerable increases in housing costs. [Chicago](https://www.chicagotribune.com/real-estate/ct-re-affordable-housing-in-chicago-0409-20210412-tzcbnjsslbdoxmnwdo27h7lehi-story.html) is shy 120,000 units of needed housing, for example. \n\n\nHowever, the movement to retrofit office buildings into apartments is moving slowly, and only creating at best a few thousand units in most places. \n\n\nBecause cities are not taking this opportunity to drive the creation of significant housing recreation, these buildings are going to sit empty and dilapidated through disuse rather than be used to solve the immediate housing crisis -- a solution that would be better for downtown businesses, for residents, and for the city as a whole.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cndht","parent_id":null,"score":71,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The WFH movement post-COVID presents a unique historic opportunity to address housing availability and cost in US cities that will be missed","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cndht/cmv_the_wfh_movement_postcovid_presents_a_unique/"},{"author":"VVillyD","body":"The problem with turning office buildings into housing is that it's often more expensive than building an entire new apartment complex from the ground up. Office buildings are simply not built in a way which makes them easily changed into housing.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf2b9ca","parent_id":"12cndht","score":11,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"kingpatzer","body":"Office buildings are empty. While it would be expensive to retrofit office towers into housing, it is possible. There's just a significant up-front cost. \n\n\nHowever, with numerous businesses not having workers in the office anymore, numerous towers in large cities are almost fully void of people, even if much of the space may still be rented. \n\n\nMost major cities are short of affordable housing, leading to considerable increases in housing costs. [Chicago](https://www.chicagotribune.com/real-estate/ct-re-affordable-housing-in-chicago-0409-20210412-tzcbnjsslbdoxmnwdo27h7lehi-story.html) is shy 120,000 units of needed housing, for example. \n\n\nHowever, the movement to retrofit office buildings into apartments is moving slowly, and only creating at best a few thousand units in most places. \n\n\nBecause cities are not taking this opportunity to drive the creation of significant housing recreation, these buildings are going to sit empty and dilapidated through disuse rather than be used to solve the immediate housing crisis -- a solution that would be better for downtown businesses, for residents, and for the city as a whole.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cndht","parent_id":null,"score":71,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The WFH movement post-COVID presents a unique historic opportunity to address housing availability and cost in US cities that will be missed","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cndht/cmv_the_wfh_movement_postcovid_presents_a_unique/"},{"author":"finderfolk","body":"There's a few reasons that this is unlikely to lead to an increase in *affordable* housing.\n\n*First Problem*\n\n Imagine you own the title to 'Tower X' which used to house a law firm (and maybe one or two subtenants). Law firm decides to bail and goes partially WeWork or something. The previous commercial lease was probably quite long, and it's likely that significant works need to be done (\"shell and core\") to bring the building up to scratch. \n\nFrom a commercial perspective, you are much more likely to pre-let the property to a high end property manager (or another similar business) than you are to a mid-range company. Why? Because (i) you don't want to be dealing with too many parties and (ii) they can afford it. You want someone who's willing to nearly take a 'lease of whole'. \n\n*Second Problem*\n\nLocation. Most of the convertible office space will be central, so the price per square meter will be very high. As a freeholder you just aren't going to generate a good return (to the point where you'd be better off just selling the land).","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf2emb6","parent_id":"12cndht","score":3,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"kingpatzer","body":">take a 'lease of whole'.\n\nThat demand doesn't exist, though. Companies are finding across the board they don't need the level of office space they did pre-COVID. \n\n>you just aren't going to generate a good return (to the point where you'd be better off just selling the land).\n\nTo who and for what purpose? The demand for office space in inner cities is dropping not increasing.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf2kpwz","parent_id":"jf2emb6","score":0,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"kingpatzer","body":"Office buildings are empty. While it would be expensive to retrofit office towers into housing, it is possible. There's just a significant up-front cost. \n\n\nHowever, with numerous businesses not having workers in the office anymore, numerous towers in large cities are almost fully void of people, even if much of the space may still be rented. \n\n\nMost major cities are short of affordable housing, leading to considerable increases in housing costs. [Chicago](https://www.chicagotribune.com/real-estate/ct-re-affordable-housing-in-chicago-0409-20210412-tzcbnjsslbdoxmnwdo27h7lehi-story.html) is shy 120,000 units of needed housing, for example. \n\n\nHowever, the movement to retrofit office buildings into apartments is moving slowly, and only creating at best a few thousand units in most places. \n\n\nBecause cities are not taking this opportunity to drive the creation of significant housing recreation, these buildings are going to sit empty and dilapidated through disuse rather than be used to solve the immediate housing crisis -- a solution that would be better for downtown businesses, for residents, and for the city as a whole.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cndht","parent_id":null,"score":71,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The WFH movement post-COVID presents a unique historic opportunity to address housing availability and cost in US cities that will be missed","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cndht/cmv_the_wfh_movement_postcovid_presents_a_unique/"},{"author":"NotaMaiTai","body":">Office buildings are empty. While it would be expensive to retrofit office towers into housing, it is possible. There's just a significant up-front cost.\n\nWith many modern office buildings, the construction of the entire building is so different that it would in many cases he easier to destroy the existing building and start over. Depending on the group performing the assessment I've seen between 20-35% of office buildings in major cities being suitable for conversion.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf2f7av","parent_id":"12cndht","score":5,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"kingpatzer","body":"Office buildings are empty. While it would be expensive to retrofit office towers into housing, it is possible. There's just a significant up-front cost. \n\n\nHowever, with numerous businesses not having workers in the office anymore, numerous towers in large cities are almost fully void of people, even if much of the space may still be rented. \n\n\nMost major cities are short of affordable housing, leading to considerable increases in housing costs. [Chicago](https://www.chicagotribune.com/real-estate/ct-re-affordable-housing-in-chicago-0409-20210412-tzcbnjsslbdoxmnwdo27h7lehi-story.html) is shy 120,000 units of needed housing, for example. \n\n\nHowever, the movement to retrofit office buildings into apartments is moving slowly, and only creating at best a few thousand units in most places. \n\n\nBecause cities are not taking this opportunity to drive the creation of significant housing recreation, these buildings are going to sit empty and dilapidated through disuse rather than be used to solve the immediate housing crisis -- a solution that would be better for downtown businesses, for residents, and for the city as a whole.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cndht","parent_id":null,"score":71,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The WFH movement post-COVID presents a unique historic opportunity to address housing availability and cost in US cities that will be missed","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cndht/cmv_the_wfh_movement_postcovid_presents_a_unique/"},{"author":"hacksoncode","body":"Is it an opportunity at all, though? \n\nThe reason salaries are high in high cost of living areas is because the cost of living is high. \n\nI see exactly zero reason why companies would continue to pay high salaries to people living in low CoL areas... they wouldn't have to. \n\nAnd in the mean time, people end up living in less desirable areas with the same level of affordability as the desirable ones. Would this actually happen to a sufficiently significant degree? I think not. \n\nBTW, it's evident they don't have to, or outsourcing wouldn't be a thing given the extra costs of remote management. \n\nAll this would do is spread the misery farther.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf2kyz5","parent_id":"12cndht","score":0,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"kingpatzer","body":"Office buildings are empty. While it would be expensive to retrofit office towers into housing, it is possible. There's just a significant up-front cost. \n\n\nHowever, with numerous businesses not having workers in the office anymore, numerous towers in large cities are almost fully void of people, even if much of the space may still be rented. \n\n\nMost major cities are short of affordable housing, leading to considerable increases in housing costs. [Chicago](https://www.chicagotribune.com/real-estate/ct-re-affordable-housing-in-chicago-0409-20210412-tzcbnjsslbdoxmnwdo27h7lehi-story.html) is shy 120,000 units of needed housing, for example. \n\n\nHowever, the movement to retrofit office buildings into apartments is moving slowly, and only creating at best a few thousand units in most places. \n\n\nBecause cities are not taking this opportunity to drive the creation of significant housing recreation, these buildings are going to sit empty and dilapidated through disuse rather than be used to solve the immediate housing crisis -- a solution that would be better for downtown businesses, for residents, and for the city as a whole.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cndht","parent_id":null,"score":71,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The WFH movement post-COVID presents a unique historic opportunity to address housing availability and cost in US cities that will be missed","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cndht/cmv_the_wfh_movement_postcovid_presents_a_unique/"},{"author":"rickitikkitavi","body":"What WFH showed us is that people no longer need to live in cities to work and that we no longer need to argue over upzoning urban neighborhoods","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf2vmp3","parent_id":"12cndht","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"kingpatzer","body":"So, is your proposal to force people to live in places they don't want to live? \n\n\nYes, people who can afford to purchase homes are moving out of cities. But that is not everyone who lives in a city, nor is it everyone who wants to live in one. \n\n\nSolutions to social problems actually have to have some level of respect for the people of society, else they aren't really solutions.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf2x025","parent_id":"jf2vmp3","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"kingpatzer","body":"Office buildings are empty. While it would be expensive to retrofit office towers into housing, it is possible. There's just a significant up-front cost. \n\n\nHowever, with numerous businesses not having workers in the office anymore, numerous towers in large cities are almost fully void of people, even if much of the space may still be rented. \n\n\nMost major cities are short of affordable housing, leading to considerable increases in housing costs. [Chicago](https://www.chicagotribune.com/real-estate/ct-re-affordable-housing-in-chicago-0409-20210412-tzcbnjsslbdoxmnwdo27h7lehi-story.html) is shy 120,000 units of needed housing, for example. \n\n\nHowever, the movement to retrofit office buildings into apartments is moving slowly, and only creating at best a few thousand units in most places. \n\n\nBecause cities are not taking this opportunity to drive the creation of significant housing recreation, these buildings are going to sit empty and dilapidated through disuse rather than be used to solve the immediate housing crisis -- a solution that would be better for downtown businesses, for residents, and for the city as a whole.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cndht","parent_id":null,"score":71,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The WFH movement post-COVID presents a unique historic opportunity to address housing availability and cost in US cities that will be missed","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cndht/cmv_the_wfh_movement_postcovid_presents_a_unique/"},{"author":"MoSChuin","body":"Your theory ignores a massive point. Most homelessness is because of chemical addiction and/or mental illness. \n\nEven if you did pay to put your ambitious plan into work, it's destined to fail, and hurt more people. Addiction is a progressive disease, so if you make it easier, it inflames the already overinflated ego and make it easier for them to take more and more drugs. It's called 'Loving them to Death'. \n\nCrime spikes where this happens too. People desperate to get their next fix do not think twice about stealing to make it happen. It's actually a symptom of their disease. \n\nThe hardest part to understand is that people caught in addiction won't change their lives until they are sick and tired of themselves. Most people think, you're homeless, isn't that enough to start changing? And for some, that's a resounding no. Completely inexplicable, but until their hearts are open to change, it progressively gets worse and worse. \n\nI was homeless for a very brief time, and getting free converted housing would've been the worst possible thing. It would've hurt me more than helped me. It would've kept me in my disease, and wouldn't have opened my heart to change.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf2zgq6","parent_id":"12cndht","score":3,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"kingpatzer","body":">Most homelessness is because of chemical addiction and/or mental illness.\n\n​\n\nYou're mistaken.\n\nThe data from the U.S. Conference of Mayors and other researchers shows that the primary causes of homelessness, in order, are:\n\n1. Stagnant wages\n2. Unemployment\n3. Lack of affordable housing\n4. Lack of affordable healthcare / healthcare related bankruptcy\n5. General poverty\n6. Lack of mental health and addiction treatment services\n7. Domestic violence (this is a much higher cause of homelessness for women specifically)\n8. Family conflict\n9. Systemic failures","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf35f50","parent_id":"jf2zgq6","score":3,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"kingpatzer","body":"Office buildings are empty. While it would be expensive to retrofit office towers into housing, it is possible. There's just a significant up-front cost. \n\n\nHowever, with numerous businesses not having workers in the office anymore, numerous towers in large cities are almost fully void of people, even if much of the space may still be rented. \n\n\nMost major cities are short of affordable housing, leading to considerable increases in housing costs. [Chicago](https://www.chicagotribune.com/real-estate/ct-re-affordable-housing-in-chicago-0409-20210412-tzcbnjsslbdoxmnwdo27h7lehi-story.html) is shy 120,000 units of needed housing, for example. \n\n\nHowever, the movement to retrofit office buildings into apartments is moving slowly, and only creating at best a few thousand units in most places. \n\n\nBecause cities are not taking this opportunity to drive the creation of significant housing recreation, these buildings are going to sit empty and dilapidated through disuse rather than be used to solve the immediate housing crisis -- a solution that would be better for downtown businesses, for residents, and for the city as a whole.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cndht","parent_id":null,"score":71,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The WFH movement post-COVID presents a unique historic opportunity to address housing availability and cost in US cities that will be missed","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cndht/cmv_the_wfh_movement_postcovid_presents_a_unique/"},{"author":"Hack874","body":"It is too prohibitively expensive to transform massive office buildings into segmented living quarters and have it be a net-positive economically. It might technically increase housing availability, but not in an affordable way.\n\nAn excerpt from [this article](https://slate.com/business/2022/12/office-housing-conversion-downtown-twitter-beds.html) gives a good example:\n\n>Finally, converting buildings to residential use is expensive. Couple that with the fact that office rents are higher per square foot than residential rents are, and you see why developers aren’t champing at the bit to get new projects underway. Van Nieuwerburgh gave me an example from San Francisco, where Juul’s old headquarters—down the block from Twitter’s improvised dormitory—is for sale for $150 million. That’s a lot less than the $397 million the embattled nicotine vape company paid for it in 2019. But at $400 a square foot to buy and another $400 a square foot to renovate, he said, **the conversion would still produce a building with rents too high even for San Francisco.** In other words, offices may be down, but they’ll have to fall a lot further before adaptive reuse becomes a bargain.\n\nand\n\n>It takes almost as much money to convert an old building to residential as it does to build a new one from scratch. No one will do it unless the price is right.\n\nThe fact that only a small fraction of the office buildings are *totally* empty and ready for conversion is arguably an even bigger obstacle.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf32lg8","parent_id":"12cndht","score":6,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"kingpatzer","body":"Office buildings are empty. While it would be expensive to retrofit office towers into housing, it is possible. There's just a significant up-front cost. \n\n\nHowever, with numerous businesses not having workers in the office anymore, numerous towers in large cities are almost fully void of people, even if much of the space may still be rented. \n\n\nMost major cities are short of affordable housing, leading to considerable increases in housing costs. [Chicago](https://www.chicagotribune.com/real-estate/ct-re-affordable-housing-in-chicago-0409-20210412-tzcbnjsslbdoxmnwdo27h7lehi-story.html) is shy 120,000 units of needed housing, for example. \n\n\nHowever, the movement to retrofit office buildings into apartments is moving slowly, and only creating at best a few thousand units in most places. \n\n\nBecause cities are not taking this opportunity to drive the creation of significant housing recreation, these buildings are going to sit empty and dilapidated through disuse rather than be used to solve the immediate housing crisis -- a solution that would be better for downtown businesses, for residents, and for the city as a whole.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cndht","parent_id":null,"score":71,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The WFH movement post-COVID presents a unique historic opportunity to address housing availability and cost in US cities that will be missed","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cndht/cmv_the_wfh_movement_postcovid_presents_a_unique/"},{"author":"timmy_throw","body":"There is a main problem with this : office buildings aren't empty, mainly because most companies are pushing for return to office. You can blame office culture, think it's bullshit or true, it doesn't really matter for this argument.\n\nEven in a country with strong worker rights, companies mainly offer hybrid schedules anyway.\n\nWith that said there's an additional hurdle to your plan to retrofit buildings : the government needs to incentivize WFH, simply. Breaking that office culture would be needed to get truly empty buildings thanks to WFH, and for that companies need incentives, which can't come only from the worker side (as we can witness with companies pushing RTO).","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf3izhc","parent_id":"12cndht","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"kingpatzer","body":"Office buildings are empty. While it would be expensive to retrofit office towers into housing, it is possible. There's just a significant up-front cost. \n\n\nHowever, with numerous businesses not having workers in the office anymore, numerous towers in large cities are almost fully void of people, even if much of the space may still be rented. \n\n\nMost major cities are short of affordable housing, leading to considerable increases in housing costs. [Chicago](https://www.chicagotribune.com/real-estate/ct-re-affordable-housing-in-chicago-0409-20210412-tzcbnjsslbdoxmnwdo27h7lehi-story.html) is shy 120,000 units of needed housing, for example. \n\n\nHowever, the movement to retrofit office buildings into apartments is moving slowly, and only creating at best a few thousand units in most places. \n\n\nBecause cities are not taking this opportunity to drive the creation of significant housing recreation, these buildings are going to sit empty and dilapidated through disuse rather than be used to solve the immediate housing crisis -- a solution that would be better for downtown businesses, for residents, and for the city as a whole.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cndht","parent_id":null,"score":71,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The WFH movement post-COVID presents a unique historic opportunity to address housing availability and cost in US cities that will be missed","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cndht/cmv_the_wfh_movement_postcovid_presents_a_unique/"},{"author":"oldrocketscientist","body":"I don’t understand the financial model you’re proposing. Who pays?","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf40n7k","parent_id":"12cndht","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"kingpatzer","body":"Office buildings are empty. While it would be expensive to retrofit office towers into housing, it is possible. There's just a significant up-front cost. \n\n\nHowever, with numerous businesses not having workers in the office anymore, numerous towers in large cities are almost fully void of people, even if much of the space may still be rented. \n\n\nMost major cities are short of affordable housing, leading to considerable increases in housing costs. [Chicago](https://www.chicagotribune.com/real-estate/ct-re-affordable-housing-in-chicago-0409-20210412-tzcbnjsslbdoxmnwdo27h7lehi-story.html) is shy 120,000 units of needed housing, for example. \n\n\nHowever, the movement to retrofit office buildings into apartments is moving slowly, and only creating at best a few thousand units in most places. \n\n\nBecause cities are not taking this opportunity to drive the creation of significant housing recreation, these buildings are going to sit empty and dilapidated through disuse rather than be used to solve the immediate housing crisis -- a solution that would be better for downtown businesses, for residents, and for the city as a whole.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cndht","parent_id":null,"score":71,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The WFH movement post-COVID presents a unique historic opportunity to address housing availability and cost in US cities that will be missed","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cndht/cmv_the_wfh_movement_postcovid_presents_a_unique/"},{"author":"HybridVigor","body":">unique\n\nThere will be other pandemics. H5N1 [has been spreading](https://www.aphis.usda.gov/aphis/ourfocus/animalhealth/animal-disease-information/avian/avian-influenza/hpai-2022/2022-hpai-wild-birds) for the past two years, jumping to other mammals like sea lions and even a dog (who ate a Canadian goose). Eight billion people traveling extensively and living mostly in high density population centers makes future pandemics a certainty.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf48ghx","parent_id":"12cndht","score":3,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"kingpatzer","body":"Office buildings are empty. While it would be expensive to retrofit office towers into housing, it is possible. There's just a significant up-front cost. \n\n\nHowever, with numerous businesses not having workers in the office anymore, numerous towers in large cities are almost fully void of people, even if much of the space may still be rented. \n\n\nMost major cities are short of affordable housing, leading to considerable increases in housing costs. [Chicago](https://www.chicagotribune.com/real-estate/ct-re-affordable-housing-in-chicago-0409-20210412-tzcbnjsslbdoxmnwdo27h7lehi-story.html) is shy 120,000 units of needed housing, for example. \n\n\nHowever, the movement to retrofit office buildings into apartments is moving slowly, and only creating at best a few thousand units in most places. \n\n\nBecause cities are not taking this opportunity to drive the creation of significant housing recreation, these buildings are going to sit empty and dilapidated through disuse rather than be used to solve the immediate housing crisis -- a solution that would be better for downtown businesses, for residents, and for the city as a whole.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cndht","parent_id":null,"score":71,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The WFH movement post-COVID presents a unique historic opportunity to address housing availability and cost in US cities that will be missed","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cndht/cmv_the_wfh_movement_postcovid_presents_a_unique/"},{"author":"LtPowers","body":"This was already happening before the pandemic in my city.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"jf4wtdq","parent_id":"12cndht","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"kingpatzer","body":"Office buildings are empty. While it would be expensive to retrofit office towers into housing, it is possible. There's just a significant up-front cost. \n\n\nHowever, with numerous businesses not having workers in the office anymore, numerous towers in large cities are almost fully void of people, even if much of the space may still be rented. \n\n\nMost major cities are short of affordable housing, leading to considerable increases in housing costs. [Chicago](https://www.chicagotribune.com/real-estate/ct-re-affordable-housing-in-chicago-0409-20210412-tzcbnjsslbdoxmnwdo27h7lehi-story.html) is shy 120,000 units of needed housing, for example. \n\n\nHowever, the movement to retrofit office buildings into apartments is moving slowly, and only creating at best a few thousand units in most places. \n\n\nBecause cities are not taking this opportunity to drive the creation of significant housing recreation, these buildings are going to sit empty and dilapidated through disuse rather than be used to solve the immediate housing crisis -- a solution that would be better for downtown businesses, for residents, and for the city as a whole.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cndht","parent_id":null,"score":71,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The WFH movement post-COVID presents a unique historic opportunity to address housing availability and cost in US cities that will be missed","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cndht/cmv_the_wfh_movement_postcovid_presents_a_unique/"},{"author":"Coooo8","body":"One big issue is that the WFH thing is \"supposed to\" be temporary. I actually agree with you that this would be a great opportunity, and that working from home is overall a smarter option in jobs that make it plausible, but I just don't see this change becoming permanent.\n\nEvery WFH job my roommate or I have worked has had some kind of onsite requirement. Sometimes it was \"come in 2x a week\" or \"come in to pick up this computer equipment for your home office\". Even if the buildings aren't being used the same way, they're still being occupied and used as storage, at the very least.\n\nOne company I worked for even went by metrics. Only the best of the best could WFH full time. The rest of us had to come in 3x a week and could work from home twice. It was supremely stupid, but our manager took great and obvious joy in lording that over us. I have a hard time believing that my GEICO supervisor, cartoonishly evil as she was, is the worst office manager in the country. I have a feeling this shit is happening all over, which means no reform is going to happen until we reform office culture permanently.","date":"2023-04-06","id":"jf6b8mv","parent_id":"12cndht","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"kingpatzer","body":">Every WFH job my roommate or I have worked has had some kind of onsite requirement.\n\nIn my industry (techology consulting) on-sites are only for when we need to be hands-on with physical equipment. This was true for \\~70% of our clients before COVID, but a few did want people to be physically in the building. Post-COVID everyone knows that it's better to hire more engineers than to pay for planes, hotels and meals.\n\nThe only people traveling now are people in leadership roles who have to interface with the client, business development types, and people on the creative side doing collaborative work. \n\n\nAnd I really can't see that changing. The cost savings are just too real. It also broadened our recruiting footprint to a much larger part of the country, since people no longer need to live within easy driving distance of a major airport.","date":"2023-04-06","id":"jf6i1nt","parent_id":"jf6b8mv","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"kingpatzer","body":"Office buildings are empty. While it would be expensive to retrofit office towers into housing, it is possible. There's just a significant up-front cost. \n\n\nHowever, with numerous businesses not having workers in the office anymore, numerous towers in large cities are almost fully void of people, even if much of the space may still be rented. \n\n\nMost major cities are short of affordable housing, leading to considerable increases in housing costs. [Chicago](https://www.chicagotribune.com/real-estate/ct-re-affordable-housing-in-chicago-0409-20210412-tzcbnjsslbdoxmnwdo27h7lehi-story.html) is shy 120,000 units of needed housing, for example. \n\n\nHowever, the movement to retrofit office buildings into apartments is moving slowly, and only creating at best a few thousand units in most places. \n\n\nBecause cities are not taking this opportunity to drive the creation of significant housing recreation, these buildings are going to sit empty and dilapidated through disuse rather than be used to solve the immediate housing crisis -- a solution that would be better for downtown businesses, for residents, and for the city as a whole.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cndht","parent_id":null,"score":71,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The WFH movement post-COVID presents a unique historic opportunity to address housing availability and cost in US cities that will be missed","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cndht/cmv_the_wfh_movement_postcovid_presents_a_unique/"},{"author":"sbennett21","body":"I suspect zoning is a big problem here, depending on the city and area. (Well, I think it's a huge problem with the housing shortage in general, but specifically for this, too.)","date":"2023-04-06","id":"jf7meo1","parent_id":"12cndht","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"kingpatzer","body":"Office buildings are empty. While it would be expensive to retrofit office towers into housing, it is possible. There's just a significant up-front cost. \n\n\nHowever, with numerous businesses not having workers in the office anymore, numerous towers in large cities are almost fully void of people, even if much of the space may still be rented. \n\n\nMost major cities are short of affordable housing, leading to considerable increases in housing costs. [Chicago](https://www.chicagotribune.com/real-estate/ct-re-affordable-housing-in-chicago-0409-20210412-tzcbnjsslbdoxmnwdo27h7lehi-story.html) is shy 120,000 units of needed housing, for example. \n\n\nHowever, the movement to retrofit office buildings into apartments is moving slowly, and only creating at best a few thousand units in most places. \n\n\nBecause cities are not taking this opportunity to drive the creation of significant housing recreation, these buildings are going to sit empty and dilapidated through disuse rather than be used to solve the immediate housing crisis -- a solution that would be better for downtown businesses, for residents, and for the city as a whole.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cndht","parent_id":null,"score":71,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The WFH movement post-COVID presents a unique historic opportunity to address housing availability and cost in US cities that will be missed","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cndht/cmv_the_wfh_movement_postcovid_presents_a_unique/"},{"author":"SometimesRight10","body":"Not sure what problem you are trying to solve. Is it a lack of housing, or a inability of people to afford the *available* housing? If affordability is the problem, I would prefer direct cash payments to people who cannot afford the housing. I don't believe there is a shortage of housing. If there is demand, the housing will get built, it's just a question of price.\n\nI don't want the government otherwise interfering with the market. They usually create more problems than than they solve.","date":"2023-04-06","id":"jf8pnou","parent_id":"12cndht","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"kingpatzer","body":"Office buildings are empty. While it would be expensive to retrofit office towers into housing, it is possible. There's just a significant up-front cost. \n\n\nHowever, with numerous businesses not having workers in the office anymore, numerous towers in large cities are almost fully void of people, even if much of the space may still be rented. \n\n\nMost major cities are short of affordable housing, leading to considerable increases in housing costs. [Chicago](https://www.chicagotribune.com/real-estate/ct-re-affordable-housing-in-chicago-0409-20210412-tzcbnjsslbdoxmnwdo27h7lehi-story.html) is shy 120,000 units of needed housing, for example. \n\n\nHowever, the movement to retrofit office buildings into apartments is moving slowly, and only creating at best a few thousand units in most places. \n\n\nBecause cities are not taking this opportunity to drive the creation of significant housing recreation, these buildings are going to sit empty and dilapidated through disuse rather than be used to solve the immediate housing crisis -- a solution that would be better for downtown businesses, for residents, and for the city as a whole.","date":"2023-04-05","id":"12cndht","parent_id":null,"score":71,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The WFH movement post-COVID presents a unique historic opportunity to address housing availability and cost in US cities that will be missed","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12cndht/cmv_the_wfh_movement_postcovid_presents_a_unique/"},{"author":"KSDFKASSRKJRAJKFNDFK","body":"Why do you keep thinking of ways to fit millions into cities?\n\nWhy not WFH-ers to live in some rural bum fuck nowhere to spread the people out?","date":"2023-04-07","id":"jfcp4om","parent_id":"12cndht","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}]],"string":"[\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"kingpatzer\",\n \"body\": \"Office buildings are empty. While it would be expensive to retrofit office towers into housing, it is possible. There's just a significant up-front cost. \\n\\n\\nHowever, with numerous businesses not having workers in the office anymore, numerous towers in large cities are almost fully void of people, even if much of the space may still be rented. \\n\\n\\nMost major cities are short of affordable housing, leading to considerable increases in housing costs. [Chicago](https://www.chicagotribune.com/real-estate/ct-re-affordable-housing-in-chicago-0409-20210412-tzcbnjsslbdoxmnwdo27h7lehi-story.html) is shy 120,000 units of needed housing, for example. \\n\\n\\nHowever, the movement to retrofit office buildings into apartments is moving slowly, and only creating at best a few thousand units in most places. \\n\\n\\nBecause cities are not taking this opportunity to drive the creation of significant housing recreation, these buildings are going to sit empty and dilapidated through disuse rather than be used to solve the immediate housing crisis -- a solution that would be better for downtown businesses, for residents, and for the city as a whole.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cndht\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 71,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The WFH movement post-COVID presents a unique historic opportunity to address housing availability and cost in US cities that will be missed\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cndht/cmv_the_wfh_movement_postcovid_presents_a_unique/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"onetwo3four5\",\n \"body\": \"I'm too lazy to look up the statistics, but housing availability isn't really limited by the existence of physical homes. There are enough vacant houses and apartments in the US to provide a home for every homeless or housing insecure person. There just isn't the political will and funding to pay for it. I don't think the existence of vacant office space matters here. If we have the will and/or funding to pay to house people, the houses already exist, we don't need to retrofit offices to do it.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf26604\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cndht\",\n \"score\": 8,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"monty845\",\n \"body\": \"Sure, but shipping off homeless people from Los Angeles, to rural states with cheap housing, without a plan for how those people are going to support themselves in the new location, isn't really a solution.\\n\\nThe housing crisis in the US is that there aren't enough houses in the places with high demand, which covers the entire commuting distances from a number of major cities.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf26uch\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jf26604\",\n \"score\": 9,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"kingpatzer\",\n \"body\": \"Office buildings are empty. While it would be expensive to retrofit office towers into housing, it is possible. There's just a significant up-front cost. \\n\\n\\nHowever, with numerous businesses not having workers in the office anymore, numerous towers in large cities are almost fully void of people, even if much of the space may still be rented. \\n\\n\\nMost major cities are short of affordable housing, leading to considerable increases in housing costs. [Chicago](https://www.chicagotribune.com/real-estate/ct-re-affordable-housing-in-chicago-0409-20210412-tzcbnjsslbdoxmnwdo27h7lehi-story.html) is shy 120,000 units of needed housing, for example. \\n\\n\\nHowever, the movement to retrofit office buildings into apartments is moving slowly, and only creating at best a few thousand units in most places. \\n\\n\\nBecause cities are not taking this opportunity to drive the creation of significant housing recreation, these buildings are going to sit empty and dilapidated through disuse rather than be used to solve the immediate housing crisis -- a solution that would be better for downtown businesses, for residents, and for the city as a whole.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cndht\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 71,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The WFH movement post-COVID presents a unique historic opportunity to address housing availability and cost in US cities that will be missed\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cndht/cmv_the_wfh_movement_postcovid_presents_a_unique/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"shadowbca\",\n \"body\": \"The biggest issue isn't so much that it's not happening but more so that when buildings are retrofitted they aren't made into affordable housing but instead into expensive housing.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf26ak8\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cndht\",\n \"score\": 5,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"kingpatzer\",\n \"body\": \"I haven't even seen that happening at any scale where I am. But even if it was made into expensive housing -- if supply exceeds demand, then all housing will get less expensive.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf28cyv\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jf26ak8\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"kingpatzer\",\n \"body\": \"Office buildings are empty. While it would be expensive to retrofit office towers into housing, it is possible. There's just a significant up-front cost. \\n\\n\\nHowever, with numerous businesses not having workers in the office anymore, numerous towers in large cities are almost fully void of people, even if much of the space may still be rented. \\n\\n\\nMost major cities are short of affordable housing, leading to considerable increases in housing costs. [Chicago](https://www.chicagotribune.com/real-estate/ct-re-affordable-housing-in-chicago-0409-20210412-tzcbnjsslbdoxmnwdo27h7lehi-story.html) is shy 120,000 units of needed housing, for example. \\n\\n\\nHowever, the movement to retrofit office buildings into apartments is moving slowly, and only creating at best a few thousand units in most places. \\n\\n\\nBecause cities are not taking this opportunity to drive the creation of significant housing recreation, these buildings are going to sit empty and dilapidated through disuse rather than be used to solve the immediate housing crisis -- a solution that would be better for downtown businesses, for residents, and for the city as a whole.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cndht\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 71,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The WFH movement post-COVID presents a unique historic opportunity to address housing availability and cost in US cities that will be missed\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cndht/cmv_the_wfh_movement_postcovid_presents_a_unique/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"VVillyD\",\n \"body\": \"The problem with turning office buildings into housing is that it's often more expensive than building an entire new apartment complex from the ground up. Office buildings are simply not built in a way which makes them easily changed into housing.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf2b9ca\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cndht\",\n \"score\": 11,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"kingpatzer\",\n \"body\": \"Office buildings are empty. While it would be expensive to retrofit office towers into housing, it is possible. There's just a significant up-front cost. \\n\\n\\nHowever, with numerous businesses not having workers in the office anymore, numerous towers in large cities are almost fully void of people, even if much of the space may still be rented. \\n\\n\\nMost major cities are short of affordable housing, leading to considerable increases in housing costs. [Chicago](https://www.chicagotribune.com/real-estate/ct-re-affordable-housing-in-chicago-0409-20210412-tzcbnjsslbdoxmnwdo27h7lehi-story.html) is shy 120,000 units of needed housing, for example. \\n\\n\\nHowever, the movement to retrofit office buildings into apartments is moving slowly, and only creating at best a few thousand units in most places. \\n\\n\\nBecause cities are not taking this opportunity to drive the creation of significant housing recreation, these buildings are going to sit empty and dilapidated through disuse rather than be used to solve the immediate housing crisis -- a solution that would be better for downtown businesses, for residents, and for the city as a whole.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cndht\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 71,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The WFH movement post-COVID presents a unique historic opportunity to address housing availability and cost in US cities that will be missed\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cndht/cmv_the_wfh_movement_postcovid_presents_a_unique/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"finderfolk\",\n \"body\": \"There's a few reasons that this is unlikely to lead to an increase in *affordable* housing.\\n\\n*First Problem*\\n\\n Imagine you own the title to 'Tower X' which used to house a law firm (and maybe one or two subtenants). Law firm decides to bail and goes partially WeWork or something. The previous commercial lease was probably quite long, and it's likely that significant works need to be done (\\\"shell and core\\\") to bring the building up to scratch. \\n\\nFrom a commercial perspective, you are much more likely to pre-let the property to a high end property manager (or another similar business) than you are to a mid-range company. Why? Because (i) you don't want to be dealing with too many parties and (ii) they can afford it. You want someone who's willing to nearly take a 'lease of whole'. \\n\\n*Second Problem*\\n\\nLocation. Most of the convertible office space will be central, so the price per square meter will be very high. As a freeholder you just aren't going to generate a good return (to the point where you'd be better off just selling the land).\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf2emb6\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cndht\",\n \"score\": 3,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"kingpatzer\",\n \"body\": \">take a 'lease of whole'.\\n\\nThat demand doesn't exist, though. Companies are finding across the board they don't need the level of office space they did pre-COVID. \\n\\n>you just aren't going to generate a good return (to the point where you'd be better off just selling the land).\\n\\nTo who and for what purpose? The demand for office space in inner cities is dropping not increasing.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf2kpwz\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jf2emb6\",\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"kingpatzer\",\n \"body\": \"Office buildings are empty. While it would be expensive to retrofit office towers into housing, it is possible. There's just a significant up-front cost. \\n\\n\\nHowever, with numerous businesses not having workers in the office anymore, numerous towers in large cities are almost fully void of people, even if much of the space may still be rented. \\n\\n\\nMost major cities are short of affordable housing, leading to considerable increases in housing costs. [Chicago](https://www.chicagotribune.com/real-estate/ct-re-affordable-housing-in-chicago-0409-20210412-tzcbnjsslbdoxmnwdo27h7lehi-story.html) is shy 120,000 units of needed housing, for example. \\n\\n\\nHowever, the movement to retrofit office buildings into apartments is moving slowly, and only creating at best a few thousand units in most places. \\n\\n\\nBecause cities are not taking this opportunity to drive the creation of significant housing recreation, these buildings are going to sit empty and dilapidated through disuse rather than be used to solve the immediate housing crisis -- a solution that would be better for downtown businesses, for residents, and for the city as a whole.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cndht\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 71,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The WFH movement post-COVID presents a unique historic opportunity to address housing availability and cost in US cities that will be missed\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cndht/cmv_the_wfh_movement_postcovid_presents_a_unique/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"NotaMaiTai\",\n \"body\": \">Office buildings are empty. While it would be expensive to retrofit office towers into housing, it is possible. There's just a significant up-front cost.\\n\\nWith many modern office buildings, the construction of the entire building is so different that it would in many cases he easier to destroy the existing building and start over. Depending on the group performing the assessment I've seen between 20-35% of office buildings in major cities being suitable for conversion.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf2f7av\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cndht\",\n \"score\": 5,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"kingpatzer\",\n \"body\": \"Office buildings are empty. While it would be expensive to retrofit office towers into housing, it is possible. There's just a significant up-front cost. \\n\\n\\nHowever, with numerous businesses not having workers in the office anymore, numerous towers in large cities are almost fully void of people, even if much of the space may still be rented. \\n\\n\\nMost major cities are short of affordable housing, leading to considerable increases in housing costs. [Chicago](https://www.chicagotribune.com/real-estate/ct-re-affordable-housing-in-chicago-0409-20210412-tzcbnjsslbdoxmnwdo27h7lehi-story.html) is shy 120,000 units of needed housing, for example. \\n\\n\\nHowever, the movement to retrofit office buildings into apartments is moving slowly, and only creating at best a few thousand units in most places. \\n\\n\\nBecause cities are not taking this opportunity to drive the creation of significant housing recreation, these buildings are going to sit empty and dilapidated through disuse rather than be used to solve the immediate housing crisis -- a solution that would be better for downtown businesses, for residents, and for the city as a whole.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cndht\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 71,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The WFH movement post-COVID presents a unique historic opportunity to address housing availability and cost in US cities that will be missed\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cndht/cmv_the_wfh_movement_postcovid_presents_a_unique/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"hacksoncode\",\n \"body\": \"Is it an opportunity at all, though? \\n\\nThe reason salaries are high in high cost of living areas is because the cost of living is high. \\n\\nI see exactly zero reason why companies would continue to pay high salaries to people living in low CoL areas... they wouldn't have to. \\n\\nAnd in the mean time, people end up living in less desirable areas with the same level of affordability as the desirable ones. Would this actually happen to a sufficiently significant degree? I think not. \\n\\nBTW, it's evident they don't have to, or outsourcing wouldn't be a thing given the extra costs of remote management. \\n\\nAll this would do is spread the misery farther.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf2kyz5\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cndht\",\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"kingpatzer\",\n \"body\": \"Office buildings are empty. While it would be expensive to retrofit office towers into housing, it is possible. There's just a significant up-front cost. \\n\\n\\nHowever, with numerous businesses not having workers in the office anymore, numerous towers in large cities are almost fully void of people, even if much of the space may still be rented. \\n\\n\\nMost major cities are short of affordable housing, leading to considerable increases in housing costs. [Chicago](https://www.chicagotribune.com/real-estate/ct-re-affordable-housing-in-chicago-0409-20210412-tzcbnjsslbdoxmnwdo27h7lehi-story.html) is shy 120,000 units of needed housing, for example. \\n\\n\\nHowever, the movement to retrofit office buildings into apartments is moving slowly, and only creating at best a few thousand units in most places. \\n\\n\\nBecause cities are not taking this opportunity to drive the creation of significant housing recreation, these buildings are going to sit empty and dilapidated through disuse rather than be used to solve the immediate housing crisis -- a solution that would be better for downtown businesses, for residents, and for the city as a whole.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cndht\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 71,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The WFH movement post-COVID presents a unique historic opportunity to address housing availability and cost in US cities that will be missed\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cndht/cmv_the_wfh_movement_postcovid_presents_a_unique/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"rickitikkitavi\",\n \"body\": \"What WFH showed us is that people no longer need to live in cities to work and that we no longer need to argue over upzoning urban neighborhoods\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf2vmp3\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cndht\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"kingpatzer\",\n \"body\": \"So, is your proposal to force people to live in places they don't want to live? \\n\\n\\nYes, people who can afford to purchase homes are moving out of cities. But that is not everyone who lives in a city, nor is it everyone who wants to live in one. \\n\\n\\nSolutions to social problems actually have to have some level of respect for the people of society, else they aren't really solutions.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf2x025\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jf2vmp3\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"kingpatzer\",\n \"body\": \"Office buildings are empty. While it would be expensive to retrofit office towers into housing, it is possible. There's just a significant up-front cost. \\n\\n\\nHowever, with numerous businesses not having workers in the office anymore, numerous towers in large cities are almost fully void of people, even if much of the space may still be rented. \\n\\n\\nMost major cities are short of affordable housing, leading to considerable increases in housing costs. [Chicago](https://www.chicagotribune.com/real-estate/ct-re-affordable-housing-in-chicago-0409-20210412-tzcbnjsslbdoxmnwdo27h7lehi-story.html) is shy 120,000 units of needed housing, for example. \\n\\n\\nHowever, the movement to retrofit office buildings into apartments is moving slowly, and only creating at best a few thousand units in most places. \\n\\n\\nBecause cities are not taking this opportunity to drive the creation of significant housing recreation, these buildings are going to sit empty and dilapidated through disuse rather than be used to solve the immediate housing crisis -- a solution that would be better for downtown businesses, for residents, and for the city as a whole.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cndht\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 71,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The WFH movement post-COVID presents a unique historic opportunity to address housing availability and cost in US cities that will be missed\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cndht/cmv_the_wfh_movement_postcovid_presents_a_unique/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"MoSChuin\",\n \"body\": \"Your theory ignores a massive point. Most homelessness is because of chemical addiction and/or mental illness. \\n\\nEven if you did pay to put your ambitious plan into work, it's destined to fail, and hurt more people. Addiction is a progressive disease, so if you make it easier, it inflames the already overinflated ego and make it easier for them to take more and more drugs. It's called 'Loving them to Death'. \\n\\nCrime spikes where this happens too. People desperate to get their next fix do not think twice about stealing to make it happen. It's actually a symptom of their disease. \\n\\nThe hardest part to understand is that people caught in addiction won't change their lives until they are sick and tired of themselves. Most people think, you're homeless, isn't that enough to start changing? And for some, that's a resounding no. Completely inexplicable, but until their hearts are open to change, it progressively gets worse and worse. \\n\\nI was homeless for a very brief time, and getting free converted housing would've been the worst possible thing. It would've hurt me more than helped me. It would've kept me in my disease, and wouldn't have opened my heart to change.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf2zgq6\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cndht\",\n \"score\": 3,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"kingpatzer\",\n \"body\": \">Most homelessness is because of chemical addiction and/or mental illness.\\n\\n​\\n\\nYou're mistaken.\\n\\nThe data from the U.S. Conference of Mayors and other researchers shows that the primary causes of homelessness, in order, are:\\n\\n1. Stagnant wages\\n2. Unemployment\\n3. Lack of affordable housing\\n4. Lack of affordable healthcare / healthcare related bankruptcy\\n5. General poverty\\n6. Lack of mental health and addiction treatment services\\n7. Domestic violence (this is a much higher cause of homelessness for women specifically)\\n8. Family conflict\\n9. Systemic failures\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf35f50\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jf2zgq6\",\n \"score\": 3,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"kingpatzer\",\n \"body\": \"Office buildings are empty. While it would be expensive to retrofit office towers into housing, it is possible. There's just a significant up-front cost. \\n\\n\\nHowever, with numerous businesses not having workers in the office anymore, numerous towers in large cities are almost fully void of people, even if much of the space may still be rented. \\n\\n\\nMost major cities are short of affordable housing, leading to considerable increases in housing costs. [Chicago](https://www.chicagotribune.com/real-estate/ct-re-affordable-housing-in-chicago-0409-20210412-tzcbnjsslbdoxmnwdo27h7lehi-story.html) is shy 120,000 units of needed housing, for example. \\n\\n\\nHowever, the movement to retrofit office buildings into apartments is moving slowly, and only creating at best a few thousand units in most places. \\n\\n\\nBecause cities are not taking this opportunity to drive the creation of significant housing recreation, these buildings are going to sit empty and dilapidated through disuse rather than be used to solve the immediate housing crisis -- a solution that would be better for downtown businesses, for residents, and for the city as a whole.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cndht\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 71,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The WFH movement post-COVID presents a unique historic opportunity to address housing availability and cost in US cities that will be missed\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cndht/cmv_the_wfh_movement_postcovid_presents_a_unique/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Hack874\",\n \"body\": \"It is too prohibitively expensive to transform massive office buildings into segmented living quarters and have it be a net-positive economically. It might technically increase housing availability, but not in an affordable way.\\n\\nAn excerpt from [this article](https://slate.com/business/2022/12/office-housing-conversion-downtown-twitter-beds.html) gives a good example:\\n\\n>Finally, converting buildings to residential use is expensive. Couple that with the fact that office rents are higher per square foot than residential rents are, and you see why developers aren’t champing at the bit to get new projects underway. Van Nieuwerburgh gave me an example from San Francisco, where Juul’s old headquarters—down the block from Twitter’s improvised dormitory—is for sale for $150 million. That’s a lot less than the $397 million the embattled nicotine vape company paid for it in 2019. But at $400 a square foot to buy and another $400 a square foot to renovate, he said, **the conversion would still produce a building with rents too high even for San Francisco.** In other words, offices may be down, but they’ll have to fall a lot further before adaptive reuse becomes a bargain.\\n\\nand\\n\\n>It takes almost as much money to convert an old building to residential as it does to build a new one from scratch. No one will do it unless the price is right.\\n\\nThe fact that only a small fraction of the office buildings are *totally* empty and ready for conversion is arguably an even bigger obstacle.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf32lg8\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cndht\",\n \"score\": 6,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"kingpatzer\",\n \"body\": \"Office buildings are empty. While it would be expensive to retrofit office towers into housing, it is possible. There's just a significant up-front cost. \\n\\n\\nHowever, with numerous businesses not having workers in the office anymore, numerous towers in large cities are almost fully void of people, even if much of the space may still be rented. \\n\\n\\nMost major cities are short of affordable housing, leading to considerable increases in housing costs. [Chicago](https://www.chicagotribune.com/real-estate/ct-re-affordable-housing-in-chicago-0409-20210412-tzcbnjsslbdoxmnwdo27h7lehi-story.html) is shy 120,000 units of needed housing, for example. \\n\\n\\nHowever, the movement to retrofit office buildings into apartments is moving slowly, and only creating at best a few thousand units in most places. \\n\\n\\nBecause cities are not taking this opportunity to drive the creation of significant housing recreation, these buildings are going to sit empty and dilapidated through disuse rather than be used to solve the immediate housing crisis -- a solution that would be better for downtown businesses, for residents, and for the city as a whole.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cndht\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 71,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The WFH movement post-COVID presents a unique historic opportunity to address housing availability and cost in US cities that will be missed\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cndht/cmv_the_wfh_movement_postcovid_presents_a_unique/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"timmy_throw\",\n \"body\": \"There is a main problem with this : office buildings aren't empty, mainly because most companies are pushing for return to office. You can blame office culture, think it's bullshit or true, it doesn't really matter for this argument.\\n\\nEven in a country with strong worker rights, companies mainly offer hybrid schedules anyway.\\n\\nWith that said there's an additional hurdle to your plan to retrofit buildings : the government needs to incentivize WFH, simply. Breaking that office culture would be needed to get truly empty buildings thanks to WFH, and for that companies need incentives, which can't come only from the worker side (as we can witness with companies pushing RTO).\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf3izhc\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cndht\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"kingpatzer\",\n \"body\": \"Office buildings are empty. While it would be expensive to retrofit office towers into housing, it is possible. There's just a significant up-front cost. \\n\\n\\nHowever, with numerous businesses not having workers in the office anymore, numerous towers in large cities are almost fully void of people, even if much of the space may still be rented. \\n\\n\\nMost major cities are short of affordable housing, leading to considerable increases in housing costs. [Chicago](https://www.chicagotribune.com/real-estate/ct-re-affordable-housing-in-chicago-0409-20210412-tzcbnjsslbdoxmnwdo27h7lehi-story.html) is shy 120,000 units of needed housing, for example. \\n\\n\\nHowever, the movement to retrofit office buildings into apartments is moving slowly, and only creating at best a few thousand units in most places. \\n\\n\\nBecause cities are not taking this opportunity to drive the creation of significant housing recreation, these buildings are going to sit empty and dilapidated through disuse rather than be used to solve the immediate housing crisis -- a solution that would be better for downtown businesses, for residents, and for the city as a whole.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cndht\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 71,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The WFH movement post-COVID presents a unique historic opportunity to address housing availability and cost in US cities that will be missed\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cndht/cmv_the_wfh_movement_postcovid_presents_a_unique/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"oldrocketscientist\",\n \"body\": \"I don’t understand the financial model you’re proposing. Who pays?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf40n7k\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cndht\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"kingpatzer\",\n \"body\": \"Office buildings are empty. While it would be expensive to retrofit office towers into housing, it is possible. There's just a significant up-front cost. \\n\\n\\nHowever, with numerous businesses not having workers in the office anymore, numerous towers in large cities are almost fully void of people, even if much of the space may still be rented. \\n\\n\\nMost major cities are short of affordable housing, leading to considerable increases in housing costs. [Chicago](https://www.chicagotribune.com/real-estate/ct-re-affordable-housing-in-chicago-0409-20210412-tzcbnjsslbdoxmnwdo27h7lehi-story.html) is shy 120,000 units of needed housing, for example. \\n\\n\\nHowever, the movement to retrofit office buildings into apartments is moving slowly, and only creating at best a few thousand units in most places. \\n\\n\\nBecause cities are not taking this opportunity to drive the creation of significant housing recreation, these buildings are going to sit empty and dilapidated through disuse rather than be used to solve the immediate housing crisis -- a solution that would be better for downtown businesses, for residents, and for the city as a whole.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cndht\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 71,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The WFH movement post-COVID presents a unique historic opportunity to address housing availability and cost in US cities that will be missed\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cndht/cmv_the_wfh_movement_postcovid_presents_a_unique/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"HybridVigor\",\n \"body\": \">unique\\n\\nThere will be other pandemics. H5N1 [has been spreading](https://www.aphis.usda.gov/aphis/ourfocus/animalhealth/animal-disease-information/avian/avian-influenza/hpai-2022/2022-hpai-wild-birds) for the past two years, jumping to other mammals like sea lions and even a dog (who ate a Canadian goose). Eight billion people traveling extensively and living mostly in high density population centers makes future pandemics a certainty.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf48ghx\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cndht\",\n \"score\": 3,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"kingpatzer\",\n \"body\": \"Office buildings are empty. While it would be expensive to retrofit office towers into housing, it is possible. There's just a significant up-front cost. \\n\\n\\nHowever, with numerous businesses not having workers in the office anymore, numerous towers in large cities are almost fully void of people, even if much of the space may still be rented. \\n\\n\\nMost major cities are short of affordable housing, leading to considerable increases in housing costs. [Chicago](https://www.chicagotribune.com/real-estate/ct-re-affordable-housing-in-chicago-0409-20210412-tzcbnjsslbdoxmnwdo27h7lehi-story.html) is shy 120,000 units of needed housing, for example. \\n\\n\\nHowever, the movement to retrofit office buildings into apartments is moving slowly, and only creating at best a few thousand units in most places. \\n\\n\\nBecause cities are not taking this opportunity to drive the creation of significant housing recreation, these buildings are going to sit empty and dilapidated through disuse rather than be used to solve the immediate housing crisis -- a solution that would be better for downtown businesses, for residents, and for the city as a whole.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cndht\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 71,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The WFH movement post-COVID presents a unique historic opportunity to address housing availability and cost in US cities that will be missed\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cndht/cmv_the_wfh_movement_postcovid_presents_a_unique/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"LtPowers\",\n \"body\": \"This was already happening before the pandemic in my city.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"jf4wtdq\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cndht\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"kingpatzer\",\n \"body\": \"Office buildings are empty. While it would be expensive to retrofit office towers into housing, it is possible. There's just a significant up-front cost. \\n\\n\\nHowever, with numerous businesses not having workers in the office anymore, numerous towers in large cities are almost fully void of people, even if much of the space may still be rented. \\n\\n\\nMost major cities are short of affordable housing, leading to considerable increases in housing costs. [Chicago](https://www.chicagotribune.com/real-estate/ct-re-affordable-housing-in-chicago-0409-20210412-tzcbnjsslbdoxmnwdo27h7lehi-story.html) is shy 120,000 units of needed housing, for example. \\n\\n\\nHowever, the movement to retrofit office buildings into apartments is moving slowly, and only creating at best a few thousand units in most places. \\n\\n\\nBecause cities are not taking this opportunity to drive the creation of significant housing recreation, these buildings are going to sit empty and dilapidated through disuse rather than be used to solve the immediate housing crisis -- a solution that would be better for downtown businesses, for residents, and for the city as a whole.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cndht\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 71,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The WFH movement post-COVID presents a unique historic opportunity to address housing availability and cost in US cities that will be missed\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cndht/cmv_the_wfh_movement_postcovid_presents_a_unique/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Coooo8\",\n \"body\": \"One big issue is that the WFH thing is \\\"supposed to\\\" be temporary. I actually agree with you that this would be a great opportunity, and that working from home is overall a smarter option in jobs that make it plausible, but I just don't see this change becoming permanent.\\n\\nEvery WFH job my roommate or I have worked has had some kind of onsite requirement. Sometimes it was \\\"come in 2x a week\\\" or \\\"come in to pick up this computer equipment for your home office\\\". Even if the buildings aren't being used the same way, they're still being occupied and used as storage, at the very least.\\n\\nOne company I worked for even went by metrics. Only the best of the best could WFH full time. The rest of us had to come in 3x a week and could work from home twice. It was supremely stupid, but our manager took great and obvious joy in lording that over us. I have a hard time believing that my GEICO supervisor, cartoonishly evil as she was, is the worst office manager in the country. I have a feeling this shit is happening all over, which means no reform is going to happen until we reform office culture permanently.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-06\",\n \"id\": \"jf6b8mv\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cndht\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"kingpatzer\",\n \"body\": \">Every WFH job my roommate or I have worked has had some kind of onsite requirement.\\n\\nIn my industry (techology consulting) on-sites are only for when we need to be hands-on with physical equipment. This was true for \\\\~70% of our clients before COVID, but a few did want people to be physically in the building. Post-COVID everyone knows that it's better to hire more engineers than to pay for planes, hotels and meals.\\n\\nThe only people traveling now are people in leadership roles who have to interface with the client, business development types, and people on the creative side doing collaborative work. \\n\\n\\nAnd I really can't see that changing. The cost savings are just too real. It also broadened our recruiting footprint to a much larger part of the country, since people no longer need to live within easy driving distance of a major airport.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-06\",\n \"id\": \"jf6i1nt\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jf6b8mv\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"kingpatzer\",\n \"body\": \"Office buildings are empty. While it would be expensive to retrofit office towers into housing, it is possible. There's just a significant up-front cost. \\n\\n\\nHowever, with numerous businesses not having workers in the office anymore, numerous towers in large cities are almost fully void of people, even if much of the space may still be rented. \\n\\n\\nMost major cities are short of affordable housing, leading to considerable increases in housing costs. [Chicago](https://www.chicagotribune.com/real-estate/ct-re-affordable-housing-in-chicago-0409-20210412-tzcbnjsslbdoxmnwdo27h7lehi-story.html) is shy 120,000 units of needed housing, for example. \\n\\n\\nHowever, the movement to retrofit office buildings into apartments is moving slowly, and only creating at best a few thousand units in most places. \\n\\n\\nBecause cities are not taking this opportunity to drive the creation of significant housing recreation, these buildings are going to sit empty and dilapidated through disuse rather than be used to solve the immediate housing crisis -- a solution that would be better for downtown businesses, for residents, and for the city as a whole.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cndht\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 71,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The WFH movement post-COVID presents a unique historic opportunity to address housing availability and cost in US cities that will be missed\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cndht/cmv_the_wfh_movement_postcovid_presents_a_unique/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"sbennett21\",\n \"body\": \"I suspect zoning is a big problem here, depending on the city and area. (Well, I think it's a huge problem with the housing shortage in general, but specifically for this, too.)\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-06\",\n \"id\": \"jf7meo1\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cndht\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"kingpatzer\",\n \"body\": \"Office buildings are empty. While it would be expensive to retrofit office towers into housing, it is possible. There's just a significant up-front cost. \\n\\n\\nHowever, with numerous businesses not having workers in the office anymore, numerous towers in large cities are almost fully void of people, even if much of the space may still be rented. \\n\\n\\nMost major cities are short of affordable housing, leading to considerable increases in housing costs. [Chicago](https://www.chicagotribune.com/real-estate/ct-re-affordable-housing-in-chicago-0409-20210412-tzcbnjsslbdoxmnwdo27h7lehi-story.html) is shy 120,000 units of needed housing, for example. \\n\\n\\nHowever, the movement to retrofit office buildings into apartments is moving slowly, and only creating at best a few thousand units in most places. \\n\\n\\nBecause cities are not taking this opportunity to drive the creation of significant housing recreation, these buildings are going to sit empty and dilapidated through disuse rather than be used to solve the immediate housing crisis -- a solution that would be better for downtown businesses, for residents, and for the city as a whole.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cndht\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 71,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The WFH movement post-COVID presents a unique historic opportunity to address housing availability and cost in US cities that will be missed\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cndht/cmv_the_wfh_movement_postcovid_presents_a_unique/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"SometimesRight10\",\n \"body\": \"Not sure what problem you are trying to solve. Is it a lack of housing, or a inability of people to afford the *available* housing? If affordability is the problem, I would prefer direct cash payments to people who cannot afford the housing. I don't believe there is a shortage of housing. If there is demand, the housing will get built, it's just a question of price.\\n\\nI don't want the government otherwise interfering with the market. They usually create more problems than than they solve.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-06\",\n \"id\": \"jf8pnou\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cndht\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"kingpatzer\",\n \"body\": \"Office buildings are empty. While it would be expensive to retrofit office towers into housing, it is possible. There's just a significant up-front cost. \\n\\n\\nHowever, with numerous businesses not having workers in the office anymore, numerous towers in large cities are almost fully void of people, even if much of the space may still be rented. \\n\\n\\nMost major cities are short of affordable housing, leading to considerable increases in housing costs. [Chicago](https://www.chicagotribune.com/real-estate/ct-re-affordable-housing-in-chicago-0409-20210412-tzcbnjsslbdoxmnwdo27h7lehi-story.html) is shy 120,000 units of needed housing, for example. \\n\\n\\nHowever, the movement to retrofit office buildings into apartments is moving slowly, and only creating at best a few thousand units in most places. \\n\\n\\nBecause cities are not taking this opportunity to drive the creation of significant housing recreation, these buildings are going to sit empty and dilapidated through disuse rather than be used to solve the immediate housing crisis -- a solution that would be better for downtown businesses, for residents, and for the city as a whole.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-05\",\n \"id\": \"12cndht\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 71,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The WFH movement post-COVID presents a unique historic opportunity to address housing availability and cost in US cities that will be missed\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12cndht/cmv_the_wfh_movement_postcovid_presents_a_unique/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"KSDFKASSRKJRAJKFNDFK\",\n \"body\": \"Why do you keep thinking of ways to fit millions into cities?\\n\\nWhy not WFH-ers to live in some rural bum fuck nowhere to spread the people out?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-07\",\n \"id\": \"jfcp4om\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12cndht\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ]\n]","isConversational":false},"2":{"kind":"string","value":"moderate"}}},{"rowIdx":35,"cells":{"0":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"Student Unions fundamentally generally represent a very left leaning pollicically correct liberal agenda. Of course, many students do support this agenda but the many who don't are not represented. Student unions are like political parties but with a monopoly. They should not use the title \"student union\".\n\nTo clarify, I am talking generally, not universally. There are exceptions everywhere. I am not claiming the student union reps are evil liars. I am not even claiming that their ideology (or \"ethos\" if you prefer) is bad in anyway - even though I fundamentally disagree with it.\n\nThe only point I am making (and care to defend) is that student unions firstly represent an ideology - not students. In so far as students sign up to the far left social ideology they are represented. Therefore, they should not be called \"student unions\".\n\nAgain, not saying student unions are intentionally bad in any way. They are just not what they say on the tin.\n\nThanks for reading. I may not be able to reply to everyone but will try to read all comments and appreciate any respectful constructive criticism.","date":"2023-04-10","id":"12hcmel","parent_id":null,"score":4,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Student Unions do not represent students","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12hcmel/cmv_student_unions_do_not_represent_students/"},{"author":"lascivious_boasts","body":"Every student union I've ever observed has its direction and policies either voted for at a general meeting, or has policy determined by representatives who are elected by a general election. \n\nBy their nature, a body which controls finances or provision of services must make some political decisions. The elected representatives can be held accountable by further elections and recall. \n\nSo if there was a general misrepresentation of students' views, alternative people would be elected and the political direction of a union would change.","date":"2023-04-10","id":"jfobnck","parent_id":"12hcmel","score":34,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"Good point, thank you :) I guess, if the body is elected (I guess it usually is) then the union is created by the students themselves. It is possible that many students are simply not interested in the union and don't contribute to reforming it - or maybe they are afraid of being shamed for not subscribing to the current ideology. So yes, although I still don't think SUs represent students in general, I can now say that they probably represent students who have an interest in developing the union (whatever their background). \n\nΔ","date":"2023-04-10","id":"jfobtp9","parent_id":"jfobnck","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"DeltaBot","body":"Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/lascivious_boasts ([11∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/lascivious_boasts)).\n\n^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)","date":"2023-04-10","id":"jfoc48m","parent_id":"jfobtp9","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],"string":"[\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"Student Unions fundamentally generally represent a very left leaning pollicically correct liberal agenda. Of course, many students do support this agenda but the many who don't are not represented. Student unions are like political parties but with a monopoly. They should not use the title \\\"student union\\\".\\n\\nTo clarify, I am talking generally, not universally. There are exceptions everywhere. I am not claiming the student union reps are evil liars. I am not even claiming that their ideology (or \\\"ethos\\\" if you prefer) is bad in anyway - even though I fundamentally disagree with it.\\n\\nThe only point I am making (and care to defend) is that student unions firstly represent an ideology - not students. In so far as students sign up to the far left social ideology they are represented. Therefore, they should not be called \\\"student unions\\\".\\n\\nAgain, not saying student unions are intentionally bad in any way. They are just not what they say on the tin.\\n\\nThanks for reading. I may not be able to reply to everyone but will try to read all comments and appreciate any respectful constructive criticism.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-10\",\n \"id\": \"12hcmel\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 4,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Student Unions do not represent students\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12hcmel/cmv_student_unions_do_not_represent_students/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"lascivious_boasts\",\n \"body\": \"Every student union I've ever observed has its direction and policies either voted for at a general meeting, or has policy determined by representatives who are elected by a general election. \\n\\nBy their nature, a body which controls finances or provision of services must make some political decisions. The elected representatives can be held accountable by further elections and recall. \\n\\nSo if there was a general misrepresentation of students' views, alternative people would be elected and the political direction of a union would change.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-10\",\n \"id\": \"jfobnck\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12hcmel\",\n \"score\": 34,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"Good point, thank you :) I guess, if the body is elected (I guess it usually is) then the union is created by the students themselves. It is possible that many students are simply not interested in the union and don't contribute to reforming it - or maybe they are afraid of being shamed for not subscribing to the current ideology. So yes, although I still don't think SUs represent students in general, I can now say that they probably represent students who have an interest in developing the union (whatever their background). \\n\\nΔ\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-10\",\n \"id\": \"jfobtp9\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jfobnck\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"DeltaBot\",\n \"body\": \"Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/lascivious_boasts ([11∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/lascivious_boasts)).\\n\\n^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-10\",\n \"id\": \"jfoc48m\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jfobtp9\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n]","isConversational":false},"1":{"kind":"list like","value":[[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"Student Unions fundamentally generally represent a very left leaning pollicically correct liberal agenda. Of course, many students do support this agenda but the many who don't are not represented. Student unions are like political parties but with a monopoly. They should not use the title \"student union\".\n\nTo clarify, I am talking generally, not universally. There are exceptions everywhere. I am not claiming the student union reps are evil liars. I am not even claiming that their ideology (or \"ethos\" if you prefer) is bad in anyway - even though I fundamentally disagree with it.\n\nThe only point I am making (and care to defend) is that student unions firstly represent an ideology - not students. In so far as students sign up to the far left social ideology they are represented. Therefore, they should not be called \"student unions\".\n\nAgain, not saying student unions are intentionally bad in any way. They are just not what they say on the tin.\n\nThanks for reading. I may not be able to reply to everyone but will try to read all comments and appreciate any respectful constructive criticism.","date":"2023-04-10","id":"12hcmel","parent_id":null,"score":4,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Student Unions do not represent students","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12hcmel/cmv_student_unions_do_not_represent_students/"},{"author":"Mediocre-Ad-2548","body":"Could you define what you mean by \"very left-leaning politically correct liberal agenda?\"","date":"2023-04-10","id":"jfobe6m","parent_id":"12hcmel","score":9,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"It a bit of a long definition. But to give some policy examples which might point to a definition - fixation on sexual issues, preoccupation with transgender issues, gender issues, enforcing \"safe spaces\", attempting to cancel conservative speakers sometimes, anti-capitalist (kind of), lots of time focused on climate change issues.\n\nI'm not saying I agree or disagree with the above policies here.","date":"2023-04-10","id":"jfocob9","parent_id":"jfobe6m","score":-12,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"Student Unions fundamentally generally represent a very left leaning pollicically correct liberal agenda. Of course, many students do support this agenda but the many who don't are not represented. Student unions are like political parties but with a monopoly. They should not use the title \"student union\".\n\nTo clarify, I am talking generally, not universally. There are exceptions everywhere. I am not claiming the student union reps are evil liars. I am not even claiming that their ideology (or \"ethos\" if you prefer) is bad in anyway - even though I fundamentally disagree with it.\n\nThe only point I am making (and care to defend) is that student unions firstly represent an ideology - not students. In so far as students sign up to the far left social ideology they are represented. Therefore, they should not be called \"student unions\".\n\nAgain, not saying student unions are intentionally bad in any way. They are just not what they say on the tin.\n\nThanks for reading. I may not be able to reply to everyone but will try to read all comments and appreciate any respectful constructive criticism.","date":"2023-04-10","id":"12hcmel","parent_id":null,"score":4,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Student Unions do not represent students","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12hcmel/cmv_student_unions_do_not_represent_students/"},{"author":"Normal-Flower4437","body":"Would you be able to clarify whether you are talking about general student unions, a.k.a. ones that represent the entire student body, or whether you are talking about more identity or group focused student unions, such as the black student union, the Asian student union, etc.","date":"2023-04-10","id":"jfocc5m","parent_id":"12hcmel","score":9,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"Ah good question. I am talking about the general student unions.","date":"2023-04-10","id":"jfodikh","parent_id":"jfocc5m","score":4,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"Student Unions fundamentally generally represent a very left leaning pollicically correct liberal agenda. Of course, many students do support this agenda but the many who don't are not represented. Student unions are like political parties but with a monopoly. They should not use the title \"student union\".\n\nTo clarify, I am talking generally, not universally. There are exceptions everywhere. I am not claiming the student union reps are evil liars. I am not even claiming that their ideology (or \"ethos\" if you prefer) is bad in anyway - even though I fundamentally disagree with it.\n\nThe only point I am making (and care to defend) is that student unions firstly represent an ideology - not students. In so far as students sign up to the far left social ideology they are represented. Therefore, they should not be called \"student unions\".\n\nAgain, not saying student unions are intentionally bad in any way. They are just not what they say on the tin.\n\nThanks for reading. I may not be able to reply to everyone but will try to read all comments and appreciate any respectful constructive criticism.","date":"2023-04-10","id":"12hcmel","parent_id":null,"score":4,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Student Unions do not represent students","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12hcmel/cmv_student_unions_do_not_represent_students/"},{"author":"Tnuvu","body":"Unions usually don't represent those in them","date":"2023-04-10","id":"jfode6p","parent_id":"12hcmel","score":-7,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"This is a good point. One might even say governments don't represent the people they claim to represent. \n\nPeople who get into these positions may only ultimately look out for their own interests and only look for votes to gain power to do what they really want. \"Representation\" could be just a strategy.","date":"2023-04-10","id":"jfohfag","parent_id":"jfode6p","score":-1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"Student Unions fundamentally generally represent a very left leaning pollicically correct liberal agenda. Of course, many students do support this agenda but the many who don't are not represented. Student unions are like political parties but with a monopoly. They should not use the title \"student union\".\n\nTo clarify, I am talking generally, not universally. There are exceptions everywhere. I am not claiming the student union reps are evil liars. I am not even claiming that their ideology (or \"ethos\" if you prefer) is bad in anyway - even though I fundamentally disagree with it.\n\nThe only point I am making (and care to defend) is that student unions firstly represent an ideology - not students. In so far as students sign up to the far left social ideology they are represented. Therefore, they should not be called \"student unions\".\n\nAgain, not saying student unions are intentionally bad in any way. They are just not what they say on the tin.\n\nThanks for reading. I may not be able to reply to everyone but will try to read all comments and appreciate any respectful constructive criticism.","date":"2023-04-10","id":"12hcmel","parent_id":null,"score":4,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Student Unions do not represent students","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12hcmel/cmv_student_unions_do_not_represent_students/"},{"author":"Agentbasedmodel","body":"By definition they must do: they are elected by the student body to represent them. Anyone can run for a position and any student can vote.\n\nIt is possible they aren't representative, in the sense that those motivated to campaign for the positions hold less centrist views than the student body. I'll grant that the endless showboating motions about Israel Palestine could be replaced with a bit more focus on err... student issues. \n\nAs you suggest, it is also possible that your views are outside of the mainstream views of the student body, and hence unions do represent the majority reasonably well. Don't like it, get involved. \n\nPerhaps a bit of both?","date":"2023-04-10","id":"jfoixae","parent_id":"12hcmel","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"Student Unions fundamentally generally represent a very left leaning pollicically correct liberal agenda. Of course, many students do support this agenda but the many who don't are not represented. Student unions are like political parties but with a monopoly. They should not use the title \"student union\".\n\nTo clarify, I am talking generally, not universally. There are exceptions everywhere. I am not claiming the student union reps are evil liars. I am not even claiming that their ideology (or \"ethos\" if you prefer) is bad in anyway - even though I fundamentally disagree with it.\n\nThe only point I am making (and care to defend) is that student unions firstly represent an ideology - not students. In so far as students sign up to the far left social ideology they are represented. Therefore, they should not be called \"student unions\".\n\nAgain, not saying student unions are intentionally bad in any way. They are just not what they say on the tin.\n\nThanks for reading. I may not be able to reply to everyone but will try to read all comments and appreciate any respectful constructive criticism.","date":"2023-04-10","id":"12hcmel","parent_id":null,"score":4,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Student Unions do not represent students","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12hcmel/cmv_student_unions_do_not_represent_students/"},{"author":"CoriolisInSoup","body":"But they are elected, no? \nThe president of the US is not the president of the X party they represent, surely you recognise them as the president of the whole nation even if you disagree with them. \nWhy are student unions different?","date":"2023-04-10","id":"jfolzrn","parent_id":"12hcmel","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"Student Unions fundamentally generally represent a very left leaning pollicically correct liberal agenda. Of course, many students do support this agenda but the many who don't are not represented. Student unions are like political parties but with a monopoly. They should not use the title \"student union\".\n\nTo clarify, I am talking generally, not universally. There are exceptions everywhere. I am not claiming the student union reps are evil liars. I am not even claiming that their ideology (or \"ethos\" if you prefer) is bad in anyway - even though I fundamentally disagree with it.\n\nThe only point I am making (and care to defend) is that student unions firstly represent an ideology - not students. In so far as students sign up to the far left social ideology they are represented. Therefore, they should not be called \"student unions\".\n\nAgain, not saying student unions are intentionally bad in any way. They are just not what they say on the tin.\n\nThanks for reading. I may not be able to reply to everyone but will try to read all comments and appreciate any respectful constructive criticism.","date":"2023-04-10","id":"12hcmel","parent_id":null,"score":4,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Student Unions do not represent students","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12hcmel/cmv_student_unions_do_not_represent_students/"},{"author":"ChronoFish","body":"Here's a reason why it may feel this way.\n\nThe student union persists longer than most students attend a university. Imagine coming in as a freshman, the student union is already established. You haven't had time to even know what issues are issues and the student union is accomplishing tasks it has been working on for 4 years.\n\nBy the time you're a sophomore you have an inkling of things that are starting to seem off to you and as a junior you now want to see change. For the last 2 years the Student Union has been busy with an agenda set before you even were aware there was a student union, and now your voice seems unheard because it runs counter to the prevailing winds.\n\nFinally as a senior you're deep in your studies and,.well, you only have a year left...what's the point in getting involved in an uphill battle?\n\n\nYou're right. The student union doesn't represent students. It represents those students who had political agendas and it's a system that predates and outlasts current students.\n\nThe school you belong to probably has a left leaning population... But that's irrelevant to the problem with student unions as a whole.","date":"2023-04-10","id":"jfonsqq","parent_id":"12hcmel","score":0,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"Student Unions fundamentally generally represent a very left leaning pollicically correct liberal agenda. Of course, many students do support this agenda but the many who don't are not represented. Student unions are like political parties but with a monopoly. They should not use the title \"student union\".\n\nTo clarify, I am talking generally, not universally. There are exceptions everywhere. I am not claiming the student union reps are evil liars. I am not even claiming that their ideology (or \"ethos\" if you prefer) is bad in anyway - even though I fundamentally disagree with it.\n\nThe only point I am making (and care to defend) is that student unions firstly represent an ideology - not students. In so far as students sign up to the far left social ideology they are represented. Therefore, they should not be called \"student unions\".\n\nAgain, not saying student unions are intentionally bad in any way. They are just not what they say on the tin.\n\nThanks for reading. I may not be able to reply to everyone but will try to read all comments and appreciate any respectful constructive criticism.","date":"2023-04-10","id":"12hcmel","parent_id":null,"score":4,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Student Unions do not represent students","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12hcmel/cmv_student_unions_do_not_represent_students/"},{"author":"DuhChappers","body":"> Student unions are like political parties but with a monopoly.\n\nI think this is the root of your misunderstanding. They are much more like a government of an area that has a majority of one ideology. I live in a very liberal city in America, the most liberal in my state. We have not had a conservative Mayor for longer than I have been alive, and most of my representatives for state government run unopposed because the Republicans don't bother trying. This may seem undemocratic or unrepresentative, similar to your student unions, but I would disagree. This practice does in fact lead to most people in the city getting representation, better than if we had to pretend that there were two equal choices in the area. \n\nStudent unions cannot possibly represent all ideologies that students hold - many are incompatible. So they must focus on the majority, and in most universities, that means a liberal bias. That is exactly what representation is.","date":"2023-04-10","id":"jfow9zx","parent_id":"12hcmel","score":3,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"Student Unions fundamentally generally represent a very left leaning pollicically correct liberal agenda. Of course, many students do support this agenda but the many who don't are not represented. Student unions are like political parties but with a monopoly. They should not use the title \"student union\".\n\nTo clarify, I am talking generally, not universally. There are exceptions everywhere. I am not claiming the student union reps are evil liars. I am not even claiming that their ideology (or \"ethos\" if you prefer) is bad in anyway - even though I fundamentally disagree with it.\n\nThe only point I am making (and care to defend) is that student unions firstly represent an ideology - not students. In so far as students sign up to the far left social ideology they are represented. Therefore, they should not be called \"student unions\".\n\nAgain, not saying student unions are intentionally bad in any way. They are just not what they say on the tin.\n\nThanks for reading. I may not be able to reply to everyone but will try to read all comments and appreciate any respectful constructive criticism.","date":"2023-04-10","id":"12hcmel","parent_id":null,"score":4,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Student Unions do not represent students","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12hcmel/cmv_student_unions_do_not_represent_students/"},{"author":"spiral8888","body":"I'm not sure what your point is. Does the government of a country that uses representative democracy represent all the citizens or possibly the subset of them who happen to control a majority?\n\nMy point: just like governments usually student union leadership is elected through some democratic method. If certain views are in majority then they get shown as the view of the entire community (students) even if there is are minority views as well. I can't see how else would you do it for students as well as for a country.","date":"2023-04-10","id":"jfp67bu","parent_id":"12hcmel","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"Student Unions fundamentally generally represent a very left leaning pollicically correct liberal agenda. Of course, many students do support this agenda but the many who don't are not represented. Student unions are like political parties but with a monopoly. They should not use the title \"student union\".\n\nTo clarify, I am talking generally, not universally. There are exceptions everywhere. I am not claiming the student union reps are evil liars. I am not even claiming that their ideology (or \"ethos\" if you prefer) is bad in anyway - even though I fundamentally disagree with it.\n\nThe only point I am making (and care to defend) is that student unions firstly represent an ideology - not students. In so far as students sign up to the far left social ideology they are represented. Therefore, they should not be called \"student unions\".\n\nAgain, not saying student unions are intentionally bad in any way. They are just not what they say on the tin.\n\nThanks for reading. I may not be able to reply to everyone but will try to read all comments and appreciate any respectful constructive criticism.","date":"2023-04-10","id":"12hcmel","parent_id":null,"score":4,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Student Unions do not represent students","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12hcmel/cmv_student_unions_do_not_represent_students/"},{"author":"Crafty_Yak_1747","body":"What exactly do you want them to represent? Should student unions also agree that queer kids are bad? What \"liberal agenda\" are you even talking about? Equal rights for all students? So the conservative students should be able to have their hate represented?","date":"2023-04-10","id":"jfp67xn","parent_id":"12hcmel","score":8,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"Student Unions fundamentally generally represent a very left leaning pollicically correct liberal agenda. Of course, many students do support this agenda but the many who don't are not represented. Student unions are like political parties but with a monopoly. They should not use the title \"student union\".\n\nTo clarify, I am talking generally, not universally. There are exceptions everywhere. I am not claiming the student union reps are evil liars. I am not even claiming that their ideology (or \"ethos\" if you prefer) is bad in anyway - even though I fundamentally disagree with it.\n\nThe only point I am making (and care to defend) is that student unions firstly represent an ideology - not students. In so far as students sign up to the far left social ideology they are represented. Therefore, they should not be called \"student unions\".\n\nAgain, not saying student unions are intentionally bad in any way. They are just not what they say on the tin.\n\nThanks for reading. I may not be able to reply to everyone but will try to read all comments and appreciate any respectful constructive criticism.","date":"2023-04-10","id":"12hcmel","parent_id":null,"score":4,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Student Unions do not represent students","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12hcmel/cmv_student_unions_do_not_represent_students/"},{"author":"GenericUsername19892","body":"Opinions about college among US republicans are pretty poor.\n\nhttps://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2019/08/19/the-growing-partisan-divide-in-views-of-higher-education-2/\n\nThis combine with the anti-intellectual thread in modern conservative thought make more less educated conservatives. This isn’t really a a new thing thought, this has been a Trend for decades. It’s fueled by not only the lack of higher education, but the preference for more religious schooling, typified by explicating faith focused schools, such as those that require religious service attendance. \n\nIn short those issues do matter more to students most of the time, I’ll also be honest and admit I’m not sure what conservative issues would be present, in the US it’s mostly just anti whatever the liberal idea is? Colleges have been an incubator for tackling social issues for an extremely long time. It can be a bit antithetical to conservative ideals, college is about experiencing new things and grow yourself. \n\nThe conservative issues I recall from my community college days were mostly ‘the devil did dinosaur bones and evolution’ whackadoos, with a handful of anti abortion and ‘gays burn in hell’ types thrown in. They were mostly laughed at, or used for directions (the Adams building is straight and head and turn left at the man screaming about dinosaurs). There were occasionally argument or discussions but it wasn’t really serious, though I believe some of the folks working on public speaking would practice handling groups by engaging. And it was a tradition for every gay couple (and several straight people for shits and giggles) to kiss or make out in front of the ‘gays will burn’ people. I have never seen someone so deep in the closet than one manly man dude who would stare so intensely at a couple guys making out rofl. \n\nOh another good one was a dude who did his project of avian evolution got the professor to let him do the presentation outside directly in front of the anti evolution nut job. The student got a bigger speaker than the dude, had props and made it awesome, like something from the old bill nye. The finale was him pulling a real chicken out and yelling behold the modern dinosaur.","date":"2023-04-10","id":"jfpbs0h","parent_id":"12hcmel","score":5,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"Yes, but it is not only conservatives (although I would call the guys you mentioned \"fundamentalists\") who don't have a voice.\n\nReasonable people who don't follow any particular ideology (or even religion), who have very moderate educated views, and who are respectful are often not represented by student unions (*or at least the unions I have encountered. I will admit I only have experience with two unions but the others I heard about seem the same*).\n\nAlternative voices are (in my experience) often ignored, demonised, and unthoughtfully pigenholed into categories such as \"far-right\", \"sexist\", or \"homophobic\".\n\nIf this was 100 years ago I guess they would have been demonised as \"sinners\", \"atheists\", or communists.\n\nAt least on the very liberal campus I was on, 100 years ago if you weren't a protestant you would have problems. They believed they were doing the right thing. Questioning their ideology was a sign that you are evil. \n\nBut just to reassert, I am not saying union reps deliberately do this or that they are all bad people. But I do think there is a broader trend which they are so much a part of that they are unable to see it objectively. Like if you stand too close to something you can't see it.","date":"2023-04-10","id":"jfqae1t","parent_id":"jfpbs0h","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"Student Unions fundamentally generally represent a very left leaning pollicically correct liberal agenda. Of course, many students do support this agenda but the many who don't are not represented. Student unions are like political parties but with a monopoly. They should not use the title \"student union\".\n\nTo clarify, I am talking generally, not universally. There are exceptions everywhere. I am not claiming the student union reps are evil liars. I am not even claiming that their ideology (or \"ethos\" if you prefer) is bad in anyway - even though I fundamentally disagree with it.\n\nThe only point I am making (and care to defend) is that student unions firstly represent an ideology - not students. In so far as students sign up to the far left social ideology they are represented. Therefore, they should not be called \"student unions\".\n\nAgain, not saying student unions are intentionally bad in any way. They are just not what they say on the tin.\n\nThanks for reading. I may not be able to reply to everyone but will try to read all comments and appreciate any respectful constructive criticism.","date":"2023-04-10","id":"12hcmel","parent_id":null,"score":4,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Student Unions do not represent students","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12hcmel/cmv_student_unions_do_not_represent_students/"},{"author":"quasifood","body":"I would say, if you don't feel like you are being represented, then you should get involved. Run for a position in the student union and if you are elected you will know that there were other students that didn't feel represented. Otherwise, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the people who voted for this student union actually do care about these issues.","date":"2023-04-10","id":"jfpzkfd","parent_id":"12hcmel","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}]],"string":"[\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"Student Unions fundamentally generally represent a very left leaning pollicically correct liberal agenda. Of course, many students do support this agenda but the many who don't are not represented. Student unions are like political parties but with a monopoly. They should not use the title \\\"student union\\\".\\n\\nTo clarify, I am talking generally, not universally. There are exceptions everywhere. I am not claiming the student union reps are evil liars. I am not even claiming that their ideology (or \\\"ethos\\\" if you prefer) is bad in anyway - even though I fundamentally disagree with it.\\n\\nThe only point I am making (and care to defend) is that student unions firstly represent an ideology - not students. In so far as students sign up to the far left social ideology they are represented. Therefore, they should not be called \\\"student unions\\\".\\n\\nAgain, not saying student unions are intentionally bad in any way. They are just not what they say on the tin.\\n\\nThanks for reading. I may not be able to reply to everyone but will try to read all comments and appreciate any respectful constructive criticism.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-10\",\n \"id\": \"12hcmel\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 4,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Student Unions do not represent students\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12hcmel/cmv_student_unions_do_not_represent_students/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Mediocre-Ad-2548\",\n \"body\": \"Could you define what you mean by \\\"very left-leaning politically correct liberal agenda?\\\"\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-10\",\n \"id\": \"jfobe6m\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12hcmel\",\n \"score\": 9,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"It a bit of a long definition. But to give some policy examples which might point to a definition - fixation on sexual issues, preoccupation with transgender issues, gender issues, enforcing \\\"safe spaces\\\", attempting to cancel conservative speakers sometimes, anti-capitalist (kind of), lots of time focused on climate change issues.\\n\\nI'm not saying I agree or disagree with the above policies here.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-10\",\n \"id\": \"jfocob9\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jfobe6m\",\n \"score\": -12,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"Student Unions fundamentally generally represent a very left leaning pollicically correct liberal agenda. Of course, many students do support this agenda but the many who don't are not represented. Student unions are like political parties but with a monopoly. They should not use the title \\\"student union\\\".\\n\\nTo clarify, I am talking generally, not universally. There are exceptions everywhere. I am not claiming the student union reps are evil liars. I am not even claiming that their ideology (or \\\"ethos\\\" if you prefer) is bad in anyway - even though I fundamentally disagree with it.\\n\\nThe only point I am making (and care to defend) is that student unions firstly represent an ideology - not students. In so far as students sign up to the far left social ideology they are represented. Therefore, they should not be called \\\"student unions\\\".\\n\\nAgain, not saying student unions are intentionally bad in any way. They are just not what they say on the tin.\\n\\nThanks for reading. I may not be able to reply to everyone but will try to read all comments and appreciate any respectful constructive criticism.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-10\",\n \"id\": \"12hcmel\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 4,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Student Unions do not represent students\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12hcmel/cmv_student_unions_do_not_represent_students/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Normal-Flower4437\",\n \"body\": \"Would you be able to clarify whether you are talking about general student unions, a.k.a. ones that represent the entire student body, or whether you are talking about more identity or group focused student unions, such as the black student union, the Asian student union, etc.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-10\",\n \"id\": \"jfocc5m\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12hcmel\",\n \"score\": 9,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"Ah good question. I am talking about the general student unions.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-10\",\n \"id\": \"jfodikh\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jfocc5m\",\n \"score\": 4,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"Student Unions fundamentally generally represent a very left leaning pollicically correct liberal agenda. Of course, many students do support this agenda but the many who don't are not represented. Student unions are like political parties but with a monopoly. They should not use the title \\\"student union\\\".\\n\\nTo clarify, I am talking generally, not universally. There are exceptions everywhere. I am not claiming the student union reps are evil liars. I am not even claiming that their ideology (or \\\"ethos\\\" if you prefer) is bad in anyway - even though I fundamentally disagree with it.\\n\\nThe only point I am making (and care to defend) is that student unions firstly represent an ideology - not students. In so far as students sign up to the far left social ideology they are represented. Therefore, they should not be called \\\"student unions\\\".\\n\\nAgain, not saying student unions are intentionally bad in any way. They are just not what they say on the tin.\\n\\nThanks for reading. I may not be able to reply to everyone but will try to read all comments and appreciate any respectful constructive criticism.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-10\",\n \"id\": \"12hcmel\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 4,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Student Unions do not represent students\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12hcmel/cmv_student_unions_do_not_represent_students/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Tnuvu\",\n \"body\": \"Unions usually don't represent those in them\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-10\",\n \"id\": \"jfode6p\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12hcmel\",\n \"score\": -7,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"This is a good point. One might even say governments don't represent the people they claim to represent. \\n\\nPeople who get into these positions may only ultimately look out for their own interests and only look for votes to gain power to do what they really want. \\\"Representation\\\" could be just a strategy.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-10\",\n \"id\": \"jfohfag\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jfode6p\",\n \"score\": -1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"Student Unions fundamentally generally represent a very left leaning pollicically correct liberal agenda. Of course, many students do support this agenda but the many who don't are not represented. Student unions are like political parties but with a monopoly. They should not use the title \\\"student union\\\".\\n\\nTo clarify, I am talking generally, not universally. There are exceptions everywhere. I am not claiming the student union reps are evil liars. I am not even claiming that their ideology (or \\\"ethos\\\" if you prefer) is bad in anyway - even though I fundamentally disagree with it.\\n\\nThe only point I am making (and care to defend) is that student unions firstly represent an ideology - not students. In so far as students sign up to the far left social ideology they are represented. Therefore, they should not be called \\\"student unions\\\".\\n\\nAgain, not saying student unions are intentionally bad in any way. They are just not what they say on the tin.\\n\\nThanks for reading. I may not be able to reply to everyone but will try to read all comments and appreciate any respectful constructive criticism.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-10\",\n \"id\": \"12hcmel\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 4,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Student Unions do not represent students\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12hcmel/cmv_student_unions_do_not_represent_students/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Agentbasedmodel\",\n \"body\": \"By definition they must do: they are elected by the student body to represent them. Anyone can run for a position and any student can vote.\\n\\nIt is possible they aren't representative, in the sense that those motivated to campaign for the positions hold less centrist views than the student body. I'll grant that the endless showboating motions about Israel Palestine could be replaced with a bit more focus on err... student issues. \\n\\nAs you suggest, it is also possible that your views are outside of the mainstream views of the student body, and hence unions do represent the majority reasonably well. Don't like it, get involved. \\n\\nPerhaps a bit of both?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-10\",\n \"id\": \"jfoixae\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12hcmel\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"Student Unions fundamentally generally represent a very left leaning pollicically correct liberal agenda. Of course, many students do support this agenda but the many who don't are not represented. Student unions are like political parties but with a monopoly. They should not use the title \\\"student union\\\".\\n\\nTo clarify, I am talking generally, not universally. There are exceptions everywhere. I am not claiming the student union reps are evil liars. I am not even claiming that their ideology (or \\\"ethos\\\" if you prefer) is bad in anyway - even though I fundamentally disagree with it.\\n\\nThe only point I am making (and care to defend) is that student unions firstly represent an ideology - not students. In so far as students sign up to the far left social ideology they are represented. Therefore, they should not be called \\\"student unions\\\".\\n\\nAgain, not saying student unions are intentionally bad in any way. They are just not what they say on the tin.\\n\\nThanks for reading. I may not be able to reply to everyone but will try to read all comments and appreciate any respectful constructive criticism.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-10\",\n \"id\": \"12hcmel\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 4,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Student Unions do not represent students\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12hcmel/cmv_student_unions_do_not_represent_students/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CoriolisInSoup\",\n \"body\": \"But they are elected, no? \\nThe president of the US is not the president of the X party they represent, surely you recognise them as the president of the whole nation even if you disagree with them. \\nWhy are student unions different?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-10\",\n \"id\": \"jfolzrn\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12hcmel\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"Student Unions fundamentally generally represent a very left leaning pollicically correct liberal agenda. Of course, many students do support this agenda but the many who don't are not represented. Student unions are like political parties but with a monopoly. They should not use the title \\\"student union\\\".\\n\\nTo clarify, I am talking generally, not universally. There are exceptions everywhere. I am not claiming the student union reps are evil liars. I am not even claiming that their ideology (or \\\"ethos\\\" if you prefer) is bad in anyway - even though I fundamentally disagree with it.\\n\\nThe only point I am making (and care to defend) is that student unions firstly represent an ideology - not students. In so far as students sign up to the far left social ideology they are represented. Therefore, they should not be called \\\"student unions\\\".\\n\\nAgain, not saying student unions are intentionally bad in any way. They are just not what they say on the tin.\\n\\nThanks for reading. I may not be able to reply to everyone but will try to read all comments and appreciate any respectful constructive criticism.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-10\",\n \"id\": \"12hcmel\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 4,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Student Unions do not represent students\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12hcmel/cmv_student_unions_do_not_represent_students/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"ChronoFish\",\n \"body\": \"Here's a reason why it may feel this way.\\n\\nThe student union persists longer than most students attend a university. Imagine coming in as a freshman, the student union is already established. You haven't had time to even know what issues are issues and the student union is accomplishing tasks it has been working on for 4 years.\\n\\nBy the time you're a sophomore you have an inkling of things that are starting to seem off to you and as a junior you now want to see change. For the last 2 years the Student Union has been busy with an agenda set before you even were aware there was a student union, and now your voice seems unheard because it runs counter to the prevailing winds.\\n\\nFinally as a senior you're deep in your studies and,.well, you only have a year left...what's the point in getting involved in an uphill battle?\\n\\n\\nYou're right. The student union doesn't represent students. It represents those students who had political agendas and it's a system that predates and outlasts current students.\\n\\nThe school you belong to probably has a left leaning population... But that's irrelevant to the problem with student unions as a whole.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-10\",\n \"id\": \"jfonsqq\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12hcmel\",\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"Student Unions fundamentally generally represent a very left leaning pollicically correct liberal agenda. Of course, many students do support this agenda but the many who don't are not represented. Student unions are like political parties but with a monopoly. They should not use the title \\\"student union\\\".\\n\\nTo clarify, I am talking generally, not universally. There are exceptions everywhere. I am not claiming the student union reps are evil liars. I am not even claiming that their ideology (or \\\"ethos\\\" if you prefer) is bad in anyway - even though I fundamentally disagree with it.\\n\\nThe only point I am making (and care to defend) is that student unions firstly represent an ideology - not students. In so far as students sign up to the far left social ideology they are represented. Therefore, they should not be called \\\"student unions\\\".\\n\\nAgain, not saying student unions are intentionally bad in any way. They are just not what they say on the tin.\\n\\nThanks for reading. I may not be able to reply to everyone but will try to read all comments and appreciate any respectful constructive criticism.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-10\",\n \"id\": \"12hcmel\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 4,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Student Unions do not represent students\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12hcmel/cmv_student_unions_do_not_represent_students/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"DuhChappers\",\n \"body\": \"> Student unions are like political parties but with a monopoly.\\n\\nI think this is the root of your misunderstanding. They are much more like a government of an area that has a majority of one ideology. I live in a very liberal city in America, the most liberal in my state. We have not had a conservative Mayor for longer than I have been alive, and most of my representatives for state government run unopposed because the Republicans don't bother trying. This may seem undemocratic or unrepresentative, similar to your student unions, but I would disagree. This practice does in fact lead to most people in the city getting representation, better than if we had to pretend that there were two equal choices in the area. \\n\\nStudent unions cannot possibly represent all ideologies that students hold - many are incompatible. So they must focus on the majority, and in most universities, that means a liberal bias. That is exactly what representation is.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-10\",\n \"id\": \"jfow9zx\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12hcmel\",\n \"score\": 3,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"Student Unions fundamentally generally represent a very left leaning pollicically correct liberal agenda. Of course, many students do support this agenda but the many who don't are not represented. Student unions are like political parties but with a monopoly. They should not use the title \\\"student union\\\".\\n\\nTo clarify, I am talking generally, not universally. There are exceptions everywhere. I am not claiming the student union reps are evil liars. I am not even claiming that their ideology (or \\\"ethos\\\" if you prefer) is bad in anyway - even though I fundamentally disagree with it.\\n\\nThe only point I am making (and care to defend) is that student unions firstly represent an ideology - not students. In so far as students sign up to the far left social ideology they are represented. Therefore, they should not be called \\\"student unions\\\".\\n\\nAgain, not saying student unions are intentionally bad in any way. They are just not what they say on the tin.\\n\\nThanks for reading. I may not be able to reply to everyone but will try to read all comments and appreciate any respectful constructive criticism.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-10\",\n \"id\": \"12hcmel\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 4,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Student Unions do not represent students\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12hcmel/cmv_student_unions_do_not_represent_students/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"spiral8888\",\n \"body\": \"I'm not sure what your point is. Does the government of a country that uses representative democracy represent all the citizens or possibly the subset of them who happen to control a majority?\\n\\nMy point: just like governments usually student union leadership is elected through some democratic method. If certain views are in majority then they get shown as the view of the entire community (students) even if there is are minority views as well. I can't see how else would you do it for students as well as for a country.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-10\",\n \"id\": \"jfp67bu\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12hcmel\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"Student Unions fundamentally generally represent a very left leaning pollicically correct liberal agenda. Of course, many students do support this agenda but the many who don't are not represented. Student unions are like political parties but with a monopoly. They should not use the title \\\"student union\\\".\\n\\nTo clarify, I am talking generally, not universally. There are exceptions everywhere. I am not claiming the student union reps are evil liars. I am not even claiming that their ideology (or \\\"ethos\\\" if you prefer) is bad in anyway - even though I fundamentally disagree with it.\\n\\nThe only point I am making (and care to defend) is that student unions firstly represent an ideology - not students. In so far as students sign up to the far left social ideology they are represented. Therefore, they should not be called \\\"student unions\\\".\\n\\nAgain, not saying student unions are intentionally bad in any way. They are just not what they say on the tin.\\n\\nThanks for reading. I may not be able to reply to everyone but will try to read all comments and appreciate any respectful constructive criticism.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-10\",\n \"id\": \"12hcmel\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 4,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Student Unions do not represent students\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12hcmel/cmv_student_unions_do_not_represent_students/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Crafty_Yak_1747\",\n \"body\": \"What exactly do you want them to represent? Should student unions also agree that queer kids are bad? What \\\"liberal agenda\\\" are you even talking about? Equal rights for all students? So the conservative students should be able to have their hate represented?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-10\",\n \"id\": \"jfp67xn\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12hcmel\",\n \"score\": 8,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"Student Unions fundamentally generally represent a very left leaning pollicically correct liberal agenda. Of course, many students do support this agenda but the many who don't are not represented. Student unions are like political parties but with a monopoly. They should not use the title \\\"student union\\\".\\n\\nTo clarify, I am talking generally, not universally. There are exceptions everywhere. I am not claiming the student union reps are evil liars. I am not even claiming that their ideology (or \\\"ethos\\\" if you prefer) is bad in anyway - even though I fundamentally disagree with it.\\n\\nThe only point I am making (and care to defend) is that student unions firstly represent an ideology - not students. In so far as students sign up to the far left social ideology they are represented. Therefore, they should not be called \\\"student unions\\\".\\n\\nAgain, not saying student unions are intentionally bad in any way. They are just not what they say on the tin.\\n\\nThanks for reading. I may not be able to reply to everyone but will try to read all comments and appreciate any respectful constructive criticism.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-10\",\n \"id\": \"12hcmel\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 4,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Student Unions do not represent students\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12hcmel/cmv_student_unions_do_not_represent_students/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"GenericUsername19892\",\n \"body\": \"Opinions about college among US republicans are pretty poor.\\n\\nhttps://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2019/08/19/the-growing-partisan-divide-in-views-of-higher-education-2/\\n\\nThis combine with the anti-intellectual thread in modern conservative thought make more less educated conservatives. This isn’t really a a new thing thought, this has been a Trend for decades. It’s fueled by not only the lack of higher education, but the preference for more religious schooling, typified by explicating faith focused schools, such as those that require religious service attendance. \\n\\nIn short those issues do matter more to students most of the time, I’ll also be honest and admit I’m not sure what conservative issues would be present, in the US it’s mostly just anti whatever the liberal idea is? Colleges have been an incubator for tackling social issues for an extremely long time. It can be a bit antithetical to conservative ideals, college is about experiencing new things and grow yourself. \\n\\nThe conservative issues I recall from my community college days were mostly ‘the devil did dinosaur bones and evolution’ whackadoos, with a handful of anti abortion and ‘gays burn in hell’ types thrown in. They were mostly laughed at, or used for directions (the Adams building is straight and head and turn left at the man screaming about dinosaurs). There were occasionally argument or discussions but it wasn’t really serious, though I believe some of the folks working on public speaking would practice handling groups by engaging. And it was a tradition for every gay couple (and several straight people for shits and giggles) to kiss or make out in front of the ‘gays will burn’ people. I have never seen someone so deep in the closet than one manly man dude who would stare so intensely at a couple guys making out rofl. \\n\\nOh another good one was a dude who did his project of avian evolution got the professor to let him do the presentation outside directly in front of the anti evolution nut job. The student got a bigger speaker than the dude, had props and made it awesome, like something from the old bill nye. The finale was him pulling a real chicken out and yelling behold the modern dinosaur.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-10\",\n \"id\": \"jfpbs0h\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12hcmel\",\n \"score\": 5,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"Yes, but it is not only conservatives (although I would call the guys you mentioned \\\"fundamentalists\\\") who don't have a voice.\\n\\nReasonable people who don't follow any particular ideology (or even religion), who have very moderate educated views, and who are respectful are often not represented by student unions (*or at least the unions I have encountered. I will admit I only have experience with two unions but the others I heard about seem the same*).\\n\\nAlternative voices are (in my experience) often ignored, demonised, and unthoughtfully pigenholed into categories such as \\\"far-right\\\", \\\"sexist\\\", or \\\"homophobic\\\".\\n\\nIf this was 100 years ago I guess they would have been demonised as \\\"sinners\\\", \\\"atheists\\\", or communists.\\n\\nAt least on the very liberal campus I was on, 100 years ago if you weren't a protestant you would have problems. They believed they were doing the right thing. Questioning their ideology was a sign that you are evil. \\n\\nBut just to reassert, I am not saying union reps deliberately do this or that they are all bad people. But I do think there is a broader trend which they are so much a part of that they are unable to see it objectively. Like if you stand too close to something you can't see it.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-10\",\n \"id\": \"jfqae1t\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jfpbs0h\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"Student Unions fundamentally generally represent a very left leaning pollicically correct liberal agenda. Of course, many students do support this agenda but the many who don't are not represented. Student unions are like political parties but with a monopoly. They should not use the title \\\"student union\\\".\\n\\nTo clarify, I am talking generally, not universally. There are exceptions everywhere. I am not claiming the student union reps are evil liars. I am not even claiming that their ideology (or \\\"ethos\\\" if you prefer) is bad in anyway - even though I fundamentally disagree with it.\\n\\nThe only point I am making (and care to defend) is that student unions firstly represent an ideology - not students. In so far as students sign up to the far left social ideology they are represented. Therefore, they should not be called \\\"student unions\\\".\\n\\nAgain, not saying student unions are intentionally bad in any way. They are just not what they say on the tin.\\n\\nThanks for reading. I may not be able to reply to everyone but will try to read all comments and appreciate any respectful constructive criticism.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-10\",\n \"id\": \"12hcmel\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 4,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Student Unions do not represent students\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12hcmel/cmv_student_unions_do_not_represent_students/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"quasifood\",\n \"body\": \"I would say, if you don't feel like you are being represented, then you should get involved. Run for a position in the student union and if you are elected you will know that there were other students that didn't feel represented. Otherwise, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the people who voted for this student union actually do care about these issues.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-10\",\n \"id\": \"jfpzkfd\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12hcmel\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ]\n]","isConversational":false},"2":{"kind":"string","value":"moderate"}}},{"rowIdx":36,"cells":{"0":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"author":"stilltilting","body":"How often have we heard the phrase \"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\n\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \"useful\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\n\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\n\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \n\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\n\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\n\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \"hypothetical\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \n\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"12jwr6d","parent_id":null,"score":5,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/"},{"author":"Nrdman","body":"What about for diverting potential asteroids out of the way: https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/a36122690/government-tests-using-nuclear-weapons-to-deflect-asteroids/","date":"2023-04-12","id":"jg0dbp2","parent_id":"12jwr6d","score":4,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"stilltilting","body":"This is finally one actual USE for a nuke so partial Δ for that. But keeping one potential cause of extinction around to deflect another potential cause is at best a wash in my book.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"jg0gke1","parent_id":"jg0dbp2","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"DeltaBot","body":"Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/Nrdman ([16∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/Nrdman)).\n\n^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)","date":"2023-04-12","id":"jg0gmv8","parent_id":"jg0gke1","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],"string":"[\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"How often have we heard the phrase \\\"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\\\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\\n\\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \\\"useful\\\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\\n\\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\\n\\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \\n\\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\\n\\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\\n\\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \\\"hypothetical\\\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \\n\\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 5,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Nrdman\",\n \"body\": \"What about for diverting potential asteroids out of the way: https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/a36122690/government-tests-using-nuclear-weapons-to-deflect-asteroids/\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"jg0dbp2\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"score\": 4,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"This is finally one actual USE for a nuke so partial Δ for that. But keeping one potential cause of extinction around to deflect another potential cause is at best a wash in my book.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"jg0gke1\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jg0dbp2\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"DeltaBot\",\n \"body\": \"Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/Nrdman ([16∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/Nrdman)).\\n\\n^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"jg0gmv8\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jg0gke1\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n]","isConversational":false},"1":{"kind":"list like","value":[[{"author":"stilltilting","body":"How often have we heard the phrase \"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\n\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \"useful\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\n\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\n\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \n\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\n\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\n\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \"hypothetical\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \n\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"12jwr6d","parent_id":null,"score":5,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/"},{"author":"LucidMetal","body":"If you don't think they act as a deterrent, how often since their invention has a country with nuclear weapons been invaded?","date":"2023-04-12","id":"jg01zme","parent_id":"12jwr6d","score":10,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"CaptainComrade420","body":"According to your logic shouldn't those countries just have been nuked instead of invaded?","date":"2023-04-12","id":"jg0c7ux","parent_id":"jg01zme","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"stilltilting","body":"How often have we heard the phrase \"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\n\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \"useful\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\n\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\n\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \n\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\n\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\n\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \"hypothetical\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \n\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"12jwr6d","parent_id":null,"score":5,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/"},{"author":"tbdabbholm","body":"If someone has nukes and you don't why would they fear to use them? They use them and they instantly win. So unless everyone agrees to give them up and never ever create them again (impossible) the only way to ensure they're not used, is to threaten nuclear retaliation after a first strike","date":"2023-04-12","id":"jg0247w","parent_id":"12jwr6d","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"CaptainComrade420","body":"I think the point OP is making is that if you are in a situation where you are using retaliatory nukes, you have already lost, therefore they don't have a purpose.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"jg0628n","parent_id":"jg0247w","score":0,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"stilltilting","body":"How often have we heard the phrase \"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\n\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \"useful\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\n\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\n\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \n\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\n\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\n\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \"hypothetical\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \n\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"12jwr6d","parent_id":null,"score":5,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/"},{"author":"obert-wan-kenobert","body":"I would say the benefit is that, oxy-moronically, the existence of nuclear weapons keeps the peace.\n\nSince the invention and proliferation of nuclear weapons, there was not been a single direct war between two global powers for almost a century -- largely because everyone knows it would end in nuclear war. Compare this to the pre-nuclear era, where all-out wars between global powers were fought frequently.\n\nIs this a sustainable solution long-term? Probably not. Would it be better if nuclear weapons didn't exist? Definitely. But since they do, their peace-keeping uses *are* a measurable and practical benefit.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"jg02mv6","parent_id":"12jwr6d","score":15,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"kingpatzer","body":">where all-out wars between global powers were fought frequently.\n\n\"Frequently\" here is an understatement. \"Continually\" would be more accurate.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"jg04091","parent_id":"jg02mv6","score":12,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"stilltilting","body":"How often have we heard the phrase \"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\n\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \"useful\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\n\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\n\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \n\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\n\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\n\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \"hypothetical\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \n\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"12jwr6d","parent_id":null,"score":5,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/"},{"author":"ElysiX","body":">non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons\n\nIs that outcome worse than complete domination by another country? Matter of opinion.\n\nThey don't just deter other nukes. They deter normal attacks too. Why do you think there are so many proxy wars? No bloodshed in the countries that have a nuclear umbrella. Death and suffering in war pretty much only comes to soldiers and people in countries without nukes.\n\nNoone is going to fight a bombing and fighter jet campaign to move a border a couple kilometers when the other side has nukes. Noone invades you to stop your stupid ideas.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"jg02nws","parent_id":"12jwr6d","score":3,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"stilltilting","body":"You don't have to choose to be dominated by anyone. You can refuse subjugation. You can fight using conventional means. And you can also choose resistance to the death over subjugation.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"jg0pbul","parent_id":"jg02nws","score":0,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"stilltilting","body":"How often have we heard the phrase \"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\n\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \"useful\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\n\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\n\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \n\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\n\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\n\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \"hypothetical\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \n\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"12jwr6d","parent_id":null,"score":5,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/"},{"author":"Bi_Shakespeare","body":"They have a use as a deterrent against other nuclear states, or just other states in general. That is there primary use in geo-politics.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"jg02o90","parent_id":"12jwr6d","score":5,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"CaptainComrade420","body":"Does this mean if every country had nukes we would have world peace? Should we give everyone nukes to hasten world peace? According to your logic we should.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"jg06kbx","parent_id":"jg02o90","score":3,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"stilltilting","body":"How often have we heard the phrase \"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\n\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \"useful\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\n\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\n\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \n\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\n\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\n\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \"hypothetical\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \n\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"12jwr6d","parent_id":null,"score":5,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/"},{"author":"Khal-Frodo","body":"> They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody\n\nWhat's your source for \"everyone admits this\"? It sounds like you're only considering conflict between two nuclear powers. If I have a nuke and you don't, the game is only up for you if I use mine.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"jg02weh","parent_id":"12jwr6d","score":6,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"CaptainComrade420","body":"Even if the defending country doesn't have nukes, other countries would retaliate. For example, if Russia nukes Ukraine, I'd bet my bottom dollar at least one other country would fire nukes at Russia.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"jg06rab","parent_id":"jg02weh","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"stilltilting","body":"How often have we heard the phrase \"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\n\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \"useful\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\n\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\n\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \n\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\n\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\n\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \"hypothetical\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \n\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"12jwr6d","parent_id":null,"score":5,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/"},{"author":"MrGraeme","body":">They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. \n\nThey're only not useful as first strike weapons *against other nuclear armed states*. If the United States decided to send a nuclear missile into Somalia, they're not going to be in a position to retaliate at all.\n\n>They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone.\n\nNuclear weapons act as a *deterrent*. The idea is that, by having nuclear weapons, you will not need to retaliate with them at all because the possibility of nuclear retaliation is enough to discourage attacks.\n\n>But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means\n\nNot to the same extent. One nuclear weapon can destroy a capital city. \n\n> And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. \n\nThis is wrong. The scale of economic and environmental damage depends on the scale of the attack. Thousands of nuclear weapons have been detonated without wrecking the world. \n\n>Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \n\nThere are countermeasures in place to prevent a single irrational actor from launching nuclear weapons.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"jg038u4","parent_id":"12jwr6d","score":20,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"CaptainComrade420","body":"Copied from above: Even if the defending country doesn't have nukes, other countries would retaliate. For example, if Russia nukes Ukraine, I'd bet my bottom dollar at least one other country would fire nukes at Russia.\n\nAdditionally, if there are fail-safes to prevent rogue actors, how does America have so many broken arrows? Lol","date":"2023-04-12","id":"jg070vr","parent_id":"jg038u4","score":4,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"stilltilting","body":"How often have we heard the phrase \"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\n\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \"useful\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\n\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\n\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \n\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\n\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\n\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \"hypothetical\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \n\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"12jwr6d","parent_id":null,"score":5,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/"},{"author":"kingpatzer","body":">First, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness . .\n\nMutual assured destruction is actually useful. We have historical examples of leaders choosing diplomacy over war, or backing down rather than causing war, because of the presence of nuclear weapons.\n\nThat's a use.\n\n>But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means . .\n\nNot really. Deterrence can happen only when one side has overwhelmingly superior conventional forces. When sides are relatively evenly matched, leaders are more than willing to fight conventional wars.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"jg03et7","parent_id":"12jwr6d","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"CaptainComrade420","body":"Point defense is a conventional means, plus non nuclear retaliation is still a thing.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"jg0cwje","parent_id":"jg03et7","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"stilltilting","body":"How often have we heard the phrase \"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\n\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \"useful\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\n\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\n\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \n\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\n\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\n\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \"hypothetical\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \n\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"12jwr6d","parent_id":null,"score":5,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/"},{"author":"Salanmander","body":"> And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. \n\nThat's only true *because* of retaliation. If the US didn't have any nukes, and a country with nukes went to war with the US, the country with nukes could easily just drop a nuke on a few major military bases. Or go the US-vs-Japan strategy, drop a nuke on a major city, and say \"surrender or we'll keep going\".\n\nIt's no accident that nukes were used very soon after their invention, and haven't been used (on people) since. The large number of countries having nukes is a real deterrent.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"jg03tm9","parent_id":"12jwr6d","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"CaptainComrade420","body":"That's a myth we used both our nukes and had no more stockpiled at the time, and we had planned on using both of them iirc","date":"2023-04-12","id":"jg0d4q8","parent_id":"jg03tm9","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"stilltilting","body":"How often have we heard the phrase \"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\n\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \"useful\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\n\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\n\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \n\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\n\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\n\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \"hypothetical\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \n\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"12jwr6d","parent_id":null,"score":5,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/"},{"author":"Sirhc978","body":">First, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness.\n\nLarge-scale excavation to create reservoirs, canals & ports, stimulating oil & gas recovery, creating cavities for underground oil, gas or waste storage, and extinguishing gas field fires and all been tested in the real world and Russia (then the USSR) has even used some of those techniques for real.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"jg045d6","parent_id":"12jwr6d","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"CaptainComrade420","body":"Yeah but we don't do it because it would be stupid to heavily irradiate a construction area.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"jg0cqe0","parent_id":"jg045d6","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"stilltilting","body":"How often have we heard the phrase \"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\n\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \"useful\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\n\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\n\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \n\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\n\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\n\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \"hypothetical\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \n\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"12jwr6d","parent_id":null,"score":5,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/"},{"author":"Green__lightning","body":"There are at least two peaceful uses to nuclear warheads, Project Plowshare and Project Orion, the first being to use nuclear warheads to move enormous amounts of earth, with this planned to lead up to blasting the Panama Canal down to sea level as an open channel. Sadly this never happened for a mix of radiation and political concerns. \n\n[Project Orion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion\\)) has no substantial radiation concerns if used as a deep space engine, and most of the risk of using one if you're not ground launching it, is the ever-present risk of rocket failure and dangerous materials crashing into the sea. \n\nThe issues with actually building one, even for entirely peaceful purposes, like pushing thousands of tons of Mars base to Mars, is that the nuclear pulse units are still a nuclear detonation, and against various test ban treaties. \n\nSecondly, practical use of an Orion Drive requires some amount of shaping of the charge, basically putting the warhead with stuff on one end of it, and reflectors so most of the radiation goes into that stuff and heats it, shooting it at the pusher plate, then giving thrust that way. This is dangerous because the concept of the nuclear shaped charge was likely developed from this idea, basically taking the idea of putting stuff in front of a nuke in vacuum, and focusing that stuff into what can only be called a death beam. Oh, and these were meant as the primary armament of what basically amounted to a orion powered space battleship that the US briefly considered building during the cold war. \n\nIf you ask me, this proves two things: Anything with that level of energy density needed to be a useful space engine can also be a very effective weapon, and that if we keep restricting anything that powerful because it can be used as a weapon, we'll never make much progress.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"jg05p8v","parent_id":"12jwr6d","score":6,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"CaptainComrade420","body":"I feel like there is a more effective rocket fuel than nuclear warheads. I'm not a scientist, but that's just what my gut tells me.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"jg0c4kw","parent_id":"jg05p8v","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"stilltilting","body":"How often have we heard the phrase \"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\n\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \"useful\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\n\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\n\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \n\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\n\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\n\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \"hypothetical\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \n\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"12jwr6d","parent_id":null,"score":5,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/"},{"author":"SirWankshaft_McTwit","body":"They play a very important role in that they have prevented a conventional war between two nuclear powers ever since the first two dropped in 1945.\n\nThe very fact that they're so incredibly destructive is an excellent deterrent from conventional war. Also mandatory to mention that there are less extremely destructive variants. The ones you're thinking of are the strategic kind. Tactical nuclear weapons exist.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"jg05qra","parent_id":"12jwr6d","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"CaptainComrade420","body":"I mean we fight proxy wars now which are arguably worse.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"jg0d6jm","parent_id":"jg05qra","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"stilltilting","body":"How often have we heard the phrase \"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\n\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \"useful\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\n\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\n\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \n\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\n\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\n\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \"hypothetical\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \n\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"12jwr6d","parent_id":null,"score":5,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/"},{"author":"jatjqtjat","body":"it looks like you've not addressed the concept of mutually assured destruction. If you nuke me, I'll nuke you.\n\nwhy do you think we haven't had a real war between any major world powers since nukes were invented. powerful nations didn't just suddenly decide to be peaceful with each other for the first time in the history of humanity.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"jg069kn","parent_id":"12jwr6d","score":13,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"CaptainComrade420","body":"I mean we fight proxy wars now which are arguably worse","date":"2023-04-12","id":"jg0d8wh","parent_id":"jg069kn","score":0,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"stilltilting","body":"How often have we heard the phrase \"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\n\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \"useful\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\n\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\n\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \n\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\n\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\n\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \"hypothetical\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \n\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"12jwr6d","parent_id":null,"score":5,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/"},{"author":"phine-phurniture","body":"Simple problem here... The integrity of those who possess or want to possess them and a loud international \"you first\"","date":"2023-04-12","id":"jg07fkm","parent_id":"12jwr6d","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"stilltilting","body":"How often have we heard the phrase \"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\n\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \"useful\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\n\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\n\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \n\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\n\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\n\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \"hypothetical\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \n\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"12jwr6d","parent_id":null,"score":5,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/"},{"author":"TaylorChesses","body":"They're for having, not using. nations which possess nuclear arms of their own are effectively immune to being invaded. ever wonder why we invaded Iraq and not say Iran or Pakistan? geography plays a factor yes, mountains are bad. but also Iran and Pakistan are nuclear capable. the consequences are dire. the best way to secure your continued political independence is to have a few of them on hand, then everyone is far more careful. In geopolitics there are effectively 2 types of nations, those with nukes, and those without. those without are vulnerable to those with.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"jg07qjg","parent_id":"12jwr6d","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"CaptainComrade420","body":"Copied from above: Except like, if push comes to shove, you probably shouldn't retaliate with nukes. Other weapons? Sure, you know, as tactically/strategically requires. Realistically nukes won't completely wipe a civilization clean, there would be a capacity for retaliation afterwards even without nukes. That's the real deterrent. Otherwise there are dozens of countries that don't have nukes that would have been nuked according to the prevailing logic of pro-nukes in this post.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"jg0dsxr","parent_id":"jg07qjg","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"stilltilting","body":"How often have we heard the phrase \"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\n\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \"useful\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\n\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\n\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \n\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\n\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\n\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \"hypothetical\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \n\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"12jwr6d","parent_id":null,"score":5,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/"},{"author":"richnibba19","body":"If i had nukes and no one else did, i would be much more inclined to use them. They already exist and every country that willingly disposes of them gets invaded, so everyone isnt going to simultaneously give them up. So the use of nukes is preventing yourself from being nuked/invaded","date":"2023-04-12","id":"jg07t1m","parent_id":"12jwr6d","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"CaptainComrade420","body":"I mean the UK got invaded by Argentina even though they had nukes.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"jg0djyx","parent_id":"jg07t1m","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"stilltilting","body":"How often have we heard the phrase \"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\n\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \"useful\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\n\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\n\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \n\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\n\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\n\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \"hypothetical\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \n\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"12jwr6d","parent_id":null,"score":5,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/"},{"author":"threeSJE","body":">First, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody.\n\nThat's the usefulness. It's called mutually assured destruction. Meaning you probably shouldn't use them. But if you have them you know nobody will use them on you because it's a death sentence for them.\n\nConventional means result in wars and bloody horrible death as in WWI. That's why mutually assured destruction can't rely on conventional means.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"jg08eth","parent_id":"12jwr6d","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"CaptainComrade420","body":"Copied from above: Except like, if push comes to shove, you probably shouldn't retaliate with nukes. Other weapons? Sure, you know, as tactically/strategically requires. Realistically nukes won't completely wipe a civilization clean, there would be a capacity for retaliation afterwards even without nukes. That's the real deterrent. Otherwise there are dozens of countries that don't have nukes that would have been nuked according to the prevailing logic of pro-nukes in this post.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"jg0dv7f","parent_id":"jg08eth","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"stilltilting","body":"How often have we heard the phrase \"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\n\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \"useful\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\n\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\n\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \n\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\n\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\n\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \"hypothetical\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \n\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"12jwr6d","parent_id":null,"score":5,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/"},{"author":"codan84","body":"Nuclear weapons have the potential to be used for propulsion for space craft. Nuclear pulse propulsion is at its most basic exploding nuclear warheads behind a space craft and using the blast to push the craft. It has the potential to reach great speeds needed for the vast distances in space. \n\n[Here is an article on the topic.](https://www.ans.org/news/article-1294/nuclear-pulse-propulsion-gateway-to-the-stars/)","date":"2023-04-12","id":"jg08gc8","parent_id":"12jwr6d","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"CaptainComrade420","body":"I feel like there is a more effective way to accomplish this than nukes.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"jg0dy02","parent_id":"jg08gc8","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"stilltilting","body":"How often have we heard the phrase \"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\n\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \"useful\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\n\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\n\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \n\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\n\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\n\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \"hypothetical\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \n\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"12jwr6d","parent_id":null,"score":5,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/"},{"author":"eagle_565","body":"I don't think many people would disagree with this, but it comes down to a trust issue between states that have nuclear weapons.\nIf there was an international agreement to dismantle all nuclear warheads and plans for building new ones, there's always a risk that one country secretly saves a few hundred, and that leaves everyone else at their mercy.\nFor example, would you honestly trust North Korea to decommission all their nuclear warheads because of an agreement?\n\n\n>But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means.\n\nHow?\n\n\n>And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person\n\nA lot of dictators probably don't care about the planet, but care a lot about themselves and their country. If Russia were to nuke the US with no retaliation, there may be some negative environmental effects for Russia, but these won't be immediate existential threats like a nuclear bomb would be.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"jg08py1","parent_id":"12jwr6d","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"CaptainComrade420","body":"Copied from above: Except like, if push comes to shove, you probably shouldn't retaliate with nukes. Other weapons? Sure, you know, as tactically/strategically requires. Realistically nukes won't completely wipe a civilization clean, there would be a capacity for retaliation afterwards even without nukes. That's the real deterrent. Otherwise there are dozens of countries that don't have nukes that would have been nuked according to the prevailing logic of pro-nukes in this post.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"jg0dzzw","parent_id":"jg08py1","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"stilltilting","body":"How often have we heard the phrase \"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\n\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \"useful\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\n\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\n\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \n\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\n\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\n\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \"hypothetical\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \n\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"12jwr6d","parent_id":null,"score":5,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/"},{"author":"ghotier","body":"Any country with sufficient technology can create nuclear weapons and if no other country had them, then that country would be the single super power. The only rational solution is to keep them as a deterrent.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"jg09h54","parent_id":"12jwr6d","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"stilltilting","body":"How often have we heard the phrase \"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\n\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \"useful\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\n\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\n\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \n\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\n\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\n\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \"hypothetical\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \n\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"12jwr6d","parent_id":null,"score":5,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/"},{"author":"WeArEaLlMaDhErE-13","body":"Mutually Assured Destruction\n\nThe best weapon of all","date":"2023-04-12","id":"jg0a46r","parent_id":"12jwr6d","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"CaptainComrade420","body":"Copied from above: Except like, if push comes to shove, you probably shouldn't retaliate with nukes. Other weapons? Sure, you know, as tactically/strategically requires. Realistically nukes won't completely wipe a civilization clean, there would be a capacity for retaliation afterwards even without nukes. That's the real deterrent. Otherwise there are dozens of countries that don't have nukes that would have been nuked according to the prevailing logic of pro-nukes in this post.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"jg0e107","parent_id":"jg0a46r","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"stilltilting","body":"How often have we heard the phrase \"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\n\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \"useful\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\n\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\n\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \n\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\n\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\n\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \"hypothetical\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \n\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"12jwr6d","parent_id":null,"score":5,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/"},{"author":"Jakyland","body":"Re: \"only rational course is to eliminate them\" this is a classic case of the security dilemma which is really just a specific case of the prisoner's dilemma. While it would be better if no one had nuclear weapons, unilaterally disarming increases risks for that country. If either US/China/Russia disarm, **what could the nuclear disarmed country do in response to a massive nuclear first strike from one of the other two??**","date":"2023-04-12","id":"jg0brhv","parent_id":"12jwr6d","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"CaptainComrade420","body":"Copied from above: Except like, if push comes to shove, you probably shouldn't retaliate with nukes. Other weapons? Sure, you know, as tactically/strategically requires. Realistically nukes won't completely wipe a civilization clean, there would be a capacity for retaliation afterwards even without nukes. That's the real deterrent. Otherwise there are dozens of countries that don't have nukes that would have been nuked according to the prevailing logic of pro-nukes in this post.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"jg0e4tu","parent_id":"jg0brhv","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"stilltilting","body":"How often have we heard the phrase \"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\n\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \"useful\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\n\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\n\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \n\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\n\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\n\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \"hypothetical\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \n\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"12jwr6d","parent_id":null,"score":5,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/"},{"author":"hacksoncode","body":"So like... vaccination doesn't have any actual use if you don't actually ever run across the disease?\n\nDeterrence *is* an \"actual use\". Just talking about using nukes doesn't provide you any benefit... you have to actually possess them to have any effect.\n\nAnd now we get to the \"actual use\" that is useful: you have to actually show you have effective ones in order to deter anyone.\n\nI.e. all that nuclear testing was an \"actual use\" that both made sure they work (useful), and demonstrated to enemy countries that you have effective ones (useful).","date":"2023-04-12","id":"jg0xsir","parent_id":"12jwr6d","score":7,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"stilltilting","body":"How often have we heard the phrase \"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\n\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \"useful\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\n\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\n\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \n\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\n\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\n\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \"hypothetical\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \n\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"12jwr6d","parent_id":null,"score":5,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/"},{"author":"hacksoncode","body":"Two of them were actually used to hasten the end of World War II in the Pacific theater.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"jg0y2up","parent_id":"12jwr6d","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"stilltilting","body":"How often have we heard the phrase \"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\n\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \"useful\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\n\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\n\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \n\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\n\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\n\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \"hypothetical\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \n\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"12jwr6d","parent_id":null,"score":5,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/"},{"author":"PresentationLazy2385","body":"Nukes are big boy toys don't worry about it beta obviously useless to you but control is important whether you like it or not","date":"2023-04-12","id":"jg1ovu9","parent_id":"12jwr6d","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"stilltilting","body":"How often have we heard the phrase \"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\n\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \"useful\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\n\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\n\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \n\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\n\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\n\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \"hypothetical\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \n\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"12jwr6d","parent_id":null,"score":5,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/"},{"author":"a_random_GSD","body":"Nuclear weapons can generate a EMP over a power grid or city which would severely hamper any response. An airburst nuke would generate no nuclear fallout thus allowing for troops to move in easily.\n\nNuclear air to air missile are a cost effective way to deal with large bomber fleets as the large blast radius negates the need to get as close as regular air to air missiles and thus jamming and electronic warfare options are less effective.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"jg1s3hz","parent_id":"12jwr6d","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"stilltilting","body":"How often have we heard the phrase \"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\n\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \"useful\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\n\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\n\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \n\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\n\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\n\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \"hypothetical\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \n\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"12jwr6d","parent_id":null,"score":5,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/"},{"author":"VortexMagus","body":"My personal question for you is: what happens when one nation gets nuclear weapons and no other nation has them?","date":"2023-04-13","id":"jg1yph1","parent_id":"12jwr6d","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"stilltilting","body":"How often have we heard the phrase \"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\n\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \"useful\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\n\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\n\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \n\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\n\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\n\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \"hypothetical\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \n\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"12jwr6d","parent_id":null,"score":5,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/"},{"author":"Reaperpimp11","body":"No two powers with nukes will ever have another boots to ground serious military conflict again. Run the hypothetical through and you’ll see that a straight forward war where you send soldiers to die on the battlefield is no longer an option against an enemy with nukes. At some point one side will begin to gain advantage and nukes will become a viable tactic to even things out at this point the war escalates and then ends in mutually assured destruction. It’s simple but it’s effective.","date":"2023-04-13","id":"jg20r4p","parent_id":"12jwr6d","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"stilltilting","body":"How often have we heard the phrase \"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\n\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \"useful\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\n\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\n\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \n\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\n\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\n\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \"hypothetical\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \n\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"12jwr6d","parent_id":null,"score":5,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/"},{"author":"aceh40","body":">First, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody.\n\nThat is exactly their usefulness. It is a blackmail technique. MAD or mutually assured destruction has worked for 80 years reasonably well to ensure that no nuclear power will be attacked directly.\n\n>Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\n\nWithout Russia's nukes, it would never be able to fight the war in Ukraine. The west would have gone medieval on its ass.","date":"2023-04-13","id":"jg2bsk5","parent_id":"12jwr6d","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"stilltilting","body":"How often have we heard the phrase \"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\n\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \"useful\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\n\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\n\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \n\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\n\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\n\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \"hypothetical\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \n\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"12jwr6d","parent_id":null,"score":5,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/"},{"author":"Viewtastic","body":"Project Orion was a spaceship designed by NASA that could theoretically reach 10% the speed of light. This would be fast enough to make travel across the solar system easy for means of exploration or colonization.\n\nThis could even be used for efforts to explore other stars nearby.\n\nThe idea simple, you drop a nuclear bomb behind a specially designed spaceship, and the nuclear blast will push the ship forward increasingly velocity.","date":"2023-04-13","id":"jg48yik","parent_id":"12jwr6d","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"stilltilting","body":"How often have we heard the phrase \"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\n\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \"useful\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\n\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\n\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \n\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\n\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\n\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \"hypothetical\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \n\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"12jwr6d","parent_id":null,"score":5,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/"},{"author":"peerlessgarbler","body":"They make an excellent deterrent. See North Korea. The only reason that regime exists is because they could destroy cities.\n\nAlso, disarmament will never happen. Would you trust the nuclear powers?\n\nUSA: Okay let's disarm.\n\nRussia: you first \n\nUSA: you first","date":"2023-04-13","id":"jg50edy","parent_id":"12jwr6d","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"stilltilting","body":"How often have we heard the phrase \"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\n\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \"useful\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\n\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\n\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \n\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\n\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\n\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \"hypothetical\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \n\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"12jwr6d","parent_id":null,"score":5,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/"},{"author":"CapableDistance5570","body":"Ukraine got rid of their nuclear weapons.\n\nDo you believe Russia would have done what they did if they had them still? Their **actual** use over the last 70 or so years is: deterrent.\n\nAlso I think you've been watching too many videos and movies. Yes everyone universally agrees that we'll completely destroy everything and it'd be catastrophic and everything will get destroyed within hours or whatever. But have you actually seen how war works? It's not as coordinated as you would like to think, at least not now. Maybe with AI... but that's a whole other can of worms by itself.\n\nIn reality they've been so poorly maintained and so rarely tested that they could all be duds. Not all of them are massive, most of them in fact, quantity wise, are tiny. Then there's going to be so much going on at once that people who are in charge of manning them, like they have in the past, will decide not to do it. Internet lines will be cut, EMPs, bunker busters. Most of them aren't hypersonic. Most of them aren't even close enough. Not all cities are densely populated. Maybe about half. There wouldn't be enough large nukes to level all the big cities, they'd have to do several smaller ones. Then they'd have to multiply it to account for the ones that don't make it through defenses and such, in fact the systems are built to do that.\n\nThe scarier answer is that we're just not prepared for war on our soil or another world war. Any type, not just nukes. Within the first 2 weeks so much could be destroyed by just the cutting of internet cables. Just the fact that we wouldn't import/export food or energy. World trade coming to a standstill. Hacking of important infrastructure.","date":"2023-04-13","id":"jg50qoh","parent_id":"12jwr6d","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"stilltilting","body":"How often have we heard the phrase \"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\n\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \"useful\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\n\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\n\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \n\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\n\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\n\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \"hypothetical\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \n\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"12jwr6d","parent_id":null,"score":5,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/"},{"author":"equalRights111","body":"Unfortunately, one cannot guarantee that every country would ‘eliminate’ them.","date":"2023-04-13","id":"jg55pjg","parent_id":"12jwr6d","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"stilltilting","body":"How often have we heard the phrase \"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\n\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \"useful\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\n\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\n\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \n\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\n\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\n\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \"hypothetical\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \n\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"12jwr6d","parent_id":null,"score":5,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/"},{"author":"ReaganVB","body":"I think they do have a use, I just don't like to think about it. They had their use with Japan and worked very well. I think their uses has changed and I agree that certain nukes should be eliminated.\n\nNukes that can destroy entire cities are only useful as a deterrent so are basically useless.\n\nNukes that can destroy an area no bigger than a military base have incredible use (for now). Using a Nukes on a massive Naval armada of Taiwan would decimate the enemy in seconds. The war would be over before it started (assuming no one uses city destroying nukes). A replacement for these nukes would be the concept called: 'Rods from God'. Non nuclear, same damage, but can only be fired at land, not the sea.","date":"2023-04-14","id":"jgb11v4","parent_id":"12jwr6d","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"stilltilting","body":"How often have we heard the phrase \"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\n\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \"useful\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\n\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\n\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \n\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\n\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\n\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \"hypothetical\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \n\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"12jwr6d","parent_id":null,"score":5,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/"},{"author":"Yanpretman","body":"It is the most expensive dick measuring contest in human history honestly.","date":"2023-04-16","id":"jggy1wi","parent_id":"12jwr6d","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"stilltilting","body":"How often have we heard the phrase \"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\n\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \"useful\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\n\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\n\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \n\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\n\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\n\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \"hypothetical\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \n\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.","date":"2023-04-12","id":"12jwr6d","parent_id":null,"score":5,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/"},{"author":"PerfectAttention9225","body":"You contradicted yourself. How will there be a threat if they don't have nukes?","date":"2023-06-24","id":"jpf853v","parent_id":"12jwr6d","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}]],"string":"[\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"How often have we heard the phrase \\\"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\\\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\\n\\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \\\"useful\\\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\\n\\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\\n\\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \\n\\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\\n\\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\\n\\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \\\"hypothetical\\\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \\n\\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 5,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"LucidMetal\",\n \"body\": \"If you don't think they act as a deterrent, how often since their invention has a country with nuclear weapons been invaded?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"jg01zme\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"score\": 10,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CaptainComrade420\",\n \"body\": \"According to your logic shouldn't those countries just have been nuked instead of invaded?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"jg0c7ux\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jg01zme\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"How often have we heard the phrase \\\"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\\\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\\n\\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \\\"useful\\\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\\n\\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\\n\\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \\n\\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\\n\\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\\n\\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \\\"hypothetical\\\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \\n\\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 5,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"tbdabbholm\",\n \"body\": \"If someone has nukes and you don't why would they fear to use them? They use them and they instantly win. So unless everyone agrees to give them up and never ever create them again (impossible) the only way to ensure they're not used, is to threaten nuclear retaliation after a first strike\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"jg0247w\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CaptainComrade420\",\n \"body\": \"I think the point OP is making is that if you are in a situation where you are using retaliatory nukes, you have already lost, therefore they don't have a purpose.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"jg0628n\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jg0247w\",\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"How often have we heard the phrase \\\"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\\\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\\n\\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \\\"useful\\\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\\n\\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\\n\\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \\n\\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\\n\\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\\n\\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \\\"hypothetical\\\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \\n\\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 5,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"obert-wan-kenobert\",\n \"body\": \"I would say the benefit is that, oxy-moronically, the existence of nuclear weapons keeps the peace.\\n\\nSince the invention and proliferation of nuclear weapons, there was not been a single direct war between two global powers for almost a century -- largely because everyone knows it would end in nuclear war. Compare this to the pre-nuclear era, where all-out wars between global powers were fought frequently.\\n\\nIs this a sustainable solution long-term? Probably not. Would it be better if nuclear weapons didn't exist? Definitely. But since they do, their peace-keeping uses *are* a measurable and practical benefit.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"jg02mv6\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"score\": 15,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"kingpatzer\",\n \"body\": \">where all-out wars between global powers were fought frequently.\\n\\n\\\"Frequently\\\" here is an understatement. \\\"Continually\\\" would be more accurate.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"jg04091\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jg02mv6\",\n \"score\": 12,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"How often have we heard the phrase \\\"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\\\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\\n\\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \\\"useful\\\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\\n\\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\\n\\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \\n\\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\\n\\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\\n\\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \\\"hypothetical\\\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \\n\\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 5,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"ElysiX\",\n \"body\": \">non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons\\n\\nIs that outcome worse than complete domination by another country? Matter of opinion.\\n\\nThey don't just deter other nukes. They deter normal attacks too. Why do you think there are so many proxy wars? No bloodshed in the countries that have a nuclear umbrella. Death and suffering in war pretty much only comes to soldiers and people in countries without nukes.\\n\\nNoone is going to fight a bombing and fighter jet campaign to move a border a couple kilometers when the other side has nukes. Noone invades you to stop your stupid ideas.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"jg02nws\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"score\": 3,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"You don't have to choose to be dominated by anyone. You can refuse subjugation. You can fight using conventional means. And you can also choose resistance to the death over subjugation.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"jg0pbul\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jg02nws\",\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"How often have we heard the phrase \\\"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\\\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\\n\\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \\\"useful\\\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\\n\\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\\n\\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \\n\\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\\n\\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\\n\\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \\\"hypothetical\\\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \\n\\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 5,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Bi_Shakespeare\",\n \"body\": \"They have a use as a deterrent against other nuclear states, or just other states in general. That is there primary use in geo-politics.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"jg02o90\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"score\": 5,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CaptainComrade420\",\n \"body\": \"Does this mean if every country had nukes we would have world peace? Should we give everyone nukes to hasten world peace? According to your logic we should.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"jg06kbx\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jg02o90\",\n \"score\": 3,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"How often have we heard the phrase \\\"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\\\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\\n\\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \\\"useful\\\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\\n\\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\\n\\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \\n\\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\\n\\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\\n\\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \\\"hypothetical\\\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \\n\\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 5,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Khal-Frodo\",\n \"body\": \"> They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody\\n\\nWhat's your source for \\\"everyone admits this\\\"? It sounds like you're only considering conflict between two nuclear powers. If I have a nuke and you don't, the game is only up for you if I use mine.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"jg02weh\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"score\": 6,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CaptainComrade420\",\n \"body\": \"Even if the defending country doesn't have nukes, other countries would retaliate. For example, if Russia nukes Ukraine, I'd bet my bottom dollar at least one other country would fire nukes at Russia.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"jg06rab\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jg02weh\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"How often have we heard the phrase \\\"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\\\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\\n\\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \\\"useful\\\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\\n\\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\\n\\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \\n\\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\\n\\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\\n\\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \\\"hypothetical\\\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \\n\\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 5,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"MrGraeme\",\n \"body\": \">They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. \\n\\nThey're only not useful as first strike weapons *against other nuclear armed states*. If the United States decided to send a nuclear missile into Somalia, they're not going to be in a position to retaliate at all.\\n\\n>They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone.\\n\\nNuclear weapons act as a *deterrent*. The idea is that, by having nuclear weapons, you will not need to retaliate with them at all because the possibility of nuclear retaliation is enough to discourage attacks.\\n\\n>But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means\\n\\nNot to the same extent. One nuclear weapon can destroy a capital city. \\n\\n> And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. \\n\\nThis is wrong. The scale of economic and environmental damage depends on the scale of the attack. Thousands of nuclear weapons have been detonated without wrecking the world. \\n\\n>Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \\n\\nThere are countermeasures in place to prevent a single irrational actor from launching nuclear weapons.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"jg038u4\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"score\": 20,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CaptainComrade420\",\n \"body\": \"Copied from above: Even if the defending country doesn't have nukes, other countries would retaliate. For example, if Russia nukes Ukraine, I'd bet my bottom dollar at least one other country would fire nukes at Russia.\\n\\nAdditionally, if there are fail-safes to prevent rogue actors, how does America have so many broken arrows? Lol\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"jg070vr\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jg038u4\",\n \"score\": 4,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"How often have we heard the phrase \\\"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\\\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\\n\\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \\\"useful\\\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\\n\\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\\n\\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \\n\\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\\n\\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\\n\\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \\\"hypothetical\\\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \\n\\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 5,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"kingpatzer\",\n \"body\": \">First, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness . .\\n\\nMutual assured destruction is actually useful. We have historical examples of leaders choosing diplomacy over war, or backing down rather than causing war, because of the presence of nuclear weapons.\\n\\nThat's a use.\\n\\n>But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means . .\\n\\nNot really. Deterrence can happen only when one side has overwhelmingly superior conventional forces. When sides are relatively evenly matched, leaders are more than willing to fight conventional wars.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"jg03et7\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CaptainComrade420\",\n \"body\": \"Point defense is a conventional means, plus non nuclear retaliation is still a thing.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"jg0cwje\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jg03et7\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"How often have we heard the phrase \\\"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\\\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\\n\\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \\\"useful\\\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\\n\\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\\n\\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \\n\\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\\n\\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\\n\\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \\\"hypothetical\\\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \\n\\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 5,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Salanmander\",\n \"body\": \"> And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. \\n\\nThat's only true *because* of retaliation. If the US didn't have any nukes, and a country with nukes went to war with the US, the country with nukes could easily just drop a nuke on a few major military bases. Or go the US-vs-Japan strategy, drop a nuke on a major city, and say \\\"surrender or we'll keep going\\\".\\n\\nIt's no accident that nukes were used very soon after their invention, and haven't been used (on people) since. The large number of countries having nukes is a real deterrent.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"jg03tm9\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CaptainComrade420\",\n \"body\": \"That's a myth we used both our nukes and had no more stockpiled at the time, and we had planned on using both of them iirc\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"jg0d4q8\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jg03tm9\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"How often have we heard the phrase \\\"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\\\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\\n\\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \\\"useful\\\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\\n\\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\\n\\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \\n\\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\\n\\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\\n\\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \\\"hypothetical\\\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \\n\\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 5,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Sirhc978\",\n \"body\": \">First, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness.\\n\\nLarge-scale excavation to create reservoirs, canals & ports, stimulating oil & gas recovery, creating cavities for underground oil, gas or waste storage, and extinguishing gas field fires and all been tested in the real world and Russia (then the USSR) has even used some of those techniques for real.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"jg045d6\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CaptainComrade420\",\n \"body\": \"Yeah but we don't do it because it would be stupid to heavily irradiate a construction area.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"jg0cqe0\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jg045d6\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"How often have we heard the phrase \\\"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\\\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\\n\\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \\\"useful\\\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\\n\\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\\n\\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \\n\\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\\n\\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\\n\\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \\\"hypothetical\\\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \\n\\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 5,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Green__lightning\",\n \"body\": \"There are at least two peaceful uses to nuclear warheads, Project Plowshare and Project Orion, the first being to use nuclear warheads to move enormous amounts of earth, with this planned to lead up to blasting the Panama Canal down to sea level as an open channel. Sadly this never happened for a mix of radiation and political concerns. \\n\\n[Project Orion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion\\\\)) has no substantial radiation concerns if used as a deep space engine, and most of the risk of using one if you're not ground launching it, is the ever-present risk of rocket failure and dangerous materials crashing into the sea. \\n\\nThe issues with actually building one, even for entirely peaceful purposes, like pushing thousands of tons of Mars base to Mars, is that the nuclear pulse units are still a nuclear detonation, and against various test ban treaties. \\n\\nSecondly, practical use of an Orion Drive requires some amount of shaping of the charge, basically putting the warhead with stuff on one end of it, and reflectors so most of the radiation goes into that stuff and heats it, shooting it at the pusher plate, then giving thrust that way. This is dangerous because the concept of the nuclear shaped charge was likely developed from this idea, basically taking the idea of putting stuff in front of a nuke in vacuum, and focusing that stuff into what can only be called a death beam. Oh, and these were meant as the primary armament of what basically amounted to a orion powered space battleship that the US briefly considered building during the cold war. \\n\\nIf you ask me, this proves two things: Anything with that level of energy density needed to be a useful space engine can also be a very effective weapon, and that if we keep restricting anything that powerful because it can be used as a weapon, we'll never make much progress.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"jg05p8v\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"score\": 6,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CaptainComrade420\",\n \"body\": \"I feel like there is a more effective rocket fuel than nuclear warheads. I'm not a scientist, but that's just what my gut tells me.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"jg0c4kw\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jg05p8v\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"How often have we heard the phrase \\\"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\\\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\\n\\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \\\"useful\\\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\\n\\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\\n\\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \\n\\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\\n\\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\\n\\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \\\"hypothetical\\\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \\n\\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 5,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"SirWankshaft_McTwit\",\n \"body\": \"They play a very important role in that they have prevented a conventional war between two nuclear powers ever since the first two dropped in 1945.\\n\\nThe very fact that they're so incredibly destructive is an excellent deterrent from conventional war. Also mandatory to mention that there are less extremely destructive variants. The ones you're thinking of are the strategic kind. Tactical nuclear weapons exist.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"jg05qra\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CaptainComrade420\",\n \"body\": \"I mean we fight proxy wars now which are arguably worse.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"jg0d6jm\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jg05qra\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"How often have we heard the phrase \\\"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\\\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\\n\\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \\\"useful\\\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\\n\\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\\n\\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \\n\\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\\n\\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\\n\\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \\\"hypothetical\\\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \\n\\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 5,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"jatjqtjat\",\n \"body\": \"it looks like you've not addressed the concept of mutually assured destruction. If you nuke me, I'll nuke you.\\n\\nwhy do you think we haven't had a real war between any major world powers since nukes were invented. powerful nations didn't just suddenly decide to be peaceful with each other for the first time in the history of humanity.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"jg069kn\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"score\": 13,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CaptainComrade420\",\n \"body\": \"I mean we fight proxy wars now which are arguably worse\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"jg0d8wh\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jg069kn\",\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"How often have we heard the phrase \\\"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\\\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\\n\\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \\\"useful\\\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\\n\\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\\n\\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \\n\\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\\n\\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\\n\\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \\\"hypothetical\\\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \\n\\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 5,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"phine-phurniture\",\n \"body\": \"Simple problem here... The integrity of those who possess or want to possess them and a loud international \\\"you first\\\"\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"jg07fkm\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"How often have we heard the phrase \\\"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\\\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\\n\\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \\\"useful\\\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\\n\\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\\n\\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \\n\\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\\n\\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\\n\\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \\\"hypothetical\\\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \\n\\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 5,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"TaylorChesses\",\n \"body\": \"They're for having, not using. nations which possess nuclear arms of their own are effectively immune to being invaded. ever wonder why we invaded Iraq and not say Iran or Pakistan? geography plays a factor yes, mountains are bad. but also Iran and Pakistan are nuclear capable. the consequences are dire. the best way to secure your continued political independence is to have a few of them on hand, then everyone is far more careful. In geopolitics there are effectively 2 types of nations, those with nukes, and those without. those without are vulnerable to those with.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"jg07qjg\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CaptainComrade420\",\n \"body\": \"Copied from above: Except like, if push comes to shove, you probably shouldn't retaliate with nukes. Other weapons? Sure, you know, as tactically/strategically requires. Realistically nukes won't completely wipe a civilization clean, there would be a capacity for retaliation afterwards even without nukes. That's the real deterrent. Otherwise there are dozens of countries that don't have nukes that would have been nuked according to the prevailing logic of pro-nukes in this post.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"jg0dsxr\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jg07qjg\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"How often have we heard the phrase \\\"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\\\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\\n\\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \\\"useful\\\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\\n\\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\\n\\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \\n\\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\\n\\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\\n\\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \\\"hypothetical\\\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \\n\\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 5,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"richnibba19\",\n \"body\": \"If i had nukes and no one else did, i would be much more inclined to use them. They already exist and every country that willingly disposes of them gets invaded, so everyone isnt going to simultaneously give them up. So the use of nukes is preventing yourself from being nuked/invaded\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"jg07t1m\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CaptainComrade420\",\n \"body\": \"I mean the UK got invaded by Argentina even though they had nukes.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"jg0djyx\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jg07t1m\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"How often have we heard the phrase \\\"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\\\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\\n\\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \\\"useful\\\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\\n\\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\\n\\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \\n\\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\\n\\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\\n\\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \\\"hypothetical\\\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \\n\\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 5,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"threeSJE\",\n \"body\": \">First, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody.\\n\\nThat's the usefulness. It's called mutually assured destruction. Meaning you probably shouldn't use them. But if you have them you know nobody will use them on you because it's a death sentence for them.\\n\\nConventional means result in wars and bloody horrible death as in WWI. That's why mutually assured destruction can't rely on conventional means.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"jg08eth\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CaptainComrade420\",\n \"body\": \"Copied from above: Except like, if push comes to shove, you probably shouldn't retaliate with nukes. Other weapons? Sure, you know, as tactically/strategically requires. Realistically nukes won't completely wipe a civilization clean, there would be a capacity for retaliation afterwards even without nukes. That's the real deterrent. Otherwise there are dozens of countries that don't have nukes that would have been nuked according to the prevailing logic of pro-nukes in this post.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"jg0dv7f\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jg08eth\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"How often have we heard the phrase \\\"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\\\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\\n\\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \\\"useful\\\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\\n\\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\\n\\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \\n\\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\\n\\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\\n\\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \\\"hypothetical\\\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \\n\\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 5,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"codan84\",\n \"body\": \"Nuclear weapons have the potential to be used for propulsion for space craft. Nuclear pulse propulsion is at its most basic exploding nuclear warheads behind a space craft and using the blast to push the craft. It has the potential to reach great speeds needed for the vast distances in space. \\n\\n[Here is an article on the topic.](https://www.ans.org/news/article-1294/nuclear-pulse-propulsion-gateway-to-the-stars/)\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"jg08gc8\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CaptainComrade420\",\n \"body\": \"I feel like there is a more effective way to accomplish this than nukes.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"jg0dy02\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jg08gc8\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"How often have we heard the phrase \\\"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\\\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\\n\\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \\\"useful\\\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\\n\\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\\n\\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \\n\\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\\n\\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\\n\\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \\\"hypothetical\\\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \\n\\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 5,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"eagle_565\",\n \"body\": \"I don't think many people would disagree with this, but it comes down to a trust issue between states that have nuclear weapons.\\nIf there was an international agreement to dismantle all nuclear warheads and plans for building new ones, there's always a risk that one country secretly saves a few hundred, and that leaves everyone else at their mercy.\\nFor example, would you honestly trust North Korea to decommission all their nuclear warheads because of an agreement?\\n\\n\\n>But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means.\\n\\nHow?\\n\\n\\n>And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person\\n\\nA lot of dictators probably don't care about the planet, but care a lot about themselves and their country. If Russia were to nuke the US with no retaliation, there may be some negative environmental effects for Russia, but these won't be immediate existential threats like a nuclear bomb would be.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"jg08py1\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CaptainComrade420\",\n \"body\": \"Copied from above: Except like, if push comes to shove, you probably shouldn't retaliate with nukes. Other weapons? Sure, you know, as tactically/strategically requires. Realistically nukes won't completely wipe a civilization clean, there would be a capacity for retaliation afterwards even without nukes. That's the real deterrent. Otherwise there are dozens of countries that don't have nukes that would have been nuked according to the prevailing logic of pro-nukes in this post.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"jg0dzzw\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jg08py1\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"How often have we heard the phrase \\\"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\\\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\\n\\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \\\"useful\\\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\\n\\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\\n\\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \\n\\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\\n\\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\\n\\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \\\"hypothetical\\\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \\n\\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 5,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"ghotier\",\n \"body\": \"Any country with sufficient technology can create nuclear weapons and if no other country had them, then that country would be the single super power. The only rational solution is to keep them as a deterrent.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"jg09h54\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"How often have we heard the phrase \\\"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\\\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\\n\\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \\\"useful\\\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\\n\\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\\n\\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \\n\\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\\n\\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\\n\\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \\\"hypothetical\\\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \\n\\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 5,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"WeArEaLlMaDhErE-13\",\n \"body\": \"Mutually Assured Destruction\\n\\nThe best weapon of all\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"jg0a46r\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CaptainComrade420\",\n \"body\": \"Copied from above: Except like, if push comes to shove, you probably shouldn't retaliate with nukes. Other weapons? Sure, you know, as tactically/strategically requires. Realistically nukes won't completely wipe a civilization clean, there would be a capacity for retaliation afterwards even without nukes. That's the real deterrent. Otherwise there are dozens of countries that don't have nukes that would have been nuked according to the prevailing logic of pro-nukes in this post.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"jg0e107\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jg0a46r\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"How often have we heard the phrase \\\"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\\\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\\n\\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \\\"useful\\\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\\n\\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\\n\\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \\n\\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\\n\\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\\n\\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \\\"hypothetical\\\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \\n\\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 5,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Jakyland\",\n \"body\": \"Re: \\\"only rational course is to eliminate them\\\" this is a classic case of the security dilemma which is really just a specific case of the prisoner's dilemma. While it would be better if no one had nuclear weapons, unilaterally disarming increases risks for that country. If either US/China/Russia disarm, **what could the nuclear disarmed country do in response to a massive nuclear first strike from one of the other two??**\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"jg0brhv\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CaptainComrade420\",\n \"body\": \"Copied from above: Except like, if push comes to shove, you probably shouldn't retaliate with nukes. Other weapons? Sure, you know, as tactically/strategically requires. Realistically nukes won't completely wipe a civilization clean, there would be a capacity for retaliation afterwards even without nukes. That's the real deterrent. Otherwise there are dozens of countries that don't have nukes that would have been nuked according to the prevailing logic of pro-nukes in this post.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"jg0e4tu\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jg0brhv\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"How often have we heard the phrase \\\"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\\\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\\n\\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \\\"useful\\\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\\n\\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\\n\\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \\n\\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\\n\\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\\n\\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \\\"hypothetical\\\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \\n\\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 5,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"hacksoncode\",\n \"body\": \"So like... vaccination doesn't have any actual use if you don't actually ever run across the disease?\\n\\nDeterrence *is* an \\\"actual use\\\". Just talking about using nukes doesn't provide you any benefit... you have to actually possess them to have any effect.\\n\\nAnd now we get to the \\\"actual use\\\" that is useful: you have to actually show you have effective ones in order to deter anyone.\\n\\nI.e. all that nuclear testing was an \\\"actual use\\\" that both made sure they work (useful), and demonstrated to enemy countries that you have effective ones (useful).\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"jg0xsir\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"score\": 7,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"How often have we heard the phrase \\\"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\\\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\\n\\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \\\"useful\\\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\\n\\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\\n\\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \\n\\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\\n\\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\\n\\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \\\"hypothetical\\\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \\n\\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 5,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"hacksoncode\",\n \"body\": \"Two of them were actually used to hasten the end of World War II in the Pacific theater.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"jg0y2up\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"How often have we heard the phrase \\\"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\\\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\\n\\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \\\"useful\\\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\\n\\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\\n\\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \\n\\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\\n\\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\\n\\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \\\"hypothetical\\\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \\n\\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 5,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"PresentationLazy2385\",\n \"body\": \"Nukes are big boy toys don't worry about it beta obviously useless to you but control is important whether you like it or not\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"jg1ovu9\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"How often have we heard the phrase \\\"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\\\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\\n\\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \\\"useful\\\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\\n\\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\\n\\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \\n\\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\\n\\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\\n\\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \\\"hypothetical\\\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \\n\\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 5,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"a_random_GSD\",\n \"body\": \"Nuclear weapons can generate a EMP over a power grid or city which would severely hamper any response. An airburst nuke would generate no nuclear fallout thus allowing for troops to move in easily.\\n\\nNuclear air to air missile are a cost effective way to deal with large bomber fleets as the large blast radius negates the need to get as close as regular air to air missiles and thus jamming and electronic warfare options are less effective.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"jg1s3hz\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"How often have we heard the phrase \\\"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\\\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\\n\\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \\\"useful\\\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\\n\\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\\n\\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \\n\\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\\n\\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\\n\\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \\\"hypothetical\\\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \\n\\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 5,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"VortexMagus\",\n \"body\": \"My personal question for you is: what happens when one nation gets nuclear weapons and no other nation has them?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-13\",\n \"id\": \"jg1yph1\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"How often have we heard the phrase \\\"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\\\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\\n\\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \\\"useful\\\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\\n\\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\\n\\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \\n\\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\\n\\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\\n\\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \\\"hypothetical\\\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \\n\\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 5,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Reaperpimp11\",\n \"body\": \"No two powers with nukes will ever have another boots to ground serious military conflict again. Run the hypothetical through and you’ll see that a straight forward war where you send soldiers to die on the battlefield is no longer an option against an enemy with nukes. At some point one side will begin to gain advantage and nukes will become a viable tactic to even things out at this point the war escalates and then ends in mutually assured destruction. It’s simple but it’s effective.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-13\",\n \"id\": \"jg20r4p\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"How often have we heard the phrase \\\"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\\\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\\n\\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \\\"useful\\\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\\n\\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\\n\\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \\n\\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\\n\\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\\n\\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \\\"hypothetical\\\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \\n\\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 5,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"aceh40\",\n \"body\": \">First, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody.\\n\\nThat is exactly their usefulness. It is a blackmail technique. MAD or mutually assured destruction has worked for 80 years reasonably well to ensure that no nuclear power will be attacked directly.\\n\\n>Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\\n\\nWithout Russia's nukes, it would never be able to fight the war in Ukraine. The west would have gone medieval on its ass.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-13\",\n \"id\": \"jg2bsk5\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"How often have we heard the phrase \\\"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\\\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\\n\\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \\\"useful\\\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\\n\\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\\n\\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \\n\\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\\n\\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\\n\\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \\\"hypothetical\\\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \\n\\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 5,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Viewtastic\",\n \"body\": \"Project Orion was a spaceship designed by NASA that could theoretically reach 10% the speed of light. This would be fast enough to make travel across the solar system easy for means of exploration or colonization.\\n\\nThis could even be used for efforts to explore other stars nearby.\\n\\nThe idea simple, you drop a nuclear bomb behind a specially designed spaceship, and the nuclear blast will push the ship forward increasingly velocity.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-13\",\n \"id\": \"jg48yik\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"How often have we heard the phrase \\\"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\\\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\\n\\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \\\"useful\\\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\\n\\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\\n\\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \\n\\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\\n\\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\\n\\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \\\"hypothetical\\\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \\n\\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 5,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"peerlessgarbler\",\n \"body\": \"They make an excellent deterrent. See North Korea. The only reason that regime exists is because they could destroy cities.\\n\\nAlso, disarmament will never happen. Would you trust the nuclear powers?\\n\\nUSA: Okay let's disarm.\\n\\nRussia: you first \\n\\nUSA: you first\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-13\",\n \"id\": \"jg50edy\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"How often have we heard the phrase \\\"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\\\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\\n\\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \\\"useful\\\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\\n\\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\\n\\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \\n\\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\\n\\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\\n\\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \\\"hypothetical\\\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \\n\\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 5,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CapableDistance5570\",\n \"body\": \"Ukraine got rid of their nuclear weapons.\\n\\nDo you believe Russia would have done what they did if they had them still? Their **actual** use over the last 70 or so years is: deterrent.\\n\\nAlso I think you've been watching too many videos and movies. Yes everyone universally agrees that we'll completely destroy everything and it'd be catastrophic and everything will get destroyed within hours or whatever. But have you actually seen how war works? It's not as coordinated as you would like to think, at least not now. Maybe with AI... but that's a whole other can of worms by itself.\\n\\nIn reality they've been so poorly maintained and so rarely tested that they could all be duds. Not all of them are massive, most of them in fact, quantity wise, are tiny. Then there's going to be so much going on at once that people who are in charge of manning them, like they have in the past, will decide not to do it. Internet lines will be cut, EMPs, bunker busters. Most of them aren't hypersonic. Most of them aren't even close enough. Not all cities are densely populated. Maybe about half. There wouldn't be enough large nukes to level all the big cities, they'd have to do several smaller ones. Then they'd have to multiply it to account for the ones that don't make it through defenses and such, in fact the systems are built to do that.\\n\\nThe scarier answer is that we're just not prepared for war on our soil or another world war. Any type, not just nukes. Within the first 2 weeks so much could be destroyed by just the cutting of internet cables. Just the fact that we wouldn't import/export food or energy. World trade coming to a standstill. Hacking of important infrastructure.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-13\",\n \"id\": \"jg50qoh\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"How often have we heard the phrase \\\"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\\\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\\n\\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \\\"useful\\\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\\n\\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\\n\\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \\n\\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\\n\\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\\n\\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \\\"hypothetical\\\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \\n\\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 5,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"equalRights111\",\n \"body\": \"Unfortunately, one cannot guarantee that every country would ‘eliminate’ them.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-13\",\n \"id\": \"jg55pjg\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"How often have we heard the phrase \\\"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\\\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\\n\\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \\\"useful\\\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\\n\\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\\n\\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \\n\\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\\n\\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\\n\\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \\\"hypothetical\\\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \\n\\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 5,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"ReaganVB\",\n \"body\": \"I think they do have a use, I just don't like to think about it. They had their use with Japan and worked very well. I think their uses has changed and I agree that certain nukes should be eliminated.\\n\\nNukes that can destroy entire cities are only useful as a deterrent so are basically useless.\\n\\nNukes that can destroy an area no bigger than a military base have incredible use (for now). Using a Nukes on a massive Naval armada of Taiwan would decimate the enemy in seconds. The war would be over before it started (assuming no one uses city destroying nukes). A replacement for these nukes would be the concept called: 'Rods from God'. Non nuclear, same damage, but can only be fired at land, not the sea.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-14\",\n \"id\": \"jgb11v4\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"How often have we heard the phrase \\\"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\\\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\\n\\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \\\"useful\\\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\\n\\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\\n\\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \\n\\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\\n\\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\\n\\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \\\"hypothetical\\\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \\n\\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 5,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Yanpretman\",\n \"body\": \"It is the most expensive dick measuring contest in human history honestly.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-16\",\n \"id\": \"jggy1wi\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"How often have we heard the phrase \\\"Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought\\\"? Even Russia was repeating this refrain while reminding everyone they had nuclear weapon over the past year. So why do we have them at all?\\n\\nFirst, nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL usefulness. They may be useful in a hypothetical sense, but pretty much everyone admits that if you are actually USING them then the whole game is pretty much up for everybody. They are not useful as a first strike weapon because of the threat of retaliation. They are also useless as a weapon of ACTUAL retaliation because if someone has already launched a massive first strike at you there is nothing you can do about the fact your country and probably civilization is gone. You can only add to the death toll. So you cannot achieve any rational geopolitical goal through the USE of nuclear weapons. (I agree you could achieve the goal of mass death and destruction, but I'm not going to argue that this would be a \\\"useful\\\" thing to do even for the planet because the radiation and nuclear winter would take a massive amount of other life, too)\\n\\nSecond, they have huge costs. In terms of money alone, the CBO estimated that from 2021-2030 it would cost more than $600 BILLION just to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. Imagine all the other things that could go to. But way more importantly, keeping large stockpiles of nuclear weapons means there is always a non-zero risk of complete global annihilation by nuclear weapons as the result of a mistake or accident. In fact, [it's nearly happened nearly two dozen times already](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation) (that we know of):\\n\\n> All told, there have been [at least 22](https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/) alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we’ve been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a [group of flying swans](https://www.routledge.com/Thinking-About-Nuclear-Weapons-Analyses-and-Prescriptions/Holroyd/p/book/9780709937753), [the Moon](https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/the-moon-and-nuclear-war-904), [minor computer problems](https://futureoflife.org/2016/06/06/failed-computer-chip-lead-nuclear-war/#:~:text=The%20US%20early%20warning%20system,launched%20at%20the%20United%20States.&text=That%20one%2C%20in%201979%2C%20was,the%20main%20US%20warning%20centers.) and [unusual space weather](https://www.space.com/33687-solar-storm-cold-war-false-alarm.html). In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a [family’s back garden](https://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/nuclear-bomb-air-force-south-carolina-1958.htm); miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been [no way to detect and stop an automatic launch](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/failure-shuts-down-squadron-of-nuclear-missiles/65207/). \\n\\nThe fact that it hasn't happened yet isn't that great a predictor for whether or not it will happen in the future. We've only had these massive stockpiles for about 70 years. And given enough chances, accidental nuclear war WILL happen. It's just a matter of time. And the COST side of an equation can't be much higher than total annihilation of most life on Earth.\\n\\n**So we have zero benefit to using something and a massive potential cost that becomes more and more likely to become an actual cost the longer time goes on. So the only rational thing to do is remove these weapons from existence, or at least get them to such a level that they do not pose an extinction threat anymore.**\\n\\nThe reason I have a CMV here is that I do acknowledge they have a \\\"hypothetical\\\" use in that they MIGHT deter someone from using their own nuclear weapons against you. But deterrence can also be managed through conventional means. And the first strike of launch of any nation's arsenal is going to cause so much damage to the planet and the global economy as to most likely wreck global civilization anyway. Only an irrational actor would choose such a course of action and deterrence is unlikely to work against such a person (just as fear of death doesn't deter someone willing to be a suicide bomber or someone willing to go on a shooting spree until death by cop). \\n\\nPlease keep in mind that while you could maybe get a delta for finding some ACTUAL use, the benefits would have to outweigh the potential/eventually actual cost of accidental nuclear war to fully change my view.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-12\",\n \"id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 5,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Nuclear weapons have no ACTUAL use and the only rational course of action is to eliminate them.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/12jwr6d/cmv_nuclear_weapons_have_no_actual_use_and_the/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"PerfectAttention9225\",\n \"body\": \"You contradicted yourself. How will there be a threat if they don't have nukes?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-24\",\n \"id\": \"jpf853v\",\n \"parent_id\": \"12jwr6d\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ]\n]","isConversational":false},"2":{"kind":"string","value":"moderate"}}},{"rowIdx":37,"cells":{"0":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"author":"agonisticpathos","body":"In the spirit of Friedrich Nietzsche, I tend to agree with the view that competition (a predominantly conservative value) is a fundamental component of ethics, culture, politics, and life in general. I disagree with any liberals who say that equality is inherently valuable, or that there are such things as intrinsic human rights (for any groups).\n\nYet I find myself agreeing with liberals on specific issues, albeit for conservative reasons... the main one having to do with competition on both individual and national levels.\n\nFor example, while I don't believe we should defend equality for its own sake, I do think there should be more income equality in the US as a means to spurring competition in our economy, in education, in technology, and so forth.\n\nLikewise, while I don't believe any minority groups have inherent rights, as nobody has ever proven that such universal, intrinsic rights exist, I still prefer to live in a society in which all minority groups are thriving as this makes for more competition within our country and also makes us a stronger nation as a whole in the face of competition or conflict with other countries.\n\nFor similar reasons, I also agree with the left on climate change, abortion, and a few other issues.\n\nSo I tend to think of myself as a conservative with liberal views.\n\nIt could be objected that my overarching \"conservative philosophy\" doesn't matter if it doesn't distinguish me from a typical liberal. But I think it does. For reasons that I won't fully spell out here, I think certain levels of conflict and competition are inevitable on the global scale. So while a more liberal minded person might hope for a world in which adversarial relationships disappear and that we embrace our common humanity, I think that's unrealistic and thus embrace a nationalistic political attitude that supports our nation and allies over adversaries (like Russia and China). \\[And just to be clear, I don't support any form of nationalism that puts one race or religion over others in our country.\\]\n\nIn sum, I think we should build up all of our communities and cultural groups, not for liberal reasons of guilt, morality, or universal human rights, but simply because it's better for us to be stronger than weaker, more prosperous than less prosperous, and suchlike.","date":"2023-04-26","id":"1302qtg","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: It's possible to espouse a conservative political philosophy while also maintaining mostly leftist positions on specific issues.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/1302qtg/cmv_its_possible_to_espouse_a_conservative/"},{"author":"sawdeanz","body":"I mean, of course it's possible to hold multiple values. \n\nI would agree that your political philosophy doesn't seem to be rooted in progressive liberalism. But I wouldn't say it's conservative either. The thing with conservative thought is that when you dive deep down it actually relies on a belief in intrinsic values, namely that some people or groups have more intrinsic value than others, and this is used to justify a hierarchy of some sort. In some societies this takes the form of religion, but even in secular capitalist countries the conservative view can be summarized as \"the group in power is there because they are smarter and harder working and this makes them more valuable to society.\" \n\nLiberals on the other hand believe individuals have equal value. So when you say you believe *nobody* has intrinsic value, then that is effectively the same as saying *everyone* has equal value. It's actually closer to liberalism in that way. \n\nYou see the benefit in cooperation over competition. You can see why inequality and racism is destructive to a society. You might as well be a liberal in practice and for all practical purposes.","date":"2023-04-26","id":"jhve8pm","parent_id":"1302qtg","score":4,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"agonisticpathos","body":"Interesting points. Even my homeboy Nietzsche often times contends that the \"higher type\" is destined to be so. I do think there are hierarchies, but I think they should be arrived at through free competition---not by granting some people an inordinately greater amount of resources to win. So I don't think those in power in my society are necessarily smarter and harder working, as you put it.\n\nYou deserve the delta for reminding me that most of the right believes in some kind of innate hierarchies.\n\n​\n\n Δ","date":"2023-04-26","id":"jhvfvjk","parent_id":"jhve8pm","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"DeltaBot","body":"Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/sawdeanz ([184∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/sawdeanz)).\n\n^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)","date":"2023-04-26","id":"jhvfz02","parent_id":"jhvfvjk","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],"string":"[\n {\n \"author\": \"agonisticpathos\",\n \"body\": \"In the spirit of Friedrich Nietzsche, I tend to agree with the view that competition (a predominantly conservative value) is a fundamental component of ethics, culture, politics, and life in general. I disagree with any liberals who say that equality is inherently valuable, or that there are such things as intrinsic human rights (for any groups).\\n\\nYet I find myself agreeing with liberals on specific issues, albeit for conservative reasons... the main one having to do with competition on both individual and national levels.\\n\\nFor example, while I don't believe we should defend equality for its own sake, I do think there should be more income equality in the US as a means to spurring competition in our economy, in education, in technology, and so forth.\\n\\nLikewise, while I don't believe any minority groups have inherent rights, as nobody has ever proven that such universal, intrinsic rights exist, I still prefer to live in a society in which all minority groups are thriving as this makes for more competition within our country and also makes us a stronger nation as a whole in the face of competition or conflict with other countries.\\n\\nFor similar reasons, I also agree with the left on climate change, abortion, and a few other issues.\\n\\nSo I tend to think of myself as a conservative with liberal views.\\n\\nIt could be objected that my overarching \\\"conservative philosophy\\\" doesn't matter if it doesn't distinguish me from a typical liberal. But I think it does. For reasons that I won't fully spell out here, I think certain levels of conflict and competition are inevitable on the global scale. So while a more liberal minded person might hope for a world in which adversarial relationships disappear and that we embrace our common humanity, I think that's unrealistic and thus embrace a nationalistic political attitude that supports our nation and allies over adversaries (like Russia and China). \\\\[And just to be clear, I don't support any form of nationalism that puts one race or religion over others in our country.\\\\]\\n\\nIn sum, I think we should build up all of our communities and cultural groups, not for liberal reasons of guilt, morality, or universal human rights, but simply because it's better for us to be stronger than weaker, more prosperous than less prosperous, and suchlike.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-26\",\n \"id\": \"1302qtg\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: It's possible to espouse a conservative political philosophy while also maintaining mostly leftist positions on specific issues.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/1302qtg/cmv_its_possible_to_espouse_a_conservative/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"sawdeanz\",\n \"body\": \"I mean, of course it's possible to hold multiple values. \\n\\nI would agree that your political philosophy doesn't seem to be rooted in progressive liberalism. But I wouldn't say it's conservative either. The thing with conservative thought is that when you dive deep down it actually relies on a belief in intrinsic values, namely that some people or groups have more intrinsic value than others, and this is used to justify a hierarchy of some sort. In some societies this takes the form of religion, but even in secular capitalist countries the conservative view can be summarized as \\\"the group in power is there because they are smarter and harder working and this makes them more valuable to society.\\\" \\n\\nLiberals on the other hand believe individuals have equal value. So when you say you believe *nobody* has intrinsic value, then that is effectively the same as saying *everyone* has equal value. It's actually closer to liberalism in that way. \\n\\nYou see the benefit in cooperation over competition. You can see why inequality and racism is destructive to a society. You might as well be a liberal in practice and for all practical purposes.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-26\",\n \"id\": \"jhve8pm\",\n \"parent_id\": \"1302qtg\",\n \"score\": 4,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"agonisticpathos\",\n \"body\": \"Interesting points. Even my homeboy Nietzsche often times contends that the \\\"higher type\\\" is destined to be so. I do think there are hierarchies, but I think they should be arrived at through free competition---not by granting some people an inordinately greater amount of resources to win. So I don't think those in power in my society are necessarily smarter and harder working, as you put it.\\n\\nYou deserve the delta for reminding me that most of the right believes in some kind of innate hierarchies.\\n\\n​\\n\\n Δ\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-26\",\n \"id\": \"jhvfvjk\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jhve8pm\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"DeltaBot\",\n \"body\": \"Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/sawdeanz ([184∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/sawdeanz)).\\n\\n^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-26\",\n \"id\": \"jhvfz02\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jhvfvjk\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n]","isConversational":false},"1":{"kind":"list like","value":[[{"author":"agonisticpathos","body":"In the spirit of Friedrich Nietzsche, I tend to agree with the view that competition (a predominantly conservative value) is a fundamental component of ethics, culture, politics, and life in general. I disagree with any liberals who say that equality is inherently valuable, or that there are such things as intrinsic human rights (for any groups).\n\nYet I find myself agreeing with liberals on specific issues, albeit for conservative reasons... the main one having to do with competition on both individual and national levels.\n\nFor example, while I don't believe we should defend equality for its own sake, I do think there should be more income equality in the US as a means to spurring competition in our economy, in education, in technology, and so forth.\n\nLikewise, while I don't believe any minority groups have inherent rights, as nobody has ever proven that such universal, intrinsic rights exist, I still prefer to live in a society in which all minority groups are thriving as this makes for more competition within our country and also makes us a stronger nation as a whole in the face of competition or conflict with other countries.\n\nFor similar reasons, I also agree with the left on climate change, abortion, and a few other issues.\n\nSo I tend to think of myself as a conservative with liberal views.\n\nIt could be objected that my overarching \"conservative philosophy\" doesn't matter if it doesn't distinguish me from a typical liberal. But I think it does. For reasons that I won't fully spell out here, I think certain levels of conflict and competition are inevitable on the global scale. So while a more liberal minded person might hope for a world in which adversarial relationships disappear and that we embrace our common humanity, I think that's unrealistic and thus embrace a nationalistic political attitude that supports our nation and allies over adversaries (like Russia and China). \\[And just to be clear, I don't support any form of nationalism that puts one race or religion over others in our country.\\]\n\nIn sum, I think we should build up all of our communities and cultural groups, not for liberal reasons of guilt, morality, or universal human rights, but simply because it's better for us to be stronger than weaker, more prosperous than less prosperous, and suchlike.","date":"2023-04-26","id":"1302qtg","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: It's possible to espouse a conservative political philosophy while also maintaining mostly leftist positions on specific issues.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/1302qtg/cmv_its_possible_to_espouse_a_conservative/"},{"author":"taeby_tableof2","body":"Sounds like you're just skeptical, not really conservative.\n\nI like to think that sometimes I'm liberal when it comes to mayonnaise on a sandwich, and conservative when it comes to sharing that sandwich. Idk, don't get caught up on the words, they've been appropriated by special interests.\n\nIn line with what you're saying, I don't understand how \"conservatives\" have been so defensive of fossil fuels and anti-technology when it comes to renewables. The point of renewables is that they help you CONSERVE by not burning stuff. So in regards to your prompt, I see where you're coming from.","date":"2023-04-26","id":"jhumbos","parent_id":"1302qtg","score":5,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Enzo-Fernandez","body":"Renewables are not economically viable. That is their beef with them.\n\nFor example you build a solar panel. You need batteries for it. If you look at how much effort you put into building all that. You would have got way more energy out of good ol fossil fuels. Not to mention the emissions are a wash because you still need energy to get all that stuff out of the ground and get it put together. \n\nWe're also defensive about fossil fuels because we understand that modern luxurious standards of living depend on them. We don't know what global warming will do. People can't even tell where a hurricane will go but they can predict 50 years into the future somehow. But we do know what our world looked like before fossil fuel technology and it is not a pretty sight.","date":"2023-04-26","id":"jhums2f","parent_id":"jhumbos","score":-15,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"agonisticpathos","body":"In the spirit of Friedrich Nietzsche, I tend to agree with the view that competition (a predominantly conservative value) is a fundamental component of ethics, culture, politics, and life in general. I disagree with any liberals who say that equality is inherently valuable, or that there are such things as intrinsic human rights (for any groups).\n\nYet I find myself agreeing with liberals on specific issues, albeit for conservative reasons... the main one having to do with competition on both individual and national levels.\n\nFor example, while I don't believe we should defend equality for its own sake, I do think there should be more income equality in the US as a means to spurring competition in our economy, in education, in technology, and so forth.\n\nLikewise, while I don't believe any minority groups have inherent rights, as nobody has ever proven that such universal, intrinsic rights exist, I still prefer to live in a society in which all minority groups are thriving as this makes for more competition within our country and also makes us a stronger nation as a whole in the face of competition or conflict with other countries.\n\nFor similar reasons, I also agree with the left on climate change, abortion, and a few other issues.\n\nSo I tend to think of myself as a conservative with liberal views.\n\nIt could be objected that my overarching \"conservative philosophy\" doesn't matter if it doesn't distinguish me from a typical liberal. But I think it does. For reasons that I won't fully spell out here, I think certain levels of conflict and competition are inevitable on the global scale. So while a more liberal minded person might hope for a world in which adversarial relationships disappear and that we embrace our common humanity, I think that's unrealistic and thus embrace a nationalistic political attitude that supports our nation and allies over adversaries (like Russia and China). \\[And just to be clear, I don't support any form of nationalism that puts one race or religion over others in our country.\\]\n\nIn sum, I think we should build up all of our communities and cultural groups, not for liberal reasons of guilt, morality, or universal human rights, but simply because it's better for us to be stronger than weaker, more prosperous than less prosperous, and suchlike.","date":"2023-04-26","id":"1302qtg","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: It's possible to espouse a conservative political philosophy while also maintaining mostly leftist positions on specific issues.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/1302qtg/cmv_its_possible_to_espouse_a_conservative/"},{"author":"LucidMetal","body":"Part of economic competition is winning, crushing your opposition into oblivion, and forcing them into submission so that they can never oppose you again. \n\nHow do you square this natural inclination towards monopoly or oligopoly with your idea of a more equitable wealth/income distribution?\n\nHow would you even accomplish a more equitable wealth/income distribution without government intervention (which is antithetical to the economic right)?","date":"2023-04-26","id":"jhumteu","parent_id":"1302qtg","score":10,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"agonisticpathos","body":"I agree that you have to have that mindset of winning when running a corporation. \n\nSo I think of it along the lines of a sports league. If one team had all the best players and there were no rules, they would perpetually win and there would be no competition. So most leagues have rules about trades, drafting, contracts, etc. Without those rule, the competition would disappear, but there are still winners and losers.","date":"2023-04-26","id":"jhurs17","parent_id":"jhumteu","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"agonisticpathos","body":"In the spirit of Friedrich Nietzsche, I tend to agree with the view that competition (a predominantly conservative value) is a fundamental component of ethics, culture, politics, and life in general. I disagree with any liberals who say that equality is inherently valuable, or that there are such things as intrinsic human rights (for any groups).\n\nYet I find myself agreeing with liberals on specific issues, albeit for conservative reasons... the main one having to do with competition on both individual and national levels.\n\nFor example, while I don't believe we should defend equality for its own sake, I do think there should be more income equality in the US as a means to spurring competition in our economy, in education, in technology, and so forth.\n\nLikewise, while I don't believe any minority groups have inherent rights, as nobody has ever proven that such universal, intrinsic rights exist, I still prefer to live in a society in which all minority groups are thriving as this makes for more competition within our country and also makes us a stronger nation as a whole in the face of competition or conflict with other countries.\n\nFor similar reasons, I also agree with the left on climate change, abortion, and a few other issues.\n\nSo I tend to think of myself as a conservative with liberal views.\n\nIt could be objected that my overarching \"conservative philosophy\" doesn't matter if it doesn't distinguish me from a typical liberal. But I think it does. For reasons that I won't fully spell out here, I think certain levels of conflict and competition are inevitable on the global scale. So while a more liberal minded person might hope for a world in which adversarial relationships disappear and that we embrace our common humanity, I think that's unrealistic and thus embrace a nationalistic political attitude that supports our nation and allies over adversaries (like Russia and China). \\[And just to be clear, I don't support any form of nationalism that puts one race or religion over others in our country.\\]\n\nIn sum, I think we should build up all of our communities and cultural groups, not for liberal reasons of guilt, morality, or universal human rights, but simply because it's better for us to be stronger than weaker, more prosperous than less prosperous, and suchlike.","date":"2023-04-26","id":"1302qtg","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: It's possible to espouse a conservative political philosophy while also maintaining mostly leftist positions on specific issues.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/1302qtg/cmv_its_possible_to_espouse_a_conservative/"},{"author":"lonzoballsinmymouth","body":"A couple things you're touching on but not quite getting all the way there in my opinion;\n\nYour main point about competition and allowing each person in society the ability to compete, is generally the goal of equality movements. The opportunity cost we incur as a society because we don't provide fundamental necessities for people is the biggest issue with wealth inequality, besides the inhumanity of it.\n\nAlso, as for proving whether human rights exist, I think that's the wrong question to ask. Of course they don't exist as a physical or tangible thing, but it's kind of irrelevant. It's within our capability as a society to strive towards guaranteeing them as best as possible, so we ought to work towards that rather than not","date":"2023-04-26","id":"jhun3fz","parent_id":"1302qtg","score":19,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"agonisticpathos","body":"Are you saying that competition is actually a leftist position? I don't think I've ever heard that. But when you mention the \"inhumanity\" of inequality, that does sound to me like a liberal morality (with which I disagree).","date":"2023-04-26","id":"jhus90w","parent_id":"jhun3fz","score":0,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"agonisticpathos","body":"In the spirit of Friedrich Nietzsche, I tend to agree with the view that competition (a predominantly conservative value) is a fundamental component of ethics, culture, politics, and life in general. I disagree with any liberals who say that equality is inherently valuable, or that there are such things as intrinsic human rights (for any groups).\n\nYet I find myself agreeing with liberals on specific issues, albeit for conservative reasons... the main one having to do with competition on both individual and national levels.\n\nFor example, while I don't believe we should defend equality for its own sake, I do think there should be more income equality in the US as a means to spurring competition in our economy, in education, in technology, and so forth.\n\nLikewise, while I don't believe any minority groups have inherent rights, as nobody has ever proven that such universal, intrinsic rights exist, I still prefer to live in a society in which all minority groups are thriving as this makes for more competition within our country and also makes us a stronger nation as a whole in the face of competition or conflict with other countries.\n\nFor similar reasons, I also agree with the left on climate change, abortion, and a few other issues.\n\nSo I tend to think of myself as a conservative with liberal views.\n\nIt could be objected that my overarching \"conservative philosophy\" doesn't matter if it doesn't distinguish me from a typical liberal. But I think it does. For reasons that I won't fully spell out here, I think certain levels of conflict and competition are inevitable on the global scale. So while a more liberal minded person might hope for a world in which adversarial relationships disappear and that we embrace our common humanity, I think that's unrealistic and thus embrace a nationalistic political attitude that supports our nation and allies over adversaries (like Russia and China). \\[And just to be clear, I don't support any form of nationalism that puts one race or religion over others in our country.\\]\n\nIn sum, I think we should build up all of our communities and cultural groups, not for liberal reasons of guilt, morality, or universal human rights, but simply because it's better for us to be stronger than weaker, more prosperous than less prosperous, and suchlike.","date":"2023-04-26","id":"1302qtg","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: It's possible to espouse a conservative political philosophy while also maintaining mostly leftist positions on specific issues.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/1302qtg/cmv_its_possible_to_espouse_a_conservative/"},{"author":"Dyeeguy","body":"You don't believe in human rights, you just think people should have them. It is just a silly argument in what in means to \"believe\" in something. Obviously human rights aren't some force of nature lmao\n\nYou are labeling competition as a conservative value, then proposing a \"leftist\" solution\n\nSeems you are really more left leaning than you think. I think a lot of people identify with conservatives on a few random issues like drag queens or something and that skews how they perceive their own political alignment","date":"2023-04-26","id":"jhungfv","parent_id":"1302qtg","score":14,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"agonisticpathos","body":"I think the position I stated was that some rights should be constructed for people *within* our society. \n\nBut since I also think we will always have adversarial relations with some other countries, to me it's inevitable that in one way or another, directly or indirectly, our policies will work against the \"rights\" that have been constructed by other nations for their citizenry.","date":"2023-04-26","id":"jhutakq","parent_id":"jhungfv","score":0,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"agonisticpathos","body":"In the spirit of Friedrich Nietzsche, I tend to agree with the view that competition (a predominantly conservative value) is a fundamental component of ethics, culture, politics, and life in general. I disagree with any liberals who say that equality is inherently valuable, or that there are such things as intrinsic human rights (for any groups).\n\nYet I find myself agreeing with liberals on specific issues, albeit for conservative reasons... the main one having to do with competition on both individual and national levels.\n\nFor example, while I don't believe we should defend equality for its own sake, I do think there should be more income equality in the US as a means to spurring competition in our economy, in education, in technology, and so forth.\n\nLikewise, while I don't believe any minority groups have inherent rights, as nobody has ever proven that such universal, intrinsic rights exist, I still prefer to live in a society in which all minority groups are thriving as this makes for more competition within our country and also makes us a stronger nation as a whole in the face of competition or conflict with other countries.\n\nFor similar reasons, I also agree with the left on climate change, abortion, and a few other issues.\n\nSo I tend to think of myself as a conservative with liberal views.\n\nIt could be objected that my overarching \"conservative philosophy\" doesn't matter if it doesn't distinguish me from a typical liberal. But I think it does. For reasons that I won't fully spell out here, I think certain levels of conflict and competition are inevitable on the global scale. So while a more liberal minded person might hope for a world in which adversarial relationships disappear and that we embrace our common humanity, I think that's unrealistic and thus embrace a nationalistic political attitude that supports our nation and allies over adversaries (like Russia and China). \\[And just to be clear, I don't support any form of nationalism that puts one race or religion over others in our country.\\]\n\nIn sum, I think we should build up all of our communities and cultural groups, not for liberal reasons of guilt, morality, or universal human rights, but simply because it's better for us to be stronger than weaker, more prosperous than less prosperous, and suchlike.","date":"2023-04-26","id":"1302qtg","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: It's possible to espouse a conservative political philosophy while also maintaining mostly leftist positions on specific issues.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/1302qtg/cmv_its_possible_to_espouse_a_conservative/"},{"author":"Kirbyoto","body":">Likewise, while I don't believe any minority groups have inherent rights, as nobody has ever proven that such universal, intrinsic rights exist \n\nIt's weird to present this as a left/right thing. I'm pretty sure both sides of the aisle in American politics believe in the concept of \"inalienable rights\" and how \"we hold these truths to be self-evident\" and so on.\n \n>And just to be clear, I don't support any form of nationalism that puts one race or religion over others in our country.\n\nIf you think racism is bad then why do you think nationalism is good? A nation is just as arbitrary and made-up as a race. Sure, you could say you're opposed to China's *government*, but that's a specific political group, not a \"nation\". A leftist would say that they're anti-nationalist but would still advocate for the destruction of opposing *governments* for completely understandable reasons. So how can you be a nationalist without being, at some level, a racist or supremacist?\n\nBeyond that, \"a leftist who is also a nationalist\" is not exactly an unheard-of ideology. The [Strasser wing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strasserism) of the Nazi party, or the [National Bolsheviks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Bolshevism), or [National Syndicalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_syndicalism), all combine ostensibly leftist economic organization with nationalist ideals. They were all, you know, deeply racist and supremacist by nature.","date":"2023-04-26","id":"jhuod0s","parent_id":"1302qtg","score":5,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"agonisticpathos","body":"In most cases, it seems nearly impossible to separate governments from their citizenry. We can say, for example, that our economic policies are only directed at undermining the Russian government and not the people. but the truth is that we are genuinely doing harm to the the Russian people. Would you say that makes us racist against the Russian people?","date":"2023-04-26","id":"jhuubyx","parent_id":"jhuod0s","score":0,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"agonisticpathos","body":"In the spirit of Friedrich Nietzsche, I tend to agree with the view that competition (a predominantly conservative value) is a fundamental component of ethics, culture, politics, and life in general. I disagree with any liberals who say that equality is inherently valuable, or that there are such things as intrinsic human rights (for any groups).\n\nYet I find myself agreeing with liberals on specific issues, albeit for conservative reasons... the main one having to do with competition on both individual and national levels.\n\nFor example, while I don't believe we should defend equality for its own sake, I do think there should be more income equality in the US as a means to spurring competition in our economy, in education, in technology, and so forth.\n\nLikewise, while I don't believe any minority groups have inherent rights, as nobody has ever proven that such universal, intrinsic rights exist, I still prefer to live in a society in which all minority groups are thriving as this makes for more competition within our country and also makes us a stronger nation as a whole in the face of competition or conflict with other countries.\n\nFor similar reasons, I also agree with the left on climate change, abortion, and a few other issues.\n\nSo I tend to think of myself as a conservative with liberal views.\n\nIt could be objected that my overarching \"conservative philosophy\" doesn't matter if it doesn't distinguish me from a typical liberal. But I think it does. For reasons that I won't fully spell out here, I think certain levels of conflict and competition are inevitable on the global scale. So while a more liberal minded person might hope for a world in which adversarial relationships disappear and that we embrace our common humanity, I think that's unrealistic and thus embrace a nationalistic political attitude that supports our nation and allies over adversaries (like Russia and China). \\[And just to be clear, I don't support any form of nationalism that puts one race or religion over others in our country.\\]\n\nIn sum, I think we should build up all of our communities and cultural groups, not for liberal reasons of guilt, morality, or universal human rights, but simply because it's better for us to be stronger than weaker, more prosperous than less prosperous, and suchlike.","date":"2023-04-26","id":"1302qtg","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: It's possible to espouse a conservative political philosophy while also maintaining mostly leftist positions on specific issues.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/1302qtg/cmv_its_possible_to_espouse_a_conservative/"},{"author":"bluntisimo","body":" your just a liberal, liberals are a part of the left, but they believe in some conservative things mostly the free market... so i hate to break it to you but you are a full blown liberal.","date":"2023-04-26","id":"jhuqpxs","parent_id":"1302qtg","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"agonisticpathos","body":"In the spirit of Friedrich Nietzsche, I tend to agree with the view that competition (a predominantly conservative value) is a fundamental component of ethics, culture, politics, and life in general. I disagree with any liberals who say that equality is inherently valuable, or that there are such things as intrinsic human rights (for any groups).\n\nYet I find myself agreeing with liberals on specific issues, albeit for conservative reasons... the main one having to do with competition on both individual and national levels.\n\nFor example, while I don't believe we should defend equality for its own sake, I do think there should be more income equality in the US as a means to spurring competition in our economy, in education, in technology, and so forth.\n\nLikewise, while I don't believe any minority groups have inherent rights, as nobody has ever proven that such universal, intrinsic rights exist, I still prefer to live in a society in which all minority groups are thriving as this makes for more competition within our country and also makes us a stronger nation as a whole in the face of competition or conflict with other countries.\n\nFor similar reasons, I also agree with the left on climate change, abortion, and a few other issues.\n\nSo I tend to think of myself as a conservative with liberal views.\n\nIt could be objected that my overarching \"conservative philosophy\" doesn't matter if it doesn't distinguish me from a typical liberal. But I think it does. For reasons that I won't fully spell out here, I think certain levels of conflict and competition are inevitable on the global scale. So while a more liberal minded person might hope for a world in which adversarial relationships disappear and that we embrace our common humanity, I think that's unrealistic and thus embrace a nationalistic political attitude that supports our nation and allies over adversaries (like Russia and China). \\[And just to be clear, I don't support any form of nationalism that puts one race or religion over others in our country.\\]\n\nIn sum, I think we should build up all of our communities and cultural groups, not for liberal reasons of guilt, morality, or universal human rights, but simply because it's better for us to be stronger than weaker, more prosperous than less prosperous, and suchlike.","date":"2023-04-26","id":"1302qtg","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: It's possible to espouse a conservative political philosophy while also maintaining mostly leftist positions on specific issues.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/1302qtg/cmv_its_possible_to_espouse_a_conservative/"},{"author":"AlaDouche","body":"Why do you not think people should be treated equally without needing a competitive reason for it? Do you think certain demographics don't deserve the same treatment as others?","date":"2023-04-26","id":"jhur77d","parent_id":"1302qtg","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"agonisticpathos","body":"Emotionally I see your point, but logically I follow Nietzsche in being skeptical of moral values like the inherent worth of human life.\n\nSo to me there is no such thing as people naturally deserving anything, just by virtue of being alive.","date":"2023-04-26","id":"jhuv7xc","parent_id":"jhur77d","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"agonisticpathos","body":"In the spirit of Friedrich Nietzsche, I tend to agree with the view that competition (a predominantly conservative value) is a fundamental component of ethics, culture, politics, and life in general. I disagree with any liberals who say that equality is inherently valuable, or that there are such things as intrinsic human rights (for any groups).\n\nYet I find myself agreeing with liberals on specific issues, albeit for conservative reasons... the main one having to do with competition on both individual and national levels.\n\nFor example, while I don't believe we should defend equality for its own sake, I do think there should be more income equality in the US as a means to spurring competition in our economy, in education, in technology, and so forth.\n\nLikewise, while I don't believe any minority groups have inherent rights, as nobody has ever proven that such universal, intrinsic rights exist, I still prefer to live in a society in which all minority groups are thriving as this makes for more competition within our country and also makes us a stronger nation as a whole in the face of competition or conflict with other countries.\n\nFor similar reasons, I also agree with the left on climate change, abortion, and a few other issues.\n\nSo I tend to think of myself as a conservative with liberal views.\n\nIt could be objected that my overarching \"conservative philosophy\" doesn't matter if it doesn't distinguish me from a typical liberal. But I think it does. For reasons that I won't fully spell out here, I think certain levels of conflict and competition are inevitable on the global scale. So while a more liberal minded person might hope for a world in which adversarial relationships disappear and that we embrace our common humanity, I think that's unrealistic and thus embrace a nationalistic political attitude that supports our nation and allies over adversaries (like Russia and China). \\[And just to be clear, I don't support any form of nationalism that puts one race or religion over others in our country.\\]\n\nIn sum, I think we should build up all of our communities and cultural groups, not for liberal reasons of guilt, morality, or universal human rights, but simply because it's better for us to be stronger than weaker, more prosperous than less prosperous, and suchlike.","date":"2023-04-26","id":"1302qtg","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: It's possible to espouse a conservative political philosophy while also maintaining mostly leftist positions on specific issues.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/1302qtg/cmv_its_possible_to_espouse_a_conservative/"},{"author":"Sandy_hook_lemy","body":"Socially liberal and fiscally conservative?","date":"2023-04-26","id":"jhus12p","parent_id":"1302qtg","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"agonisticpathos","body":"In the spirit of Friedrich Nietzsche, I tend to agree with the view that competition (a predominantly conservative value) is a fundamental component of ethics, culture, politics, and life in general. I disagree with any liberals who say that equality is inherently valuable, or that there are such things as intrinsic human rights (for any groups).\n\nYet I find myself agreeing with liberals on specific issues, albeit for conservative reasons... the main one having to do with competition on both individual and national levels.\n\nFor example, while I don't believe we should defend equality for its own sake, I do think there should be more income equality in the US as a means to spurring competition in our economy, in education, in technology, and so forth.\n\nLikewise, while I don't believe any minority groups have inherent rights, as nobody has ever proven that such universal, intrinsic rights exist, I still prefer to live in a society in which all minority groups are thriving as this makes for more competition within our country and also makes us a stronger nation as a whole in the face of competition or conflict with other countries.\n\nFor similar reasons, I also agree with the left on climate change, abortion, and a few other issues.\n\nSo I tend to think of myself as a conservative with liberal views.\n\nIt could be objected that my overarching \"conservative philosophy\" doesn't matter if it doesn't distinguish me from a typical liberal. But I think it does. For reasons that I won't fully spell out here, I think certain levels of conflict and competition are inevitable on the global scale. So while a more liberal minded person might hope for a world in which adversarial relationships disappear and that we embrace our common humanity, I think that's unrealistic and thus embrace a nationalistic political attitude that supports our nation and allies over adversaries (like Russia and China). \\[And just to be clear, I don't support any form of nationalism that puts one race or religion over others in our country.\\]\n\nIn sum, I think we should build up all of our communities and cultural groups, not for liberal reasons of guilt, morality, or universal human rights, but simply because it's better for us to be stronger than weaker, more prosperous than less prosperous, and suchlike.","date":"2023-04-26","id":"1302qtg","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: It's possible to espouse a conservative political philosophy while also maintaining mostly leftist positions on specific issues.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/1302qtg/cmv_its_possible_to_espouse_a_conservative/"},{"author":"yyzjertl","body":"I think the issue here is that you are framing your positions in terms of US politics, where the things you are calling \"leftist positions\" are basically what the Democratic party supports. But the US Democratic party isn't a leftist party, and is really more of a center-right party. So of course most of its positions are going to be compatible with conservatism. While the positions you describe in your post are positions that the Democratic party espouses, none of them are in any meaningful sense leftist positions (except possibly climate change, depending on whether you _actually_ agree with the left about climate change or whether you just agree with the Democrats).","date":"2023-04-26","id":"jhut25b","parent_id":"1302qtg","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"agonisticpathos","body":"I have to state my position from some socio-historical perspective, right? I'm not sure there's a universal definition of left and right that applies equally well to all countries.","date":"2023-04-26","id":"jhuvqqp","parent_id":"jhut25b","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"agonisticpathos","body":"In the spirit of Friedrich Nietzsche, I tend to agree with the view that competition (a predominantly conservative value) is a fundamental component of ethics, culture, politics, and life in general. I disagree with any liberals who say that equality is inherently valuable, or that there are such things as intrinsic human rights (for any groups).\n\nYet I find myself agreeing with liberals on specific issues, albeit for conservative reasons... the main one having to do with competition on both individual and national levels.\n\nFor example, while I don't believe we should defend equality for its own sake, I do think there should be more income equality in the US as a means to spurring competition in our economy, in education, in technology, and so forth.\n\nLikewise, while I don't believe any minority groups have inherent rights, as nobody has ever proven that such universal, intrinsic rights exist, I still prefer to live in a society in which all minority groups are thriving as this makes for more competition within our country and also makes us a stronger nation as a whole in the face of competition or conflict with other countries.\n\nFor similar reasons, I also agree with the left on climate change, abortion, and a few other issues.\n\nSo I tend to think of myself as a conservative with liberal views.\n\nIt could be objected that my overarching \"conservative philosophy\" doesn't matter if it doesn't distinguish me from a typical liberal. But I think it does. For reasons that I won't fully spell out here, I think certain levels of conflict and competition are inevitable on the global scale. So while a more liberal minded person might hope for a world in which adversarial relationships disappear and that we embrace our common humanity, I think that's unrealistic and thus embrace a nationalistic political attitude that supports our nation and allies over adversaries (like Russia and China). \\[And just to be clear, I don't support any form of nationalism that puts one race or religion over others in our country.\\]\n\nIn sum, I think we should build up all of our communities and cultural groups, not for liberal reasons of guilt, morality, or universal human rights, but simply because it's better for us to be stronger than weaker, more prosperous than less prosperous, and suchlike.","date":"2023-04-26","id":"1302qtg","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: It's possible to espouse a conservative political philosophy while also maintaining mostly leftist positions on specific issues.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/1302qtg/cmv_its_possible_to_espouse_a_conservative/"},{"author":"LetMeHaveAUsername","body":"Dude, none of what you described is leftist, it's liberal at best.\n\nOther than that don't worry about finding your current place on the political spectrum, just fucking find some goddamn empathy inside yourself and be a better person. You seem maybe not beyond saving.","date":"2023-04-26","id":"jhuwbh7","parent_id":"1302qtg","score":3,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"agonisticpathos","body":"In the spirit of Friedrich Nietzsche, I tend to agree with the view that competition (a predominantly conservative value) is a fundamental component of ethics, culture, politics, and life in general. I disagree with any liberals who say that equality is inherently valuable, or that there are such things as intrinsic human rights (for any groups).\n\nYet I find myself agreeing with liberals on specific issues, albeit for conservative reasons... the main one having to do with competition on both individual and national levels.\n\nFor example, while I don't believe we should defend equality for its own sake, I do think there should be more income equality in the US as a means to spurring competition in our economy, in education, in technology, and so forth.\n\nLikewise, while I don't believe any minority groups have inherent rights, as nobody has ever proven that such universal, intrinsic rights exist, I still prefer to live in a society in which all minority groups are thriving as this makes for more competition within our country and also makes us a stronger nation as a whole in the face of competition or conflict with other countries.\n\nFor similar reasons, I also agree with the left on climate change, abortion, and a few other issues.\n\nSo I tend to think of myself as a conservative with liberal views.\n\nIt could be objected that my overarching \"conservative philosophy\" doesn't matter if it doesn't distinguish me from a typical liberal. But I think it does. For reasons that I won't fully spell out here, I think certain levels of conflict and competition are inevitable on the global scale. So while a more liberal minded person might hope for a world in which adversarial relationships disappear and that we embrace our common humanity, I think that's unrealistic and thus embrace a nationalistic political attitude that supports our nation and allies over adversaries (like Russia and China). \\[And just to be clear, I don't support any form of nationalism that puts one race or religion over others in our country.\\]\n\nIn sum, I think we should build up all of our communities and cultural groups, not for liberal reasons of guilt, morality, or universal human rights, but simply because it's better for us to be stronger than weaker, more prosperous than less prosperous, and suchlike.","date":"2023-04-26","id":"1302qtg","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: It's possible to espouse a conservative political philosophy while also maintaining mostly leftist positions on specific issues.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/1302qtg/cmv_its_possible_to_espouse_a_conservative/"},{"author":"KokonutMonkey","body":"The trouble with this view isn't how its spelled out. Sure, it's possible to be a conservative while holding some left-wing positions: they're called Republicans from 30 years ago. \n\nThe trouble is with your labels. \n\nAs for competition being a conservative value, I'm not sure what led you to believe that. Conservatives are all about maintaining traditional power structures in society. The belief that market economies generally work is a standard western stance, not a conservative one. Conservative business owners would happily form cartels if the law would allow it. \n\nNor does conservatism = nationalism or putting one's nation's interests ahead of others. That's why it's called nationalism, not conservatism. A nationalist can have vastly different ideas of how to best run a country and interact with those around it. \n\nAs for what you consider to be \"leftist\" stances, they're not. The idea that the state can't compel a woman to carry a pregnancy against her will, or climate change being a thing are mainstream political opinion across the western world. \n\nBasically, you're not a conservative with certain leftist beliefs. You're a centrist with nationalist sympathies.","date":"2023-04-26","id":"jhuy2h4","parent_id":"1302qtg","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"agonisticpathos","body":"It seems to me that people closer to Marx and thus less free market competition are you usually on the left, while those who are closer to Smith are usually on the right. There's a spectrum in between the two, but I've never heard of someone economically closer on the spectrum to Marx, Zizek, or Sanders being called conservative.","date":"2023-04-26","id":"jhvddw4","parent_id":"jhuy2h4","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"agonisticpathos","body":"In the spirit of Friedrich Nietzsche, I tend to agree with the view that competition (a predominantly conservative value) is a fundamental component of ethics, culture, politics, and life in general. I disagree with any liberals who say that equality is inherently valuable, or that there are such things as intrinsic human rights (for any groups).\n\nYet I find myself agreeing with liberals on specific issues, albeit for conservative reasons... the main one having to do with competition on both individual and national levels.\n\nFor example, while I don't believe we should defend equality for its own sake, I do think there should be more income equality in the US as a means to spurring competition in our economy, in education, in technology, and so forth.\n\nLikewise, while I don't believe any minority groups have inherent rights, as nobody has ever proven that such universal, intrinsic rights exist, I still prefer to live in a society in which all minority groups are thriving as this makes for more competition within our country and also makes us a stronger nation as a whole in the face of competition or conflict with other countries.\n\nFor similar reasons, I also agree with the left on climate change, abortion, and a few other issues.\n\nSo I tend to think of myself as a conservative with liberal views.\n\nIt could be objected that my overarching \"conservative philosophy\" doesn't matter if it doesn't distinguish me from a typical liberal. But I think it does. For reasons that I won't fully spell out here, I think certain levels of conflict and competition are inevitable on the global scale. So while a more liberal minded person might hope for a world in which adversarial relationships disappear and that we embrace our common humanity, I think that's unrealistic and thus embrace a nationalistic political attitude that supports our nation and allies over adversaries (like Russia and China). \\[And just to be clear, I don't support any form of nationalism that puts one race or religion over others in our country.\\]\n\nIn sum, I think we should build up all of our communities and cultural groups, not for liberal reasons of guilt, morality, or universal human rights, but simply because it's better for us to be stronger than weaker, more prosperous than less prosperous, and suchlike.","date":"2023-04-26","id":"1302qtg","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: It's possible to espouse a conservative political philosophy while also maintaining mostly leftist positions on specific issues.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/1302qtg/cmv_its_possible_to_espouse_a_conservative/"},{"author":"marxianthings","body":"First of all, you have to define what you mean by conservative. There is no conservative who is advocating what you are. In fact conservatives in this country are very nationalistic and probably think Nietzsche is poisoning children's brains with marxism.\n\nSecond, you are using too many vague abstractions. Marx, for example, called out utopian socialist La Salle in the Critique of the Gotha program for basically putting out equality as this goal without really understanding what it would mean in real, practical terms. \n\nAnd it's true, equality could mean a lot of different things given the context. You would agree that equality is intrinsically valuable if we are talking about how the law treats everyone, right? \n\nWhat exactly are you talking about when you say equality? The same with adversarial relationships or conflict. Conflict is inherent to all societies but there are different kinds of conflicts that arise due to different conditions. We aren't having a civil war like Sudan is, at the moment. Why? Because the conditions are different and the conditions affect human behavior. \n\nThird, what if I told you that capitalism and its need for relentless growth and production is a huge obstacle in our ability to solve the climate crisis? What if I told you that capitalism is built on the unpaid, free labor of all women and their reproductive rights will always be under threat under this system? Something to think about.","date":"2023-04-26","id":"jhv143d","parent_id":"1302qtg","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"agonisticpathos","body":"In the spirit of Friedrich Nietzsche, I tend to agree with the view that competition (a predominantly conservative value) is a fundamental component of ethics, culture, politics, and life in general. I disagree with any liberals who say that equality is inherently valuable, or that there are such things as intrinsic human rights (for any groups).\n\nYet I find myself agreeing with liberals on specific issues, albeit for conservative reasons... the main one having to do with competition on both individual and national levels.\n\nFor example, while I don't believe we should defend equality for its own sake, I do think there should be more income equality in the US as a means to spurring competition in our economy, in education, in technology, and so forth.\n\nLikewise, while I don't believe any minority groups have inherent rights, as nobody has ever proven that such universal, intrinsic rights exist, I still prefer to live in a society in which all minority groups are thriving as this makes for more competition within our country and also makes us a stronger nation as a whole in the face of competition or conflict with other countries.\n\nFor similar reasons, I also agree with the left on climate change, abortion, and a few other issues.\n\nSo I tend to think of myself as a conservative with liberal views.\n\nIt could be objected that my overarching \"conservative philosophy\" doesn't matter if it doesn't distinguish me from a typical liberal. But I think it does. For reasons that I won't fully spell out here, I think certain levels of conflict and competition are inevitable on the global scale. So while a more liberal minded person might hope for a world in which adversarial relationships disappear and that we embrace our common humanity, I think that's unrealistic and thus embrace a nationalistic political attitude that supports our nation and allies over adversaries (like Russia and China). \\[And just to be clear, I don't support any form of nationalism that puts one race or religion over others in our country.\\]\n\nIn sum, I think we should build up all of our communities and cultural groups, not for liberal reasons of guilt, morality, or universal human rights, but simply because it's better for us to be stronger than weaker, more prosperous than less prosperous, and suchlike.","date":"2023-04-26","id":"1302qtg","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: It's possible to espouse a conservative political philosophy while also maintaining mostly leftist positions on specific issues.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/1302qtg/cmv_its_possible_to_espouse_a_conservative/"},{"author":"Next-Independence-97","body":"couldn’t this be summed up to libertarianism ? ,,, im unsure on the specifics as my knowledge isn’t great, but wouldn’t your ideas correspond with that","date":"2023-04-26","id":"jhv5nnv","parent_id":"1302qtg","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"agonisticpathos","body":"In the spirit of Friedrich Nietzsche, I tend to agree with the view that competition (a predominantly conservative value) is a fundamental component of ethics, culture, politics, and life in general. I disagree with any liberals who say that equality is inherently valuable, or that there are such things as intrinsic human rights (for any groups).\n\nYet I find myself agreeing with liberals on specific issues, albeit for conservative reasons... the main one having to do with competition on both individual and national levels.\n\nFor example, while I don't believe we should defend equality for its own sake, I do think there should be more income equality in the US as a means to spurring competition in our economy, in education, in technology, and so forth.\n\nLikewise, while I don't believe any minority groups have inherent rights, as nobody has ever proven that such universal, intrinsic rights exist, I still prefer to live in a society in which all minority groups are thriving as this makes for more competition within our country and also makes us a stronger nation as a whole in the face of competition or conflict with other countries.\n\nFor similar reasons, I also agree with the left on climate change, abortion, and a few other issues.\n\nSo I tend to think of myself as a conservative with liberal views.\n\nIt could be objected that my overarching \"conservative philosophy\" doesn't matter if it doesn't distinguish me from a typical liberal. But I think it does. For reasons that I won't fully spell out here, I think certain levels of conflict and competition are inevitable on the global scale. So while a more liberal minded person might hope for a world in which adversarial relationships disappear and that we embrace our common humanity, I think that's unrealistic and thus embrace a nationalistic political attitude that supports our nation and allies over adversaries (like Russia and China). \\[And just to be clear, I don't support any form of nationalism that puts one race or religion over others in our country.\\]\n\nIn sum, I think we should build up all of our communities and cultural groups, not for liberal reasons of guilt, morality, or universal human rights, but simply because it's better for us to be stronger than weaker, more prosperous than less prosperous, and suchlike.","date":"2023-04-26","id":"1302qtg","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: It's possible to espouse a conservative political philosophy while also maintaining mostly leftist positions on specific issues.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/1302qtg/cmv_its_possible_to_espouse_a_conservative/"},{"author":"Wefhen","body":"Nobody has to \"prove\" that human rights exist, they're things that we enjoying having and would very much not want to live without, and so being empathetic, we try to grant them to other people. \n\nWhat makes you think that creating an even playing field for all minorities and cultures will allow a nation as a whole to be more competitive? Doing that would require interference to redistribute wealth, how would that help a country in any way other than improving the lives of its people?","date":"2023-04-26","id":"jhvbpzu","parent_id":"1302qtg","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"agonisticpathos","body":"In the spirit of Friedrich Nietzsche, I tend to agree with the view that competition (a predominantly conservative value) is a fundamental component of ethics, culture, politics, and life in general. I disagree with any liberals who say that equality is inherently valuable, or that there are such things as intrinsic human rights (for any groups).\n\nYet I find myself agreeing with liberals on specific issues, albeit for conservative reasons... the main one having to do with competition on both individual and national levels.\n\nFor example, while I don't believe we should defend equality for its own sake, I do think there should be more income equality in the US as a means to spurring competition in our economy, in education, in technology, and so forth.\n\nLikewise, while I don't believe any minority groups have inherent rights, as nobody has ever proven that such universal, intrinsic rights exist, I still prefer to live in a society in which all minority groups are thriving as this makes for more competition within our country and also makes us a stronger nation as a whole in the face of competition or conflict with other countries.\n\nFor similar reasons, I also agree with the left on climate change, abortion, and a few other issues.\n\nSo I tend to think of myself as a conservative with liberal views.\n\nIt could be objected that my overarching \"conservative philosophy\" doesn't matter if it doesn't distinguish me from a typical liberal. But I think it does. For reasons that I won't fully spell out here, I think certain levels of conflict and competition are inevitable on the global scale. So while a more liberal minded person might hope for a world in which adversarial relationships disappear and that we embrace our common humanity, I think that's unrealistic and thus embrace a nationalistic political attitude that supports our nation and allies over adversaries (like Russia and China). \\[And just to be clear, I don't support any form of nationalism that puts one race or religion over others in our country.\\]\n\nIn sum, I think we should build up all of our communities and cultural groups, not for liberal reasons of guilt, morality, or universal human rights, but simply because it's better for us to be stronger than weaker, more prosperous than less prosperous, and suchlike.","date":"2023-04-26","id":"1302qtg","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: It's possible to espouse a conservative political philosophy while also maintaining mostly leftist positions on specific issues.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/1302qtg/cmv_its_possible_to_espouse_a_conservative/"},{"author":"Deft_one","body":"People on the Left want equal rights (etc.) for all the reasons you laid out here, not 'just because,' but for the pragmatic, applicable outcomes thereof, which you've laid out in your post.\n\nI think you've accidentally mischaracterized Leftists as doing things thoughtlessly and 'for their own sake,' but they're actually done to address what you say you want. In other words, it seems you are a Liberal with Liberal views (based on this post, at least)","date":"2023-04-26","id":"jhvf8s5","parent_id":"1302qtg","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"agonisticpathos","body":"In the spirit of Friedrich Nietzsche, I tend to agree with the view that competition (a predominantly conservative value) is a fundamental component of ethics, culture, politics, and life in general. I disagree with any liberals who say that equality is inherently valuable, or that there are such things as intrinsic human rights (for any groups).\n\nYet I find myself agreeing with liberals on specific issues, albeit for conservative reasons... the main one having to do with competition on both individual and national levels.\n\nFor example, while I don't believe we should defend equality for its own sake, I do think there should be more income equality in the US as a means to spurring competition in our economy, in education, in technology, and so forth.\n\nLikewise, while I don't believe any minority groups have inherent rights, as nobody has ever proven that such universal, intrinsic rights exist, I still prefer to live in a society in which all minority groups are thriving as this makes for more competition within our country and also makes us a stronger nation as a whole in the face of competition or conflict with other countries.\n\nFor similar reasons, I also agree with the left on climate change, abortion, and a few other issues.\n\nSo I tend to think of myself as a conservative with liberal views.\n\nIt could be objected that my overarching \"conservative philosophy\" doesn't matter if it doesn't distinguish me from a typical liberal. But I think it does. For reasons that I won't fully spell out here, I think certain levels of conflict and competition are inevitable on the global scale. So while a more liberal minded person might hope for a world in which adversarial relationships disappear and that we embrace our common humanity, I think that's unrealistic and thus embrace a nationalistic political attitude that supports our nation and allies over adversaries (like Russia and China). \\[And just to be clear, I don't support any form of nationalism that puts one race or religion over others in our country.\\]\n\nIn sum, I think we should build up all of our communities and cultural groups, not for liberal reasons of guilt, morality, or universal human rights, but simply because it's better for us to be stronger than weaker, more prosperous than less prosperous, and suchlike.","date":"2023-04-26","id":"1302qtg","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: It's possible to espouse a conservative political philosophy while also maintaining mostly leftist positions on specific issues.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/1302qtg/cmv_its_possible_to_espouse_a_conservative/"},{"author":"anewleaf1234","body":"Would you watch a race in which some racers got advantages and some racers got hardships placed in front of them and feel you were watching a fair competition where the best would be the ones who win?\n\nThe left isn't against competition. We just think that the playing field should be more equal. If I have the right to marry than all citizens should have that right. Cops shouldn't be only stopping and searching black and brown suspects while they ignore white ones. And so forth.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"jhvnh62","parent_id":"1302qtg","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"agonisticpathos","body":"In the spirit of Friedrich Nietzsche, I tend to agree with the view that competition (a predominantly conservative value) is a fundamental component of ethics, culture, politics, and life in general. I disagree with any liberals who say that equality is inherently valuable, or that there are such things as intrinsic human rights (for any groups).\n\nYet I find myself agreeing with liberals on specific issues, albeit for conservative reasons... the main one having to do with competition on both individual and national levels.\n\nFor example, while I don't believe we should defend equality for its own sake, I do think there should be more income equality in the US as a means to spurring competition in our economy, in education, in technology, and so forth.\n\nLikewise, while I don't believe any minority groups have inherent rights, as nobody has ever proven that such universal, intrinsic rights exist, I still prefer to live in a society in which all minority groups are thriving as this makes for more competition within our country and also makes us a stronger nation as a whole in the face of competition or conflict with other countries.\n\nFor similar reasons, I also agree with the left on climate change, abortion, and a few other issues.\n\nSo I tend to think of myself as a conservative with liberal views.\n\nIt could be objected that my overarching \"conservative philosophy\" doesn't matter if it doesn't distinguish me from a typical liberal. But I think it does. For reasons that I won't fully spell out here, I think certain levels of conflict and competition are inevitable on the global scale. So while a more liberal minded person might hope for a world in which adversarial relationships disappear and that we embrace our common humanity, I think that's unrealistic and thus embrace a nationalistic political attitude that supports our nation and allies over adversaries (like Russia and China). \\[And just to be clear, I don't support any form of nationalism that puts one race or religion over others in our country.\\]\n\nIn sum, I think we should build up all of our communities and cultural groups, not for liberal reasons of guilt, morality, or universal human rights, but simply because it's better for us to be stronger than weaker, more prosperous than less prosperous, and suchlike.","date":"2023-04-26","id":"1302qtg","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: It's possible to espouse a conservative political philosophy while also maintaining mostly leftist positions on specific issues.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/1302qtg/cmv_its_possible_to_espouse_a_conservative/"},{"author":"CeilingFanUpThere","body":"As an atheist, my definition of morality is listening to my gut about what is socially constructive and individually constructive (moral) and what is socially destructive and individually self-destructive (immoral) and factchecking my gut.\n\nThis definition of morality is probably problematic for some people, but the way I define it for me fits your perspective about valuing equal opportunities for all citizens because it is constructive for the nation as a whole. And I guess I value the universal human rights part because I think it is constructive for each individual. And moreover, if only some individuals have human rights, that kind of competition--competition for human status--is destructive for me as an individual because it makes the world a less trustworthy place to live; that does go beyond simply deciding whether something is *socially* constructive or *socially* destructive.\n\nChanges that make the world more trustworthy benefit me individually, because living in an untrustworthy world is fatiguing, and more expensive. Trust brings all costs down; mistrust raises all costs. That's one reason that having allies is so practical. Adversarial dynamics reduce when two nations attempt to reduce mistrust. Because nations do this, it's not so hard for me to believe that the world is on that path--that all nations would someday practice that kind of diplomacy with all other nations. But since it kind of feels like ten steps forward, nine steps back, it would probably require many great leaps forward, and therefore, an unknowable amount of intention and time. The journey towards that aspiration reduces costs, even though allies can revert to enemies, and even though the path has no real endpoint. Reach for the stars: might land on the clouds.\n\n​\n\n>I disagree with any liberals who say that equality is inherently valuable\n\nEquality for everyone is something that *some* people value. I don't know that people who value it believe it carries that property intrinsically. But inherently can mean that value is attached to it; our society attached the idea of desirability to equality. Enough people came to believe it is valuable, and society made changes to protect people's lives, liberties, personal choice and personal autonomy, opportunity for advancement, etc., which people generally can't fully thrive without.\n\n​\n\n>I still prefer to live in a society in which all minority groups are thriving as this makes for more competition within our country and also makes us a stronger nation as a whole in the face of competition or conflict with other countries.\n\nBased on what you said, it sounds like making more competition is inherently a good thing to you; you've attached value to competition. Many liberals value capitalism and/or competition. The difference between conservatives and liberals in regards to the value of competition is probably that liberals are likely to prioritize other values above competition, which conservatives may prioritize too, but below competition. That is a big difference. And the way you have described not only how much you value competition, but also the idealistic aspirations that have less value to you, that makes me think you're a conservative. It doesn't seem very weird that you have reached some conclusions for yourself that are typical of liberals, because I don't expect conservatives to never have those views. They say the conservative party has moved to the right, so maybe other conservatives are more shocked by your stances on climate and abortion and minorities than they would have been in the past.\n\nMaybe conservatives prioritize values that seem idealistic at a lower rank, as compared to other things that most people value, but that seem relatively realistic, like the need for national security. But I don't see that (idealism vs. realism) as an easy way to differentiate between a liberal and a conservative; individual conservatives can be quite idealistic and individual liberals can be quite realistic. Like any spectrum, people have always decided for themselves where they fit on the spectrum, even if other people have a more polarized view of them than they have of themselves.\n\nFrom your quote above, it sounds like you are talking about valuing/prioritizing national security. The climate crisis fits that, due to the threat of more wars over resources (syria's civil war has been attributed to the drought in 2007), but if abortion fits \"for similar reasons\", as you said, **I'm interested to know your perspective on that, if you don't mind.**\n\n​\n\n>So while a more liberal minded person might hope for a world in which adversarial relationships disappear and that we embrace our common humanity, I think that's unrealistic and thus embrace a nationalistic political attitude that supports our nation and allies over adversaries (like Russia and China).\n\nEven people who prioritize collaboration over competition, and even people who go further and don't think competition can compete with the productive value of collaboration, support their nation and allies over adversaries. Embracing a nationalistic political attitude is not a liberal view in the US, but there is liberal nationalism in Europe, nationalism and liberalism aren't inherently mutually exclusive, apparently. But I don't know much about it.\n\n​\n\n>liberal reasons of guilt, morality, or universal human rights\n\nGuilt isn't a liberal's *reason*; it's a feeling that motivates and energizes a person to take steps to rectify situations where communities are being unintentionally sabotaged from thriving. I guess there is still intentional sabotage too, but the systemic inequalities are things that might have been intentional historically, but now are just continuing because of inertia, because a lot of analysis and energy are required to meet the level of reform that's needed.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"jhvtto1","parent_id":"1302qtg","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"agonisticpathos","body":"In the spirit of Friedrich Nietzsche, I tend to agree with the view that competition (a predominantly conservative value) is a fundamental component of ethics, culture, politics, and life in general. I disagree with any liberals who say that equality is inherently valuable, or that there are such things as intrinsic human rights (for any groups).\n\nYet I find myself agreeing with liberals on specific issues, albeit for conservative reasons... the main one having to do with competition on both individual and national levels.\n\nFor example, while I don't believe we should defend equality for its own sake, I do think there should be more income equality in the US as a means to spurring competition in our economy, in education, in technology, and so forth.\n\nLikewise, while I don't believe any minority groups have inherent rights, as nobody has ever proven that such universal, intrinsic rights exist, I still prefer to live in a society in which all minority groups are thriving as this makes for more competition within our country and also makes us a stronger nation as a whole in the face of competition or conflict with other countries.\n\nFor similar reasons, I also agree with the left on climate change, abortion, and a few other issues.\n\nSo I tend to think of myself as a conservative with liberal views.\n\nIt could be objected that my overarching \"conservative philosophy\" doesn't matter if it doesn't distinguish me from a typical liberal. But I think it does. For reasons that I won't fully spell out here, I think certain levels of conflict and competition are inevitable on the global scale. So while a more liberal minded person might hope for a world in which adversarial relationships disappear and that we embrace our common humanity, I think that's unrealistic and thus embrace a nationalistic political attitude that supports our nation and allies over adversaries (like Russia and China). \\[And just to be clear, I don't support any form of nationalism that puts one race or religion over others in our country.\\]\n\nIn sum, I think we should build up all of our communities and cultural groups, not for liberal reasons of guilt, morality, or universal human rights, but simply because it's better for us to be stronger than weaker, more prosperous than less prosperous, and suchlike.","date":"2023-04-26","id":"1302qtg","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: It's possible to espouse a conservative political philosophy while also maintaining mostly leftist positions on specific issues.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/1302qtg/cmv_its_possible_to_espouse_a_conservative/"},{"author":"gslavik","body":"> I disagree with any liberals who say that ... there are such things as intrinsic human rights (for any groups).\n\nLet me quote you a part of the US Declaration of Independence.\n\n> We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.\n\n-----\n\n> Likewise, while I don't believe any minority groups have inherent rights, as nobody has ever proven that such universal, intrinsic rights exist\n\nThis is not something that can be proven. We can only agree on what these intrinsic rights are.\n\n> So I tend to think of myself as a conservative with liberal views.\n\nIf most of your views are liberal ... how can you be a conservative?\n\n> It could be objected that my overarching \"conservative philosophy\" doesn't matter if it doesn't distinguish me from a typical liberal. But I think it does. For reasons that I won't fully spell out here\n\nYou make the claim of being a conservative with liberal views multiple times and here you simply give up on it and claim you do not want to defend your decision making. This could've been summed up by a much shorter \"just saying\".\n\nBased on your post, my opinion is that you are more liberal than conservative, but not as liberal as the view of liberals you describe.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"jhvycgm","parent_id":"1302qtg","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"agonisticpathos","body":"In the spirit of Friedrich Nietzsche, I tend to agree with the view that competition (a predominantly conservative value) is a fundamental component of ethics, culture, politics, and life in general. I disagree with any liberals who say that equality is inherently valuable, or that there are such things as intrinsic human rights (for any groups).\n\nYet I find myself agreeing with liberals on specific issues, albeit for conservative reasons... the main one having to do with competition on both individual and national levels.\n\nFor example, while I don't believe we should defend equality for its own sake, I do think there should be more income equality in the US as a means to spurring competition in our economy, in education, in technology, and so forth.\n\nLikewise, while I don't believe any minority groups have inherent rights, as nobody has ever proven that such universal, intrinsic rights exist, I still prefer to live in a society in which all minority groups are thriving as this makes for more competition within our country and also makes us a stronger nation as a whole in the face of competition or conflict with other countries.\n\nFor similar reasons, I also agree with the left on climate change, abortion, and a few other issues.\n\nSo I tend to think of myself as a conservative with liberal views.\n\nIt could be objected that my overarching \"conservative philosophy\" doesn't matter if it doesn't distinguish me from a typical liberal. But I think it does. For reasons that I won't fully spell out here, I think certain levels of conflict and competition are inevitable on the global scale. So while a more liberal minded person might hope for a world in which adversarial relationships disappear and that we embrace our common humanity, I think that's unrealistic and thus embrace a nationalistic political attitude that supports our nation and allies over adversaries (like Russia and China). \\[And just to be clear, I don't support any form of nationalism that puts one race or religion over others in our country.\\]\n\nIn sum, I think we should build up all of our communities and cultural groups, not for liberal reasons of guilt, morality, or universal human rights, but simply because it's better for us to be stronger than weaker, more prosperous than less prosperous, and suchlike.","date":"2023-04-26","id":"1302qtg","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: It's possible to espouse a conservative political philosophy while also maintaining mostly leftist positions on specific issues.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/1302qtg/cmv_its_possible_to_espouse_a_conservative/"},{"author":"lalalalalalala71","body":"I'm curious - do you disagree with the Declaration of Independence that \"all men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights\"?","date":"2023-04-27","id":"jhwjs1p","parent_id":"1302qtg","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}]],"string":"[\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"agonisticpathos\",\n \"body\": \"In the spirit of Friedrich Nietzsche, I tend to agree with the view that competition (a predominantly conservative value) is a fundamental component of ethics, culture, politics, and life in general. I disagree with any liberals who say that equality is inherently valuable, or that there are such things as intrinsic human rights (for any groups).\\n\\nYet I find myself agreeing with liberals on specific issues, albeit for conservative reasons... the main one having to do with competition on both individual and national levels.\\n\\nFor example, while I don't believe we should defend equality for its own sake, I do think there should be more income equality in the US as a means to spurring competition in our economy, in education, in technology, and so forth.\\n\\nLikewise, while I don't believe any minority groups have inherent rights, as nobody has ever proven that such universal, intrinsic rights exist, I still prefer to live in a society in which all minority groups are thriving as this makes for more competition within our country and also makes us a stronger nation as a whole in the face of competition or conflict with other countries.\\n\\nFor similar reasons, I also agree with the left on climate change, abortion, and a few other issues.\\n\\nSo I tend to think of myself as a conservative with liberal views.\\n\\nIt could be objected that my overarching \\\"conservative philosophy\\\" doesn't matter if it doesn't distinguish me from a typical liberal. But I think it does. For reasons that I won't fully spell out here, I think certain levels of conflict and competition are inevitable on the global scale. So while a more liberal minded person might hope for a world in which adversarial relationships disappear and that we embrace our common humanity, I think that's unrealistic and thus embrace a nationalistic political attitude that supports our nation and allies over adversaries (like Russia and China). \\\\[And just to be clear, I don't support any form of nationalism that puts one race or religion over others in our country.\\\\]\\n\\nIn sum, I think we should build up all of our communities and cultural groups, not for liberal reasons of guilt, morality, or universal human rights, but simply because it's better for us to be stronger than weaker, more prosperous than less prosperous, and suchlike.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-26\",\n \"id\": \"1302qtg\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: It's possible to espouse a conservative political philosophy while also maintaining mostly leftist positions on specific issues.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/1302qtg/cmv_its_possible_to_espouse_a_conservative/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"taeby_tableof2\",\n \"body\": \"Sounds like you're just skeptical, not really conservative.\\n\\nI like to think that sometimes I'm liberal when it comes to mayonnaise on a sandwich, and conservative when it comes to sharing that sandwich. Idk, don't get caught up on the words, they've been appropriated by special interests.\\n\\nIn line with what you're saying, I don't understand how \\\"conservatives\\\" have been so defensive of fossil fuels and anti-technology when it comes to renewables. The point of renewables is that they help you CONSERVE by not burning stuff. So in regards to your prompt, I see where you're coming from.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-26\",\n \"id\": \"jhumbos\",\n \"parent_id\": \"1302qtg\",\n \"score\": 5,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Enzo-Fernandez\",\n \"body\": \"Renewables are not economically viable. That is their beef with them.\\n\\nFor example you build a solar panel. You need batteries for it. If you look at how much effort you put into building all that. You would have got way more energy out of good ol fossil fuels. Not to mention the emissions are a wash because you still need energy to get all that stuff out of the ground and get it put together. \\n\\nWe're also defensive about fossil fuels because we understand that modern luxurious standards of living depend on them. We don't know what global warming will do. People can't even tell where a hurricane will go but they can predict 50 years into the future somehow. But we do know what our world looked like before fossil fuel technology and it is not a pretty sight.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-26\",\n \"id\": \"jhums2f\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jhumbos\",\n \"score\": -15,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"agonisticpathos\",\n \"body\": \"In the spirit of Friedrich Nietzsche, I tend to agree with the view that competition (a predominantly conservative value) is a fundamental component of ethics, culture, politics, and life in general. I disagree with any liberals who say that equality is inherently valuable, or that there are such things as intrinsic human rights (for any groups).\\n\\nYet I find myself agreeing with liberals on specific issues, albeit for conservative reasons... the main one having to do with competition on both individual and national levels.\\n\\nFor example, while I don't believe we should defend equality for its own sake, I do think there should be more income equality in the US as a means to spurring competition in our economy, in education, in technology, and so forth.\\n\\nLikewise, while I don't believe any minority groups have inherent rights, as nobody has ever proven that such universal, intrinsic rights exist, I still prefer to live in a society in which all minority groups are thriving as this makes for more competition within our country and also makes us a stronger nation as a whole in the face of competition or conflict with other countries.\\n\\nFor similar reasons, I also agree with the left on climate change, abortion, and a few other issues.\\n\\nSo I tend to think of myself as a conservative with liberal views.\\n\\nIt could be objected that my overarching \\\"conservative philosophy\\\" doesn't matter if it doesn't distinguish me from a typical liberal. But I think it does. For reasons that I won't fully spell out here, I think certain levels of conflict and competition are inevitable on the global scale. So while a more liberal minded person might hope for a world in which adversarial relationships disappear and that we embrace our common humanity, I think that's unrealistic and thus embrace a nationalistic political attitude that supports our nation and allies over adversaries (like Russia and China). \\\\[And just to be clear, I don't support any form of nationalism that puts one race or religion over others in our country.\\\\]\\n\\nIn sum, I think we should build up all of our communities and cultural groups, not for liberal reasons of guilt, morality, or universal human rights, but simply because it's better for us to be stronger than weaker, more prosperous than less prosperous, and suchlike.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-26\",\n \"id\": \"1302qtg\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: It's possible to espouse a conservative political philosophy while also maintaining mostly leftist positions on specific issues.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/1302qtg/cmv_its_possible_to_espouse_a_conservative/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"LucidMetal\",\n \"body\": \"Part of economic competition is winning, crushing your opposition into oblivion, and forcing them into submission so that they can never oppose you again. \\n\\nHow do you square this natural inclination towards monopoly or oligopoly with your idea of a more equitable wealth/income distribution?\\n\\nHow would you even accomplish a more equitable wealth/income distribution without government intervention (which is antithetical to the economic right)?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-26\",\n \"id\": \"jhumteu\",\n \"parent_id\": \"1302qtg\",\n \"score\": 10,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"agonisticpathos\",\n \"body\": \"I agree that you have to have that mindset of winning when running a corporation. \\n\\nSo I think of it along the lines of a sports league. If one team had all the best players and there were no rules, they would perpetually win and there would be no competition. So most leagues have rules about trades, drafting, contracts, etc. Without those rule, the competition would disappear, but there are still winners and losers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-26\",\n \"id\": \"jhurs17\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jhumteu\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"agonisticpathos\",\n \"body\": \"In the spirit of Friedrich Nietzsche, I tend to agree with the view that competition (a predominantly conservative value) is a fundamental component of ethics, culture, politics, and life in general. I disagree with any liberals who say that equality is inherently valuable, or that there are such things as intrinsic human rights (for any groups).\\n\\nYet I find myself agreeing with liberals on specific issues, albeit for conservative reasons... the main one having to do with competition on both individual and national levels.\\n\\nFor example, while I don't believe we should defend equality for its own sake, I do think there should be more income equality in the US as a means to spurring competition in our economy, in education, in technology, and so forth.\\n\\nLikewise, while I don't believe any minority groups have inherent rights, as nobody has ever proven that such universal, intrinsic rights exist, I still prefer to live in a society in which all minority groups are thriving as this makes for more competition within our country and also makes us a stronger nation as a whole in the face of competition or conflict with other countries.\\n\\nFor similar reasons, I also agree with the left on climate change, abortion, and a few other issues.\\n\\nSo I tend to think of myself as a conservative with liberal views.\\n\\nIt could be objected that my overarching \\\"conservative philosophy\\\" doesn't matter if it doesn't distinguish me from a typical liberal. But I think it does. For reasons that I won't fully spell out here, I think certain levels of conflict and competition are inevitable on the global scale. So while a more liberal minded person might hope for a world in which adversarial relationships disappear and that we embrace our common humanity, I think that's unrealistic and thus embrace a nationalistic political attitude that supports our nation and allies over adversaries (like Russia and China). \\\\[And just to be clear, I don't support any form of nationalism that puts one race or religion over others in our country.\\\\]\\n\\nIn sum, I think we should build up all of our communities and cultural groups, not for liberal reasons of guilt, morality, or universal human rights, but simply because it's better for us to be stronger than weaker, more prosperous than less prosperous, and suchlike.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-26\",\n \"id\": \"1302qtg\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: It's possible to espouse a conservative political philosophy while also maintaining mostly leftist positions on specific issues.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/1302qtg/cmv_its_possible_to_espouse_a_conservative/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"lonzoballsinmymouth\",\n \"body\": \"A couple things you're touching on but not quite getting all the way there in my opinion;\\n\\nYour main point about competition and allowing each person in society the ability to compete, is generally the goal of equality movements. The opportunity cost we incur as a society because we don't provide fundamental necessities for people is the biggest issue with wealth inequality, besides the inhumanity of it.\\n\\nAlso, as for proving whether human rights exist, I think that's the wrong question to ask. Of course they don't exist as a physical or tangible thing, but it's kind of irrelevant. It's within our capability as a society to strive towards guaranteeing them as best as possible, so we ought to work towards that rather than not\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-26\",\n \"id\": \"jhun3fz\",\n \"parent_id\": \"1302qtg\",\n \"score\": 19,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"agonisticpathos\",\n \"body\": \"Are you saying that competition is actually a leftist position? I don't think I've ever heard that. But when you mention the \\\"inhumanity\\\" of inequality, that does sound to me like a liberal morality (with which I disagree).\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-26\",\n \"id\": \"jhus90w\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jhun3fz\",\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"agonisticpathos\",\n \"body\": \"In the spirit of Friedrich Nietzsche, I tend to agree with the view that competition (a predominantly conservative value) is a fundamental component of ethics, culture, politics, and life in general. I disagree with any liberals who say that equality is inherently valuable, or that there are such things as intrinsic human rights (for any groups).\\n\\nYet I find myself agreeing with liberals on specific issues, albeit for conservative reasons... the main one having to do with competition on both individual and national levels.\\n\\nFor example, while I don't believe we should defend equality for its own sake, I do think there should be more income equality in the US as a means to spurring competition in our economy, in education, in technology, and so forth.\\n\\nLikewise, while I don't believe any minority groups have inherent rights, as nobody has ever proven that such universal, intrinsic rights exist, I still prefer to live in a society in which all minority groups are thriving as this makes for more competition within our country and also makes us a stronger nation as a whole in the face of competition or conflict with other countries.\\n\\nFor similar reasons, I also agree with the left on climate change, abortion, and a few other issues.\\n\\nSo I tend to think of myself as a conservative with liberal views.\\n\\nIt could be objected that my overarching \\\"conservative philosophy\\\" doesn't matter if it doesn't distinguish me from a typical liberal. But I think it does. For reasons that I won't fully spell out here, I think certain levels of conflict and competition are inevitable on the global scale. So while a more liberal minded person might hope for a world in which adversarial relationships disappear and that we embrace our common humanity, I think that's unrealistic and thus embrace a nationalistic political attitude that supports our nation and allies over adversaries (like Russia and China). \\\\[And just to be clear, I don't support any form of nationalism that puts one race or religion over others in our country.\\\\]\\n\\nIn sum, I think we should build up all of our communities and cultural groups, not for liberal reasons of guilt, morality, or universal human rights, but simply because it's better for us to be stronger than weaker, more prosperous than less prosperous, and suchlike.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-26\",\n \"id\": \"1302qtg\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: It's possible to espouse a conservative political philosophy while also maintaining mostly leftist positions on specific issues.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/1302qtg/cmv_its_possible_to_espouse_a_conservative/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Dyeeguy\",\n \"body\": \"You don't believe in human rights, you just think people should have them. It is just a silly argument in what in means to \\\"believe\\\" in something. Obviously human rights aren't some force of nature lmao\\n\\nYou are labeling competition as a conservative value, then proposing a \\\"leftist\\\" solution\\n\\nSeems you are really more left leaning than you think. I think a lot of people identify with conservatives on a few random issues like drag queens or something and that skews how they perceive their own political alignment\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-26\",\n \"id\": \"jhungfv\",\n \"parent_id\": \"1302qtg\",\n \"score\": 14,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"agonisticpathos\",\n \"body\": \"I think the position I stated was that some rights should be constructed for people *within* our society. \\n\\nBut since I also think we will always have adversarial relations with some other countries, to me it's inevitable that in one way or another, directly or indirectly, our policies will work against the \\\"rights\\\" that have been constructed by other nations for their citizenry.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-26\",\n \"id\": \"jhutakq\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jhungfv\",\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"agonisticpathos\",\n \"body\": \"In the spirit of Friedrich Nietzsche, I tend to agree with the view that competition (a predominantly conservative value) is a fundamental component of ethics, culture, politics, and life in general. I disagree with any liberals who say that equality is inherently valuable, or that there are such things as intrinsic human rights (for any groups).\\n\\nYet I find myself agreeing with liberals on specific issues, albeit for conservative reasons... the main one having to do with competition on both individual and national levels.\\n\\nFor example, while I don't believe we should defend equality for its own sake, I do think there should be more income equality in the US as a means to spurring competition in our economy, in education, in technology, and so forth.\\n\\nLikewise, while I don't believe any minority groups have inherent rights, as nobody has ever proven that such universal, intrinsic rights exist, I still prefer to live in a society in which all minority groups are thriving as this makes for more competition within our country and also makes us a stronger nation as a whole in the face of competition or conflict with other countries.\\n\\nFor similar reasons, I also agree with the left on climate change, abortion, and a few other issues.\\n\\nSo I tend to think of myself as a conservative with liberal views.\\n\\nIt could be objected that my overarching \\\"conservative philosophy\\\" doesn't matter if it doesn't distinguish me from a typical liberal. But I think it does. For reasons that I won't fully spell out here, I think certain levels of conflict and competition are inevitable on the global scale. So while a more liberal minded person might hope for a world in which adversarial relationships disappear and that we embrace our common humanity, I think that's unrealistic and thus embrace a nationalistic political attitude that supports our nation and allies over adversaries (like Russia and China). \\\\[And just to be clear, I don't support any form of nationalism that puts one race or religion over others in our country.\\\\]\\n\\nIn sum, I think we should build up all of our communities and cultural groups, not for liberal reasons of guilt, morality, or universal human rights, but simply because it's better for us to be stronger than weaker, more prosperous than less prosperous, and suchlike.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-26\",\n \"id\": \"1302qtg\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: It's possible to espouse a conservative political philosophy while also maintaining mostly leftist positions on specific issues.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/1302qtg/cmv_its_possible_to_espouse_a_conservative/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Kirbyoto\",\n \"body\": \">Likewise, while I don't believe any minority groups have inherent rights, as nobody has ever proven that such universal, intrinsic rights exist \\n\\nIt's weird to present this as a left/right thing. I'm pretty sure both sides of the aisle in American politics believe in the concept of \\\"inalienable rights\\\" and how \\\"we hold these truths to be self-evident\\\" and so on.\\n \\n>And just to be clear, I don't support any form of nationalism that puts one race or religion over others in our country.\\n\\nIf you think racism is bad then why do you think nationalism is good? A nation is just as arbitrary and made-up as a race. Sure, you could say you're opposed to China's *government*, but that's a specific political group, not a \\\"nation\\\". A leftist would say that they're anti-nationalist but would still advocate for the destruction of opposing *governments* for completely understandable reasons. So how can you be a nationalist without being, at some level, a racist or supremacist?\\n\\nBeyond that, \\\"a leftist who is also a nationalist\\\" is not exactly an unheard-of ideology. The [Strasser wing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strasserism) of the Nazi party, or the [National Bolsheviks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Bolshevism), or [National Syndicalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_syndicalism), all combine ostensibly leftist economic organization with nationalist ideals. They were all, you know, deeply racist and supremacist by nature.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-26\",\n \"id\": \"jhuod0s\",\n \"parent_id\": \"1302qtg\",\n \"score\": 5,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"agonisticpathos\",\n \"body\": \"In most cases, it seems nearly impossible to separate governments from their citizenry. We can say, for example, that our economic policies are only directed at undermining the Russian government and not the people. but the truth is that we are genuinely doing harm to the the Russian people. Would you say that makes us racist against the Russian people?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-26\",\n \"id\": \"jhuubyx\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jhuod0s\",\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"agonisticpathos\",\n \"body\": \"In the spirit of Friedrich Nietzsche, I tend to agree with the view that competition (a predominantly conservative value) is a fundamental component of ethics, culture, politics, and life in general. I disagree with any liberals who say that equality is inherently valuable, or that there are such things as intrinsic human rights (for any groups).\\n\\nYet I find myself agreeing with liberals on specific issues, albeit for conservative reasons... the main one having to do with competition on both individual and national levels.\\n\\nFor example, while I don't believe we should defend equality for its own sake, I do think there should be more income equality in the US as a means to spurring competition in our economy, in education, in technology, and so forth.\\n\\nLikewise, while I don't believe any minority groups have inherent rights, as nobody has ever proven that such universal, intrinsic rights exist, I still prefer to live in a society in which all minority groups are thriving as this makes for more competition within our country and also makes us a stronger nation as a whole in the face of competition or conflict with other countries.\\n\\nFor similar reasons, I also agree with the left on climate change, abortion, and a few other issues.\\n\\nSo I tend to think of myself as a conservative with liberal views.\\n\\nIt could be objected that my overarching \\\"conservative philosophy\\\" doesn't matter if it doesn't distinguish me from a typical liberal. But I think it does. For reasons that I won't fully spell out here, I think certain levels of conflict and competition are inevitable on the global scale. So while a more liberal minded person might hope for a world in which adversarial relationships disappear and that we embrace our common humanity, I think that's unrealistic and thus embrace a nationalistic political attitude that supports our nation and allies over adversaries (like Russia and China). \\\\[And just to be clear, I don't support any form of nationalism that puts one race or religion over others in our country.\\\\]\\n\\nIn sum, I think we should build up all of our communities and cultural groups, not for liberal reasons of guilt, morality, or universal human rights, but simply because it's better for us to be stronger than weaker, more prosperous than less prosperous, and suchlike.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-26\",\n \"id\": \"1302qtg\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: It's possible to espouse a conservative political philosophy while also maintaining mostly leftist positions on specific issues.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/1302qtg/cmv_its_possible_to_espouse_a_conservative/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"bluntisimo\",\n \"body\": \" your just a liberal, liberals are a part of the left, but they believe in some conservative things mostly the free market... so i hate to break it to you but you are a full blown liberal.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-26\",\n \"id\": \"jhuqpxs\",\n \"parent_id\": \"1302qtg\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"agonisticpathos\",\n \"body\": \"In the spirit of Friedrich Nietzsche, I tend to agree with the view that competition (a predominantly conservative value) is a fundamental component of ethics, culture, politics, and life in general. I disagree with any liberals who say that equality is inherently valuable, or that there are such things as intrinsic human rights (for any groups).\\n\\nYet I find myself agreeing with liberals on specific issues, albeit for conservative reasons... the main one having to do with competition on both individual and national levels.\\n\\nFor example, while I don't believe we should defend equality for its own sake, I do think there should be more income equality in the US as a means to spurring competition in our economy, in education, in technology, and so forth.\\n\\nLikewise, while I don't believe any minority groups have inherent rights, as nobody has ever proven that such universal, intrinsic rights exist, I still prefer to live in a society in which all minority groups are thriving as this makes for more competition within our country and also makes us a stronger nation as a whole in the face of competition or conflict with other countries.\\n\\nFor similar reasons, I also agree with the left on climate change, abortion, and a few other issues.\\n\\nSo I tend to think of myself as a conservative with liberal views.\\n\\nIt could be objected that my overarching \\\"conservative philosophy\\\" doesn't matter if it doesn't distinguish me from a typical liberal. But I think it does. For reasons that I won't fully spell out here, I think certain levels of conflict and competition are inevitable on the global scale. So while a more liberal minded person might hope for a world in which adversarial relationships disappear and that we embrace our common humanity, I think that's unrealistic and thus embrace a nationalistic political attitude that supports our nation and allies over adversaries (like Russia and China). \\\\[And just to be clear, I don't support any form of nationalism that puts one race or religion over others in our country.\\\\]\\n\\nIn sum, I think we should build up all of our communities and cultural groups, not for liberal reasons of guilt, morality, or universal human rights, but simply because it's better for us to be stronger than weaker, more prosperous than less prosperous, and suchlike.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-26\",\n \"id\": \"1302qtg\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: It's possible to espouse a conservative political philosophy while also maintaining mostly leftist positions on specific issues.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/1302qtg/cmv_its_possible_to_espouse_a_conservative/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"AlaDouche\",\n \"body\": \"Why do you not think people should be treated equally without needing a competitive reason for it? Do you think certain demographics don't deserve the same treatment as others?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-26\",\n \"id\": \"jhur77d\",\n \"parent_id\": \"1302qtg\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"agonisticpathos\",\n \"body\": \"Emotionally I see your point, but logically I follow Nietzsche in being skeptical of moral values like the inherent worth of human life.\\n\\nSo to me there is no such thing as people naturally deserving anything, just by virtue of being alive.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-26\",\n \"id\": \"jhuv7xc\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jhur77d\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"agonisticpathos\",\n \"body\": \"In the spirit of Friedrich Nietzsche, I tend to agree with the view that competition (a predominantly conservative value) is a fundamental component of ethics, culture, politics, and life in general. I disagree with any liberals who say that equality is inherently valuable, or that there are such things as intrinsic human rights (for any groups).\\n\\nYet I find myself agreeing with liberals on specific issues, albeit for conservative reasons... the main one having to do with competition on both individual and national levels.\\n\\nFor example, while I don't believe we should defend equality for its own sake, I do think there should be more income equality in the US as a means to spurring competition in our economy, in education, in technology, and so forth.\\n\\nLikewise, while I don't believe any minority groups have inherent rights, as nobody has ever proven that such universal, intrinsic rights exist, I still prefer to live in a society in which all minority groups are thriving as this makes for more competition within our country and also makes us a stronger nation as a whole in the face of competition or conflict with other countries.\\n\\nFor similar reasons, I also agree with the left on climate change, abortion, and a few other issues.\\n\\nSo I tend to think of myself as a conservative with liberal views.\\n\\nIt could be objected that my overarching \\\"conservative philosophy\\\" doesn't matter if it doesn't distinguish me from a typical liberal. But I think it does. For reasons that I won't fully spell out here, I think certain levels of conflict and competition are inevitable on the global scale. So while a more liberal minded person might hope for a world in which adversarial relationships disappear and that we embrace our common humanity, I think that's unrealistic and thus embrace a nationalistic political attitude that supports our nation and allies over adversaries (like Russia and China). \\\\[And just to be clear, I don't support any form of nationalism that puts one race or religion over others in our country.\\\\]\\n\\nIn sum, I think we should build up all of our communities and cultural groups, not for liberal reasons of guilt, morality, or universal human rights, but simply because it's better for us to be stronger than weaker, more prosperous than less prosperous, and suchlike.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-26\",\n \"id\": \"1302qtg\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: It's possible to espouse a conservative political philosophy while also maintaining mostly leftist positions on specific issues.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/1302qtg/cmv_its_possible_to_espouse_a_conservative/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Sandy_hook_lemy\",\n \"body\": \"Socially liberal and fiscally conservative?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-26\",\n \"id\": \"jhus12p\",\n \"parent_id\": \"1302qtg\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"agonisticpathos\",\n \"body\": \"In the spirit of Friedrich Nietzsche, I tend to agree with the view that competition (a predominantly conservative value) is a fundamental component of ethics, culture, politics, and life in general. I disagree with any liberals who say that equality is inherently valuable, or that there are such things as intrinsic human rights (for any groups).\\n\\nYet I find myself agreeing with liberals on specific issues, albeit for conservative reasons... the main one having to do with competition on both individual and national levels.\\n\\nFor example, while I don't believe we should defend equality for its own sake, I do think there should be more income equality in the US as a means to spurring competition in our economy, in education, in technology, and so forth.\\n\\nLikewise, while I don't believe any minority groups have inherent rights, as nobody has ever proven that such universal, intrinsic rights exist, I still prefer to live in a society in which all minority groups are thriving as this makes for more competition within our country and also makes us a stronger nation as a whole in the face of competition or conflict with other countries.\\n\\nFor similar reasons, I also agree with the left on climate change, abortion, and a few other issues.\\n\\nSo I tend to think of myself as a conservative with liberal views.\\n\\nIt could be objected that my overarching \\\"conservative philosophy\\\" doesn't matter if it doesn't distinguish me from a typical liberal. But I think it does. For reasons that I won't fully spell out here, I think certain levels of conflict and competition are inevitable on the global scale. So while a more liberal minded person might hope for a world in which adversarial relationships disappear and that we embrace our common humanity, I think that's unrealistic and thus embrace a nationalistic political attitude that supports our nation and allies over adversaries (like Russia and China). \\\\[And just to be clear, I don't support any form of nationalism that puts one race or religion over others in our country.\\\\]\\n\\nIn sum, I think we should build up all of our communities and cultural groups, not for liberal reasons of guilt, morality, or universal human rights, but simply because it's better for us to be stronger than weaker, more prosperous than less prosperous, and suchlike.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-26\",\n \"id\": \"1302qtg\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: It's possible to espouse a conservative political philosophy while also maintaining mostly leftist positions on specific issues.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/1302qtg/cmv_its_possible_to_espouse_a_conservative/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"yyzjertl\",\n \"body\": \"I think the issue here is that you are framing your positions in terms of US politics, where the things you are calling \\\"leftist positions\\\" are basically what the Democratic party supports. But the US Democratic party isn't a leftist party, and is really more of a center-right party. So of course most of its positions are going to be compatible with conservatism. While the positions you describe in your post are positions that the Democratic party espouses, none of them are in any meaningful sense leftist positions (except possibly climate change, depending on whether you _actually_ agree with the left about climate change or whether you just agree with the Democrats).\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-26\",\n \"id\": \"jhut25b\",\n \"parent_id\": \"1302qtg\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"agonisticpathos\",\n \"body\": \"I have to state my position from some socio-historical perspective, right? I'm not sure there's a universal definition of left and right that applies equally well to all countries.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-26\",\n \"id\": \"jhuvqqp\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jhut25b\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"agonisticpathos\",\n \"body\": \"In the spirit of Friedrich Nietzsche, I tend to agree with the view that competition (a predominantly conservative value) is a fundamental component of ethics, culture, politics, and life in general. I disagree with any liberals who say that equality is inherently valuable, or that there are such things as intrinsic human rights (for any groups).\\n\\nYet I find myself agreeing with liberals on specific issues, albeit for conservative reasons... the main one having to do with competition on both individual and national levels.\\n\\nFor example, while I don't believe we should defend equality for its own sake, I do think there should be more income equality in the US as a means to spurring competition in our economy, in education, in technology, and so forth.\\n\\nLikewise, while I don't believe any minority groups have inherent rights, as nobody has ever proven that such universal, intrinsic rights exist, I still prefer to live in a society in which all minority groups are thriving as this makes for more competition within our country and also makes us a stronger nation as a whole in the face of competition or conflict with other countries.\\n\\nFor similar reasons, I also agree with the left on climate change, abortion, and a few other issues.\\n\\nSo I tend to think of myself as a conservative with liberal views.\\n\\nIt could be objected that my overarching \\\"conservative philosophy\\\" doesn't matter if it doesn't distinguish me from a typical liberal. But I think it does. For reasons that I won't fully spell out here, I think certain levels of conflict and competition are inevitable on the global scale. So while a more liberal minded person might hope for a world in which adversarial relationships disappear and that we embrace our common humanity, I think that's unrealistic and thus embrace a nationalistic political attitude that supports our nation and allies over adversaries (like Russia and China). \\\\[And just to be clear, I don't support any form of nationalism that puts one race or religion over others in our country.\\\\]\\n\\nIn sum, I think we should build up all of our communities and cultural groups, not for liberal reasons of guilt, morality, or universal human rights, but simply because it's better for us to be stronger than weaker, more prosperous than less prosperous, and suchlike.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-26\",\n \"id\": \"1302qtg\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: It's possible to espouse a conservative political philosophy while also maintaining mostly leftist positions on specific issues.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/1302qtg/cmv_its_possible_to_espouse_a_conservative/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"LetMeHaveAUsername\",\n \"body\": \"Dude, none of what you described is leftist, it's liberal at best.\\n\\nOther than that don't worry about finding your current place on the political spectrum, just fucking find some goddamn empathy inside yourself and be a better person. You seem maybe not beyond saving.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-26\",\n \"id\": \"jhuwbh7\",\n \"parent_id\": \"1302qtg\",\n \"score\": 3,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"agonisticpathos\",\n \"body\": \"In the spirit of Friedrich Nietzsche, I tend to agree with the view that competition (a predominantly conservative value) is a fundamental component of ethics, culture, politics, and life in general. I disagree with any liberals who say that equality is inherently valuable, or that there are such things as intrinsic human rights (for any groups).\\n\\nYet I find myself agreeing with liberals on specific issues, albeit for conservative reasons... the main one having to do with competition on both individual and national levels.\\n\\nFor example, while I don't believe we should defend equality for its own sake, I do think there should be more income equality in the US as a means to spurring competition in our economy, in education, in technology, and so forth.\\n\\nLikewise, while I don't believe any minority groups have inherent rights, as nobody has ever proven that such universal, intrinsic rights exist, I still prefer to live in a society in which all minority groups are thriving as this makes for more competition within our country and also makes us a stronger nation as a whole in the face of competition or conflict with other countries.\\n\\nFor similar reasons, I also agree with the left on climate change, abortion, and a few other issues.\\n\\nSo I tend to think of myself as a conservative with liberal views.\\n\\nIt could be objected that my overarching \\\"conservative philosophy\\\" doesn't matter if it doesn't distinguish me from a typical liberal. But I think it does. For reasons that I won't fully spell out here, I think certain levels of conflict and competition are inevitable on the global scale. So while a more liberal minded person might hope for a world in which adversarial relationships disappear and that we embrace our common humanity, I think that's unrealistic and thus embrace a nationalistic political attitude that supports our nation and allies over adversaries (like Russia and China). \\\\[And just to be clear, I don't support any form of nationalism that puts one race or religion over others in our country.\\\\]\\n\\nIn sum, I think we should build up all of our communities and cultural groups, not for liberal reasons of guilt, morality, or universal human rights, but simply because it's better for us to be stronger than weaker, more prosperous than less prosperous, and suchlike.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-26\",\n \"id\": \"1302qtg\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: It's possible to espouse a conservative political philosophy while also maintaining mostly leftist positions on specific issues.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/1302qtg/cmv_its_possible_to_espouse_a_conservative/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"KokonutMonkey\",\n \"body\": \"The trouble with this view isn't how its spelled out. Sure, it's possible to be a conservative while holding some left-wing positions: they're called Republicans from 30 years ago. \\n\\nThe trouble is with your labels. \\n\\nAs for competition being a conservative value, I'm not sure what led you to believe that. Conservatives are all about maintaining traditional power structures in society. The belief that market economies generally work is a standard western stance, not a conservative one. Conservative business owners would happily form cartels if the law would allow it. \\n\\nNor does conservatism = nationalism or putting one's nation's interests ahead of others. That's why it's called nationalism, not conservatism. A nationalist can have vastly different ideas of how to best run a country and interact with those around it. \\n\\nAs for what you consider to be \\\"leftist\\\" stances, they're not. The idea that the state can't compel a woman to carry a pregnancy against her will, or climate change being a thing are mainstream political opinion across the western world. \\n\\nBasically, you're not a conservative with certain leftist beliefs. You're a centrist with nationalist sympathies.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-26\",\n \"id\": \"jhuy2h4\",\n \"parent_id\": \"1302qtg\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"agonisticpathos\",\n \"body\": \"It seems to me that people closer to Marx and thus less free market competition are you usually on the left, while those who are closer to Smith are usually on the right. There's a spectrum in between the two, but I've never heard of someone economically closer on the spectrum to Marx, Zizek, or Sanders being called conservative.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-26\",\n \"id\": \"jhvddw4\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jhuy2h4\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"agonisticpathos\",\n \"body\": \"In the spirit of Friedrich Nietzsche, I tend to agree with the view that competition (a predominantly conservative value) is a fundamental component of ethics, culture, politics, and life in general. I disagree with any liberals who say that equality is inherently valuable, or that there are such things as intrinsic human rights (for any groups).\\n\\nYet I find myself agreeing with liberals on specific issues, albeit for conservative reasons... the main one having to do with competition on both individual and national levels.\\n\\nFor example, while I don't believe we should defend equality for its own sake, I do think there should be more income equality in the US as a means to spurring competition in our economy, in education, in technology, and so forth.\\n\\nLikewise, while I don't believe any minority groups have inherent rights, as nobody has ever proven that such universal, intrinsic rights exist, I still prefer to live in a society in which all minority groups are thriving as this makes for more competition within our country and also makes us a stronger nation as a whole in the face of competition or conflict with other countries.\\n\\nFor similar reasons, I also agree with the left on climate change, abortion, and a few other issues.\\n\\nSo I tend to think of myself as a conservative with liberal views.\\n\\nIt could be objected that my overarching \\\"conservative philosophy\\\" doesn't matter if it doesn't distinguish me from a typical liberal. But I think it does. For reasons that I won't fully spell out here, I think certain levels of conflict and competition are inevitable on the global scale. So while a more liberal minded person might hope for a world in which adversarial relationships disappear and that we embrace our common humanity, I think that's unrealistic and thus embrace a nationalistic political attitude that supports our nation and allies over adversaries (like Russia and China). \\\\[And just to be clear, I don't support any form of nationalism that puts one race or religion over others in our country.\\\\]\\n\\nIn sum, I think we should build up all of our communities and cultural groups, not for liberal reasons of guilt, morality, or universal human rights, but simply because it's better for us to be stronger than weaker, more prosperous than less prosperous, and suchlike.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-26\",\n \"id\": \"1302qtg\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: It's possible to espouse a conservative political philosophy while also maintaining mostly leftist positions on specific issues.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/1302qtg/cmv_its_possible_to_espouse_a_conservative/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"marxianthings\",\n \"body\": \"First of all, you have to define what you mean by conservative. There is no conservative who is advocating what you are. In fact conservatives in this country are very nationalistic and probably think Nietzsche is poisoning children's brains with marxism.\\n\\nSecond, you are using too many vague abstractions. Marx, for example, called out utopian socialist La Salle in the Critique of the Gotha program for basically putting out equality as this goal without really understanding what it would mean in real, practical terms. \\n\\nAnd it's true, equality could mean a lot of different things given the context. You would agree that equality is intrinsically valuable if we are talking about how the law treats everyone, right? \\n\\nWhat exactly are you talking about when you say equality? The same with adversarial relationships or conflict. Conflict is inherent to all societies but there are different kinds of conflicts that arise due to different conditions. We aren't having a civil war like Sudan is, at the moment. Why? Because the conditions are different and the conditions affect human behavior. \\n\\nThird, what if I told you that capitalism and its need for relentless growth and production is a huge obstacle in our ability to solve the climate crisis? What if I told you that capitalism is built on the unpaid, free labor of all women and their reproductive rights will always be under threat under this system? Something to think about.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-26\",\n \"id\": \"jhv143d\",\n \"parent_id\": \"1302qtg\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"agonisticpathos\",\n \"body\": \"In the spirit of Friedrich Nietzsche, I tend to agree with the view that competition (a predominantly conservative value) is a fundamental component of ethics, culture, politics, and life in general. I disagree with any liberals who say that equality is inherently valuable, or that there are such things as intrinsic human rights (for any groups).\\n\\nYet I find myself agreeing with liberals on specific issues, albeit for conservative reasons... the main one having to do with competition on both individual and national levels.\\n\\nFor example, while I don't believe we should defend equality for its own sake, I do think there should be more income equality in the US as a means to spurring competition in our economy, in education, in technology, and so forth.\\n\\nLikewise, while I don't believe any minority groups have inherent rights, as nobody has ever proven that such universal, intrinsic rights exist, I still prefer to live in a society in which all minority groups are thriving as this makes for more competition within our country and also makes us a stronger nation as a whole in the face of competition or conflict with other countries.\\n\\nFor similar reasons, I also agree with the left on climate change, abortion, and a few other issues.\\n\\nSo I tend to think of myself as a conservative with liberal views.\\n\\nIt could be objected that my overarching \\\"conservative philosophy\\\" doesn't matter if it doesn't distinguish me from a typical liberal. But I think it does. For reasons that I won't fully spell out here, I think certain levels of conflict and competition are inevitable on the global scale. So while a more liberal minded person might hope for a world in which adversarial relationships disappear and that we embrace our common humanity, I think that's unrealistic and thus embrace a nationalistic political attitude that supports our nation and allies over adversaries (like Russia and China). \\\\[And just to be clear, I don't support any form of nationalism that puts one race or religion over others in our country.\\\\]\\n\\nIn sum, I think we should build up all of our communities and cultural groups, not for liberal reasons of guilt, morality, or universal human rights, but simply because it's better for us to be stronger than weaker, more prosperous than less prosperous, and suchlike.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-26\",\n \"id\": \"1302qtg\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: It's possible to espouse a conservative political philosophy while also maintaining mostly leftist positions on specific issues.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/1302qtg/cmv_its_possible_to_espouse_a_conservative/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Next-Independence-97\",\n \"body\": \"couldn’t this be summed up to libertarianism ? ,,, im unsure on the specifics as my knowledge isn’t great, but wouldn’t your ideas correspond with that\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-26\",\n \"id\": \"jhv5nnv\",\n \"parent_id\": \"1302qtg\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"agonisticpathos\",\n \"body\": \"In the spirit of Friedrich Nietzsche, I tend to agree with the view that competition (a predominantly conservative value) is a fundamental component of ethics, culture, politics, and life in general. I disagree with any liberals who say that equality is inherently valuable, or that there are such things as intrinsic human rights (for any groups).\\n\\nYet I find myself agreeing with liberals on specific issues, albeit for conservative reasons... the main one having to do with competition on both individual and national levels.\\n\\nFor example, while I don't believe we should defend equality for its own sake, I do think there should be more income equality in the US as a means to spurring competition in our economy, in education, in technology, and so forth.\\n\\nLikewise, while I don't believe any minority groups have inherent rights, as nobody has ever proven that such universal, intrinsic rights exist, I still prefer to live in a society in which all minority groups are thriving as this makes for more competition within our country and also makes us a stronger nation as a whole in the face of competition or conflict with other countries.\\n\\nFor similar reasons, I also agree with the left on climate change, abortion, and a few other issues.\\n\\nSo I tend to think of myself as a conservative with liberal views.\\n\\nIt could be objected that my overarching \\\"conservative philosophy\\\" doesn't matter if it doesn't distinguish me from a typical liberal. But I think it does. For reasons that I won't fully spell out here, I think certain levels of conflict and competition are inevitable on the global scale. So while a more liberal minded person might hope for a world in which adversarial relationships disappear and that we embrace our common humanity, I think that's unrealistic and thus embrace a nationalistic political attitude that supports our nation and allies over adversaries (like Russia and China). \\\\[And just to be clear, I don't support any form of nationalism that puts one race or religion over others in our country.\\\\]\\n\\nIn sum, I think we should build up all of our communities and cultural groups, not for liberal reasons of guilt, morality, or universal human rights, but simply because it's better for us to be stronger than weaker, more prosperous than less prosperous, and suchlike.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-26\",\n \"id\": \"1302qtg\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: It's possible to espouse a conservative political philosophy while also maintaining mostly leftist positions on specific issues.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/1302qtg/cmv_its_possible_to_espouse_a_conservative/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Wefhen\",\n \"body\": \"Nobody has to \\\"prove\\\" that human rights exist, they're things that we enjoying having and would very much not want to live without, and so being empathetic, we try to grant them to other people. \\n\\nWhat makes you think that creating an even playing field for all minorities and cultures will allow a nation as a whole to be more competitive? Doing that would require interference to redistribute wealth, how would that help a country in any way other than improving the lives of its people?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-26\",\n \"id\": \"jhvbpzu\",\n \"parent_id\": \"1302qtg\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"agonisticpathos\",\n \"body\": \"In the spirit of Friedrich Nietzsche, I tend to agree with the view that competition (a predominantly conservative value) is a fundamental component of ethics, culture, politics, and life in general. I disagree with any liberals who say that equality is inherently valuable, or that there are such things as intrinsic human rights (for any groups).\\n\\nYet I find myself agreeing with liberals on specific issues, albeit for conservative reasons... the main one having to do with competition on both individual and national levels.\\n\\nFor example, while I don't believe we should defend equality for its own sake, I do think there should be more income equality in the US as a means to spurring competition in our economy, in education, in technology, and so forth.\\n\\nLikewise, while I don't believe any minority groups have inherent rights, as nobody has ever proven that such universal, intrinsic rights exist, I still prefer to live in a society in which all minority groups are thriving as this makes for more competition within our country and also makes us a stronger nation as a whole in the face of competition or conflict with other countries.\\n\\nFor similar reasons, I also agree with the left on climate change, abortion, and a few other issues.\\n\\nSo I tend to think of myself as a conservative with liberal views.\\n\\nIt could be objected that my overarching \\\"conservative philosophy\\\" doesn't matter if it doesn't distinguish me from a typical liberal. But I think it does. For reasons that I won't fully spell out here, I think certain levels of conflict and competition are inevitable on the global scale. So while a more liberal minded person might hope for a world in which adversarial relationships disappear and that we embrace our common humanity, I think that's unrealistic and thus embrace a nationalistic political attitude that supports our nation and allies over adversaries (like Russia and China). \\\\[And just to be clear, I don't support any form of nationalism that puts one race or religion over others in our country.\\\\]\\n\\nIn sum, I think we should build up all of our communities and cultural groups, not for liberal reasons of guilt, morality, or universal human rights, but simply because it's better for us to be stronger than weaker, more prosperous than less prosperous, and suchlike.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-26\",\n \"id\": \"1302qtg\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: It's possible to espouse a conservative political philosophy while also maintaining mostly leftist positions on specific issues.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/1302qtg/cmv_its_possible_to_espouse_a_conservative/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Deft_one\",\n \"body\": \"People on the Left want equal rights (etc.) for all the reasons you laid out here, not 'just because,' but for the pragmatic, applicable outcomes thereof, which you've laid out in your post.\\n\\nI think you've accidentally mischaracterized Leftists as doing things thoughtlessly and 'for their own sake,' but they're actually done to address what you say you want. In other words, it seems you are a Liberal with Liberal views (based on this post, at least)\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-26\",\n \"id\": \"jhvf8s5\",\n \"parent_id\": \"1302qtg\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"agonisticpathos\",\n \"body\": \"In the spirit of Friedrich Nietzsche, I tend to agree with the view that competition (a predominantly conservative value) is a fundamental component of ethics, culture, politics, and life in general. I disagree with any liberals who say that equality is inherently valuable, or that there are such things as intrinsic human rights (for any groups).\\n\\nYet I find myself agreeing with liberals on specific issues, albeit for conservative reasons... the main one having to do with competition on both individual and national levels.\\n\\nFor example, while I don't believe we should defend equality for its own sake, I do think there should be more income equality in the US as a means to spurring competition in our economy, in education, in technology, and so forth.\\n\\nLikewise, while I don't believe any minority groups have inherent rights, as nobody has ever proven that such universal, intrinsic rights exist, I still prefer to live in a society in which all minority groups are thriving as this makes for more competition within our country and also makes us a stronger nation as a whole in the face of competition or conflict with other countries.\\n\\nFor similar reasons, I also agree with the left on climate change, abortion, and a few other issues.\\n\\nSo I tend to think of myself as a conservative with liberal views.\\n\\nIt could be objected that my overarching \\\"conservative philosophy\\\" doesn't matter if it doesn't distinguish me from a typical liberal. But I think it does. For reasons that I won't fully spell out here, I think certain levels of conflict and competition are inevitable on the global scale. So while a more liberal minded person might hope for a world in which adversarial relationships disappear and that we embrace our common humanity, I think that's unrealistic and thus embrace a nationalistic political attitude that supports our nation and allies over adversaries (like Russia and China). \\\\[And just to be clear, I don't support any form of nationalism that puts one race or religion over others in our country.\\\\]\\n\\nIn sum, I think we should build up all of our communities and cultural groups, not for liberal reasons of guilt, morality, or universal human rights, but simply because it's better for us to be stronger than weaker, more prosperous than less prosperous, and suchlike.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-26\",\n \"id\": \"1302qtg\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: It's possible to espouse a conservative political philosophy while also maintaining mostly leftist positions on specific issues.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/1302qtg/cmv_its_possible_to_espouse_a_conservative/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"anewleaf1234\",\n \"body\": \"Would you watch a race in which some racers got advantages and some racers got hardships placed in front of them and feel you were watching a fair competition where the best would be the ones who win?\\n\\nThe left isn't against competition. We just think that the playing field should be more equal. If I have the right to marry than all citizens should have that right. Cops shouldn't be only stopping and searching black and brown suspects while they ignore white ones. And so forth.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"jhvnh62\",\n \"parent_id\": \"1302qtg\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"agonisticpathos\",\n \"body\": \"In the spirit of Friedrich Nietzsche, I tend to agree with the view that competition (a predominantly conservative value) is a fundamental component of ethics, culture, politics, and life in general. I disagree with any liberals who say that equality is inherently valuable, or that there are such things as intrinsic human rights (for any groups).\\n\\nYet I find myself agreeing with liberals on specific issues, albeit for conservative reasons... the main one having to do with competition on both individual and national levels.\\n\\nFor example, while I don't believe we should defend equality for its own sake, I do think there should be more income equality in the US as a means to spurring competition in our economy, in education, in technology, and so forth.\\n\\nLikewise, while I don't believe any minority groups have inherent rights, as nobody has ever proven that such universal, intrinsic rights exist, I still prefer to live in a society in which all minority groups are thriving as this makes for more competition within our country and also makes us a stronger nation as a whole in the face of competition or conflict with other countries.\\n\\nFor similar reasons, I also agree with the left on climate change, abortion, and a few other issues.\\n\\nSo I tend to think of myself as a conservative with liberal views.\\n\\nIt could be objected that my overarching \\\"conservative philosophy\\\" doesn't matter if it doesn't distinguish me from a typical liberal. But I think it does. For reasons that I won't fully spell out here, I think certain levels of conflict and competition are inevitable on the global scale. So while a more liberal minded person might hope for a world in which adversarial relationships disappear and that we embrace our common humanity, I think that's unrealistic and thus embrace a nationalistic political attitude that supports our nation and allies over adversaries (like Russia and China). \\\\[And just to be clear, I don't support any form of nationalism that puts one race or religion over others in our country.\\\\]\\n\\nIn sum, I think we should build up all of our communities and cultural groups, not for liberal reasons of guilt, morality, or universal human rights, but simply because it's better for us to be stronger than weaker, more prosperous than less prosperous, and suchlike.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-26\",\n \"id\": \"1302qtg\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: It's possible to espouse a conservative political philosophy while also maintaining mostly leftist positions on specific issues.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/1302qtg/cmv_its_possible_to_espouse_a_conservative/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CeilingFanUpThere\",\n \"body\": \"As an atheist, my definition of morality is listening to my gut about what is socially constructive and individually constructive (moral) and what is socially destructive and individually self-destructive (immoral) and factchecking my gut.\\n\\nThis definition of morality is probably problematic for some people, but the way I define it for me fits your perspective about valuing equal opportunities for all citizens because it is constructive for the nation as a whole. And I guess I value the universal human rights part because I think it is constructive for each individual. And moreover, if only some individuals have human rights, that kind of competition--competition for human status--is destructive for me as an individual because it makes the world a less trustworthy place to live; that does go beyond simply deciding whether something is *socially* constructive or *socially* destructive.\\n\\nChanges that make the world more trustworthy benefit me individually, because living in an untrustworthy world is fatiguing, and more expensive. Trust brings all costs down; mistrust raises all costs. That's one reason that having allies is so practical. Adversarial dynamics reduce when two nations attempt to reduce mistrust. Because nations do this, it's not so hard for me to believe that the world is on that path--that all nations would someday practice that kind of diplomacy with all other nations. But since it kind of feels like ten steps forward, nine steps back, it would probably require many great leaps forward, and therefore, an unknowable amount of intention and time. The journey towards that aspiration reduces costs, even though allies can revert to enemies, and even though the path has no real endpoint. Reach for the stars: might land on the clouds.\\n\\n​\\n\\n>I disagree with any liberals who say that equality is inherently valuable\\n\\nEquality for everyone is something that *some* people value. I don't know that people who value it believe it carries that property intrinsically. But inherently can mean that value is attached to it; our society attached the idea of desirability to equality. Enough people came to believe it is valuable, and society made changes to protect people's lives, liberties, personal choice and personal autonomy, opportunity for advancement, etc., which people generally can't fully thrive without.\\n\\n​\\n\\n>I still prefer to live in a society in which all minority groups are thriving as this makes for more competition within our country and also makes us a stronger nation as a whole in the face of competition or conflict with other countries.\\n\\nBased on what you said, it sounds like making more competition is inherently a good thing to you; you've attached value to competition. Many liberals value capitalism and/or competition. The difference between conservatives and liberals in regards to the value of competition is probably that liberals are likely to prioritize other values above competition, which conservatives may prioritize too, but below competition. That is a big difference. And the way you have described not only how much you value competition, but also the idealistic aspirations that have less value to you, that makes me think you're a conservative. It doesn't seem very weird that you have reached some conclusions for yourself that are typical of liberals, because I don't expect conservatives to never have those views. They say the conservative party has moved to the right, so maybe other conservatives are more shocked by your stances on climate and abortion and minorities than they would have been in the past.\\n\\nMaybe conservatives prioritize values that seem idealistic at a lower rank, as compared to other things that most people value, but that seem relatively realistic, like the need for national security. But I don't see that (idealism vs. realism) as an easy way to differentiate between a liberal and a conservative; individual conservatives can be quite idealistic and individual liberals can be quite realistic. Like any spectrum, people have always decided for themselves where they fit on the spectrum, even if other people have a more polarized view of them than they have of themselves.\\n\\nFrom your quote above, it sounds like you are talking about valuing/prioritizing national security. The climate crisis fits that, due to the threat of more wars over resources (syria's civil war has been attributed to the drought in 2007), but if abortion fits \\\"for similar reasons\\\", as you said, **I'm interested to know your perspective on that, if you don't mind.**\\n\\n​\\n\\n>So while a more liberal minded person might hope for a world in which adversarial relationships disappear and that we embrace our common humanity, I think that's unrealistic and thus embrace a nationalistic political attitude that supports our nation and allies over adversaries (like Russia and China).\\n\\nEven people who prioritize collaboration over competition, and even people who go further and don't think competition can compete with the productive value of collaboration, support their nation and allies over adversaries. Embracing a nationalistic political attitude is not a liberal view in the US, but there is liberal nationalism in Europe, nationalism and liberalism aren't inherently mutually exclusive, apparently. But I don't know much about it.\\n\\n​\\n\\n>liberal reasons of guilt, morality, or universal human rights\\n\\nGuilt isn't a liberal's *reason*; it's a feeling that motivates and energizes a person to take steps to rectify situations where communities are being unintentionally sabotaged from thriving. I guess there is still intentional sabotage too, but the systemic inequalities are things that might have been intentional historically, but now are just continuing because of inertia, because a lot of analysis and energy are required to meet the level of reform that's needed.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"jhvtto1\",\n \"parent_id\": \"1302qtg\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"agonisticpathos\",\n \"body\": \"In the spirit of Friedrich Nietzsche, I tend to agree with the view that competition (a predominantly conservative value) is a fundamental component of ethics, culture, politics, and life in general. I disagree with any liberals who say that equality is inherently valuable, or that there are such things as intrinsic human rights (for any groups).\\n\\nYet I find myself agreeing with liberals on specific issues, albeit for conservative reasons... the main one having to do with competition on both individual and national levels.\\n\\nFor example, while I don't believe we should defend equality for its own sake, I do think there should be more income equality in the US as a means to spurring competition in our economy, in education, in technology, and so forth.\\n\\nLikewise, while I don't believe any minority groups have inherent rights, as nobody has ever proven that such universal, intrinsic rights exist, I still prefer to live in a society in which all minority groups are thriving as this makes for more competition within our country and also makes us a stronger nation as a whole in the face of competition or conflict with other countries.\\n\\nFor similar reasons, I also agree with the left on climate change, abortion, and a few other issues.\\n\\nSo I tend to think of myself as a conservative with liberal views.\\n\\nIt could be objected that my overarching \\\"conservative philosophy\\\" doesn't matter if it doesn't distinguish me from a typical liberal. But I think it does. For reasons that I won't fully spell out here, I think certain levels of conflict and competition are inevitable on the global scale. So while a more liberal minded person might hope for a world in which adversarial relationships disappear and that we embrace our common humanity, I think that's unrealistic and thus embrace a nationalistic political attitude that supports our nation and allies over adversaries (like Russia and China). \\\\[And just to be clear, I don't support any form of nationalism that puts one race or religion over others in our country.\\\\]\\n\\nIn sum, I think we should build up all of our communities and cultural groups, not for liberal reasons of guilt, morality, or universal human rights, but simply because it's better for us to be stronger than weaker, more prosperous than less prosperous, and suchlike.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-26\",\n \"id\": \"1302qtg\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: It's possible to espouse a conservative political philosophy while also maintaining mostly leftist positions on specific issues.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/1302qtg/cmv_its_possible_to_espouse_a_conservative/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"gslavik\",\n \"body\": \"> I disagree with any liberals who say that ... there are such things as intrinsic human rights (for any groups).\\n\\nLet me quote you a part of the US Declaration of Independence.\\n\\n> We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.\\n\\n-----\\n\\n> Likewise, while I don't believe any minority groups have inherent rights, as nobody has ever proven that such universal, intrinsic rights exist\\n\\nThis is not something that can be proven. We can only agree on what these intrinsic rights are.\\n\\n> So I tend to think of myself as a conservative with liberal views.\\n\\nIf most of your views are liberal ... how can you be a conservative?\\n\\n> It could be objected that my overarching \\\"conservative philosophy\\\" doesn't matter if it doesn't distinguish me from a typical liberal. But I think it does. For reasons that I won't fully spell out here\\n\\nYou make the claim of being a conservative with liberal views multiple times and here you simply give up on it and claim you do not want to defend your decision making. This could've been summed up by a much shorter \\\"just saying\\\".\\n\\nBased on your post, my opinion is that you are more liberal than conservative, but not as liberal as the view of liberals you describe.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"jhvycgm\",\n \"parent_id\": \"1302qtg\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"agonisticpathos\",\n \"body\": \"In the spirit of Friedrich Nietzsche, I tend to agree with the view that competition (a predominantly conservative value) is a fundamental component of ethics, culture, politics, and life in general. I disagree with any liberals who say that equality is inherently valuable, or that there are such things as intrinsic human rights (for any groups).\\n\\nYet I find myself agreeing with liberals on specific issues, albeit for conservative reasons... the main one having to do with competition on both individual and national levels.\\n\\nFor example, while I don't believe we should defend equality for its own sake, I do think there should be more income equality in the US as a means to spurring competition in our economy, in education, in technology, and so forth.\\n\\nLikewise, while I don't believe any minority groups have inherent rights, as nobody has ever proven that such universal, intrinsic rights exist, I still prefer to live in a society in which all minority groups are thriving as this makes for more competition within our country and also makes us a stronger nation as a whole in the face of competition or conflict with other countries.\\n\\nFor similar reasons, I also agree with the left on climate change, abortion, and a few other issues.\\n\\nSo I tend to think of myself as a conservative with liberal views.\\n\\nIt could be objected that my overarching \\\"conservative philosophy\\\" doesn't matter if it doesn't distinguish me from a typical liberal. But I think it does. For reasons that I won't fully spell out here, I think certain levels of conflict and competition are inevitable on the global scale. So while a more liberal minded person might hope for a world in which adversarial relationships disappear and that we embrace our common humanity, I think that's unrealistic and thus embrace a nationalistic political attitude that supports our nation and allies over adversaries (like Russia and China). \\\\[And just to be clear, I don't support any form of nationalism that puts one race or religion over others in our country.\\\\]\\n\\nIn sum, I think we should build up all of our communities and cultural groups, not for liberal reasons of guilt, morality, or universal human rights, but simply because it's better for us to be stronger than weaker, more prosperous than less prosperous, and suchlike.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-26\",\n \"id\": \"1302qtg\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: It's possible to espouse a conservative political philosophy while also maintaining mostly leftist positions on specific issues.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/1302qtg/cmv_its_possible_to_espouse_a_conservative/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"lalalalalalala71\",\n \"body\": \"I'm curious - do you disagree with the Declaration of Independence that \\\"all men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights\\\"?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"jhwjs1p\",\n \"parent_id\": \"1302qtg\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ]\n]","isConversational":false},"2":{"kind":"string","value":"challenge"}}},{"rowIdx":38,"cells":{"0":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\n\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\n\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\n\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\n\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\n\n**How it would play out**\n\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\n\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\n\n**Expected counterpoints**\n\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\n\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\n\n**Deltas**\n\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"13193r4","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/"},{"author":"BlueRibbonMethChef","body":">t's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\n\nVietnam was half a century ago.\n\nThe US army didn't struggle in Afghanistan. They controlled the country, from halfway around the world, for 20 years.\n\nThen they chose to leave.\n\nThe weapons the US has been sending have played a significant role in helping Ukraine stave off a huge portion of the Russian military. This is without even putting troops on the ground.\n\nAlso Germany shares a border with France. China would have to send planes and naval units passed Japan, without issue, all the way across the Pacific, without issue, and then land in the US without issue.\n\nAnd transporting a significant number of troops \\*\\*in a plane\\*\\* to the US? That would end immediately. They would be shot down approaching the US. If they managed to parachute in, they'd be shot down in parachutes. If they managed to survive and land.... cool what are they going to do? No knowledge of local terrain surrounded by a hostile military, police, and civilian population with no supply chain. \n\nEverything they need to eat, drink, sleep, and fight would need to be in their packs. They'd have no medical support. No backup. No beachhead they control, no allied countries supporting them. It would be a slaughter.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"jhz9jmk","parent_id":"13193r4","score":11,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"Okay so I made a huge mental misstep in my calculations. I was imagining them coming across the Atlantic, but you're totally right it would be across the pacific. Japan being in the way is a thing.\n\nAlso good point about supply chain. I was thinking it wasn't as important in modern warfare, but its obviously been a big deal for the Russians in Ukraine.\n\n!delta for those points.\n\nAs for Afghan, didn't we \"choose\" to leave because it was too costly? Seems like we were expending far more resources than our opponents.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"jhzcumj","parent_id":"jhz9jmk","score":-2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"DeltaBot","body":"Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/BlueRibbonMethChef ([2∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/BlueRibbonMethChef)).\n\n^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)","date":"2023-04-27","id":"jhzcxd4","parent_id":"jhzcumj","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],"string":"[\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\\n\\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\\n\\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\\n\\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\\n\\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\\n\\n**How it would play out**\\n\\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\\n\\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\\n\\n**Expected counterpoints**\\n\\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\\n\\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\\n\\n**Deltas**\\n\\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"BlueRibbonMethChef\",\n \"body\": \">t's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\\n\\nVietnam was half a century ago.\\n\\nThe US army didn't struggle in Afghanistan. They controlled the country, from halfway around the world, for 20 years.\\n\\nThen they chose to leave.\\n\\nThe weapons the US has been sending have played a significant role in helping Ukraine stave off a huge portion of the Russian military. This is without even putting troops on the ground.\\n\\nAlso Germany shares a border with France. China would have to send planes and naval units passed Japan, without issue, all the way across the Pacific, without issue, and then land in the US without issue.\\n\\nAnd transporting a significant number of troops \\\\*\\\\*in a plane\\\\*\\\\* to the US? That would end immediately. They would be shot down approaching the US. If they managed to parachute in, they'd be shot down in parachutes. If they managed to survive and land.... cool what are they going to do? No knowledge of local terrain surrounded by a hostile military, police, and civilian population with no supply chain. \\n\\nEverything they need to eat, drink, sleep, and fight would need to be in their packs. They'd have no medical support. No backup. No beachhead they control, no allied countries supporting them. It would be a slaughter.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"jhz9jmk\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"score\": 11,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"Okay so I made a huge mental misstep in my calculations. I was imagining them coming across the Atlantic, but you're totally right it would be across the pacific. Japan being in the way is a thing.\\n\\nAlso good point about supply chain. I was thinking it wasn't as important in modern warfare, but its obviously been a big deal for the Russians in Ukraine.\\n\\n!delta for those points.\\n\\nAs for Afghan, didn't we \\\"choose\\\" to leave because it was too costly? Seems like we were expending far more resources than our opponents.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"jhzcumj\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jhz9jmk\",\n \"score\": -2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"DeltaBot\",\n \"body\": \"Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/BlueRibbonMethChef ([2∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/BlueRibbonMethChef)).\\n\\n^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"jhzcxd4\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jhzcumj\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n]","isConversational":false},"1":{"kind":"list like","value":[[{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\n\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\n\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\n\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\n\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\n\n**How it would play out**\n\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\n\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\n\n**Expected counterpoints**\n\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\n\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\n\n**Deltas**\n\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"13193r4","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/"},{"author":"Presentalbion","body":"You want people to critique your speculative fiction?\n\nWhat exactly is the view you want changed here, given that literally no one can see the future?","date":"2023-04-27","id":"jhz91r0","parent_id":"13193r4","score":11,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"The change of view would be to \"The USA is not at risk from China conquering in 2024 election.\"","date":"2023-04-27","id":"jhzba0l","parent_id":"jhz91r0","score":-1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\n\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\n\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\n\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\n\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\n\n**How it would play out**\n\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\n\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\n\n**Expected counterpoints**\n\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\n\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\n\n**Deltas**\n\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"13193r4","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/"},{"author":"Negative-Squirrel81","body":"The premise of the argument, that by losing the election Donald Trump will be put in jail, is ridiculous.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"jhz9f4q","parent_id":"13193r4","score":3,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"Sorry should have clarified, I meant those as separate events. Trump is being charged for crimes and at the same time loses election.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"jhzbd93","parent_id":"jhz9f4q","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\n\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\n\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\n\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\n\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\n\n**How it would play out**\n\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\n\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\n\n**Expected counterpoints**\n\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\n\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\n\n**Deltas**\n\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"13193r4","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/"},{"author":"Polikonomist","body":"We have missiles and air superiority fighters that could easily take out any airplanes over most of our half of the Pacific ocean, much less over Canada or Mexico, our allies.\n\nThe technological difference between the US and China is way bigger than between France and Germany in WW2 and technological differences matter day more in ship and especially air battles than they do on land.\n\nFurther more, Germany was exploiting a previously unseen strategy. I doubt the Chinese could come up with an equivalently devastating unseen strategy.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"jhz9j4o","parent_id":"13193r4","score":8,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"Could you give me some examples of how our technology is so far ahead of China's? Afiak we are basically on par.\n\nAlso how do you know we have so much air superiority and missiles to cover so much area?","date":"2023-04-27","id":"jhzca40","parent_id":"jhz9j4o","score":0,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\n\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\n\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\n\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\n\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\n\n**How it would play out**\n\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\n\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\n\n**Expected counterpoints**\n\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\n\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\n\n**Deltas**\n\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"13193r4","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/"},{"author":"ForAlgalord","body":"Perhaps the only benefit of this country's ridiculous gun laws and dangerous amount of nationalists is that any potential invader would have to deal with a TON of guerilla warfare and local resistance. It might be theoretically feasible to grab a chunk of the US given how spread out it is, but good luck holding any sort of colony together with all the armed patriots out and about. I think the lasting impact of an invasion attempt would be far more likely to be a fracturing of the US into multiple countries, or a restructure in which the federal government deals only with national defense and all other issues are handled via regional agreements and governing bodies.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"jhz9t0e","parent_id":"13193r4","score":0,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"It's true there would be guerilla warfare resistance, but I don't see it getting very far without unified leadership. Could even be fighting against each other with how much our country is divided.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"jhzef7q","parent_id":"jhz9t0e","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\n\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\n\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\n\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\n\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\n\n**How it would play out**\n\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\n\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\n\n**Expected counterpoints**\n\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\n\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\n\n**Deltas**\n\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"13193r4","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/"},{"author":"suspiciouslyfamiliar","body":"> As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers.\n\nShow us that China has a blue-water navy capable of transporting and deploying the *hundreds of thousands of troops* necessary for a full-scale invasion across the pacific, as well as defeat the other eleven carrier groups that would *immediately* come steaming into the fray. \n\nIf you can't do that (spoiler - you can't) then this discussion is moot.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"jhz9z1u","parent_id":"13193r4","score":6,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"My view is that all of our powerful navy wouldn't matter due to fractured leadership. The carrier groups wouldn't come steaming because the command would come to late.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"jhzejlr","parent_id":"jhz9z1u","score":-2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\n\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\n\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\n\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\n\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\n\n**How it would play out**\n\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\n\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\n\n**Expected counterpoints**\n\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\n\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\n\n**Deltas**\n\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"13193r4","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/"},{"author":"debatebro69420","body":"As long as gun laws are how they are in the states, no army would be able to invade, let alone hold America. There are simply too many guns ready to ambush troops.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"jhzb2hf","parent_id":"13193r4","score":0,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"I think outlawing guns would be one of their first steps.\n\nOrganized troops with more advanced weaponry and unified leadership wouldn't be stopped by rag tag leaderless rebels.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"jhzf9sx","parent_id":"jhzb2hf","score":0,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\n\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\n\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\n\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\n\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\n\n**How it would play out**\n\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\n\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\n\n**Expected counterpoints**\n\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\n\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\n\n**Deltas**\n\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"13193r4","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/"},{"author":"highvaluetwink","body":"I don’t think China cares about the US the way you people think it does, I think China like a lot of countries just trying to spread their businesses across the globe.\n\nMy aunt works in real estate in Dubai and said that multiple Chinese real estate companies are trying to enter the middle east real estate market, that and multiple Chinese cars conpanies did the same, so I assume that they’re just trying to enter every market in the world and grow their economy, a war with the US will give them too much of a headache to focus on that","date":"2023-04-27","id":"jhzbc0d","parent_id":"13193r4","score":3,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\n\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\n\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\n\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\n\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\n\n**How it would play out**\n\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\n\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\n\n**Expected counterpoints**\n\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\n\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\n\n**Deltas**\n\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"13193r4","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/"},{"author":"UserOfSlurs","body":"The US Navy is competitive with every other Naval force on earth, *combined*. So good luck to China on trying to land troops on the coast. Not to mention that we both have American vessels stationed in the pacific, as well as allies in Japan and Australia we would likely recieve assistance from if China were genuinely attacking. Beyond that, the US would have unquestionable air superiority, being able to both deploy our Naval air force and our land based aircraft, whereas China only has a pittance of carriers that would probably be sunk before they got to Hawaii.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"jhzirdp","parent_id":"13193r4","score":3,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Zerohero2112","body":"If the US want to have a chance to defeat China in the future then they should change their mindset, it's a trap trying to outspend China in military spending. China naval build up already greatly surpassed the US while costing fraction of the money (the labor costs differences, massive manufacturing capacity etc ... A dollar in China goes way further than a dollar in the US). The Chinese navy adds more tonnage of ships than the whole UK or France navy for every few years, China is getting stronger at terrifying rate.\n\nThere is nothing wrong to think like a weaker force trying to fight against a greater one and develop a new plan for the future, it depends on whether the US can swallow it's ego, it's not even close the same size so there is no shame. It would be a terrible mistakes trying to match China on number of ships, tanks etc ... because you can't. Also, the US can't really depends too much on allies, as allies gather around greatly depends on the US being the sole superpower. As the favor getting more and more towards China, US allies would become more and more hesitate.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"jhzmmmb","parent_id":"jhzirdp","score":-2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\n\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\n\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\n\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\n\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\n\n**How it would play out**\n\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\n\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\n\n**Expected counterpoints**\n\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\n\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\n\n**Deltas**\n\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"13193r4","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/"},{"author":"cbdqs","body":"There's this little thing called the Pacific ocean between the US and China and the US has more navy warships than every other country in the world combined. China would barely stand a chance of landing troops on the US mainland if it came to a traditional naval war.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"jhzjg71","parent_id":"13193r4","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\n\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\n\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\n\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\n\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\n\n**How it would play out**\n\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\n\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\n\n**Expected counterpoints**\n\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\n\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\n\n**Deltas**\n\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"13193r4","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/"},{"author":"president_pete","body":">If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\n\nIf China attacks Taiwan, the president won't need congressional approval for emergency aid. If the war escalates, the president can do an awful lot with the military before he strictly needs Congress to help.\n\nThe president has engaged troops in the past without a formal declaration of war. In fact, it's been generations since we've needed one.\n\nAs far as military communications go, we've built our military such that it's not political in the way the rest of our government is. Officers don't care who the president is, because they know China doesn't care. Those who have been pushing for engagement with China will continue pushing for it, everyone can read the same threat assessments.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"jhzjgj9","parent_id":"13193r4","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"Surely he would need the full powers of wartime though to fight off a full blown invasion, right? Or would the limited powers the President have now be enough to activate the entire army in defense?\n\n\\> Officers don't care who the president is,\n\nHow do you know this? I think even our military will have lots of politically motivated people. Or do they only hire people who don't vote? Could you expand on this more?","date":"2023-04-28","id":"ji0q6kk","parent_id":"jhzjgj9","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\n\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\n\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\n\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\n\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\n\n**How it would play out**\n\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\n\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\n\n**Expected counterpoints**\n\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\n\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\n\n**Deltas**\n\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"13193r4","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/"},{"author":"fidelkastro","body":"This presumes China is this military and logistical juggernaut. China hasn't fought a meaningful war in 70 yrs. Their troops and leadership woefully inexperienced. Alot more is going to go wrong than right and they haven't been tested. America has been fighting for the past 20 yrs","date":"2023-04-27","id":"jhzkd9p","parent_id":"13193r4","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"!delta True, our troops have been seeing more combat than China's. In the Germany/France case, the German's had seen action in WW1 (though, so had the French).","date":"2023-04-27","id":"jhznr28","parent_id":"jhzkd9p","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\n\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\n\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\n\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\n\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\n\n**How it would play out**\n\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\n\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\n\n**Expected counterpoints**\n\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\n\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\n\n**Deltas**\n\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"13193r4","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/"},{"author":"Donny-Bandish","body":"china has a “mighty economy” solely off the back of us corporations using it as a manufacturing base. china will never go to war with the us, for doing so would destroy its economy. china’s ambition is largely kept in check by its dependence on us corporations.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"jhzqdc5","parent_id":"13193r4","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\n\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\n\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\n\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\n\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\n\n**How it would play out**\n\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\n\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\n\n**Expected counterpoints**\n\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\n\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\n\n**Deltas**\n\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"13193r4","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/"},{"author":"Jakyland","body":"> This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. \n\nThis is not how planes work! The very fast planes are fighters or bombers, anything that can transport people is more or less like a commercial aircraft, and very easy to spot and shoot down. \n\nIn the most far fetched, extreme case, China might launch a ground invasion of Hawaii or Alaska. China launching a land invasion of the US lower 48 without the assistance of Canada or Mexico is out of the question. You simply can't logistically supply such a large number of troops so far away with only ocean in between while facing enemy resistance.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"jhzy172","parent_id":"13193r4","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\n\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\n\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\n\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\n\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\n\n**How it would play out**\n\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\n\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\n\n**Expected counterpoints**\n\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\n\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\n\n**Deltas**\n\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"13193r4","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/"},{"author":"aguafiestas","body":"> What about nukes? I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\n\nThe existence of nukes is the only reason why the Cold War stayed cold. They prevented two global enemies from going to war for over 40 years. Why would that change with China? \n\nAnd while China has nukes, there is an *extreme* asymmetry in the [nuclear arsenals](https://fas.org/issues/nuclear-weapons/status-world-nuclear-forces/) of the US and China. The US has over 10x as many nukes as China. Moreover, the US has a large arsenal of deployed nuclear weapons ready to go at a moment's notice. China does not.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"ji05ph0","parent_id":"13193r4","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"I think it would change because of how we've all seen Ukraine/Russia conflict play out. Russia isn't even using nukes on a country without nukes to retaliate. I think it shows how the world really doesn't want to use nukes.\n\nI do see the asymmetry of nukes, but at a certain number it doesn't matter. 400 seems like enough to threaten us to not use ours. Pretty sure 400 could blow up our country pretty thoroughly.","date":"2023-04-28","id":"ji0qfci","parent_id":"ji05ph0","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\n\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\n\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\n\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\n\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\n\n**How it would play out**\n\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\n\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\n\n**Expected counterpoints**\n\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\n\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\n\n**Deltas**\n\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"13193r4","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/"},{"author":"Normal-Flower4437","body":"In addition to what everybody is saying here militarily, I think you fundamentally misunderstand China’s perspective and goals here. You are imagining an expansionist state that sees itself as having to capture and control a tremendous amount of land that doesn’t historically belong to it, like Japan or Germany did in World War II. Or as a supremacist state that believes that it ought to be able to control the entire world.\n\nWell there are certainly expansionist and supremacist elements to current Chinese goals in the globe, they don’t really manifest the way that you are thinking. China has never really seen itself as going too far beyond its current borders. Other than with its contested western and northern borders, which it has shown no desire to expand, China has historically been rather insular, with its outward ambitions being expressed primarily through economic influence. \n\nAnd as far as economic influence goes, China has basically been getting everything at once. It has sweetheart deals with major western consumers, it has an enormous growing market in South America and Africa, it has a growing influence with major oil producing countries, and it has in Normas infrastructural and financial investments throughout the world. \n\nIn addition to this, its economic force is so great that it is able to dictate to a certain extent the content of global entertainment. Entertainment and sports franchises are already licking the boot heel. Chinese business interests on a tremendous amount of real estate and farmland throughout the western world. And they have very large diaspora populations who they are able to keep tabs on and exert influence on. \n\nFinally, they are watching the west go through misstep after misstep. From the 2008 financial crisis, to the economic decoupling of Great Britain, to the systematic dismantling of the American meritocracy, to the capture of elite universities by administrative bloat, to the ongoing descent throughout western democracies into culture war issues, the west and particularly Great Britain and the United States are losing their influence and losing the faith of many developing economies. \n\nChina does not have to invade the United States. All the China has to do is to continue to grow its influence as the United States and Great Britain shrink theirs. all that it has to do is continue to grow economically, even if that growth is significantly slowed, because with 1.4 billion people they are the dominant market place of the century. they don’t even need to win an eventual war in Taiwan, so much as they have to create a situation where the United States decides that it is not worth the fight, just as great Britain decided that it was not worth it to actually enforce the terms of the agreement over Hong Kong.\n\nThe path to victory for China is much simpler and requires a lot less bloodshed and struggle than what you are imagining. All they have to do is maintain and grow their economic power and influence, build allies in developing economies and oil economies, and continue to allow and enable strategic miss steps by the west.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"ji08lq8","parent_id":"13193r4","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\n\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\n\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\n\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\n\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\n\n**How it would play out**\n\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\n\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\n\n**Expected counterpoints**\n\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\n\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\n\n**Deltas**\n\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"13193r4","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/"},{"author":"markroth69","body":"What would stop America from just nuking China if it thought the Chinese might actually conquer U.S. territory? \n\nHonestly, what would stop America from using nukes against a Chinese invasion fleet in the Pacific if it felt it couldn't stop it with conventional weapons.","date":"2023-04-28","id":"ji0uj9u","parent_id":"13193r4","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\n\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\n\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\n\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\n\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\n\n**How it would play out**\n\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\n\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\n\n**Expected counterpoints**\n\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\n\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\n\n**Deltas**\n\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"13193r4","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/"},{"author":"KCShadows838","body":"Any military force who tried to invade the US with ground troops would get destroyed like you can’t believe\n\nNo comparison between 2023 USA and 1940 France. France didn’t have any nukes and wasn’t separated from the invader by a massive ocean patrolled by the #1 navy in the world","date":"2023-04-28","id":"ji1jbod","parent_id":"13193r4","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\n\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\n\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\n\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\n\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\n\n**How it would play out**\n\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\n\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\n\n**Expected counterpoints**\n\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\n\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\n\n**Deltas**\n\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"13193r4","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/"},{"author":"Groinmechanic","body":"I think it's more likely they would secretly ally with Mexico with huge financial incentives, and set up an operation in Mexico before invading through the border, then try coming directly. You can find reports of Chinese and Russian troops in South America already but I don't think they've been officially confirmed. China could always set up heavy weapons factories in Mexico and pay them very well to work on these factories.","date":"2023-04-28","id":"ji26znj","parent_id":"13193r4","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\n\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\n\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\n\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\n\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\n\n**How it would play out**\n\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\n\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\n\n**Expected counterpoints**\n\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\n\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\n\n**Deltas**\n\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"13193r4","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/"},{"author":"light_hue_1","body":"I'm going to focus on your understanding of what happened in the Battle of France. \n\nThis is completely wrong \"All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\"\n\nTrench warfare was not obsolete. Much of WW2 was trench warfare. Much of the Italian campaign and a lot of the fighting in the Eastern campaign were trench warfare. Even in the war that's going on now in Ukraine, most of the fighting is as we speak is trench warfare. Yes, trench warfare gets a bad wrap after WW1, but entrenching is a critical part of modern warfare.\n\nMany of the ideas of why France fell are very outdated. Let's look at a modern account from a chair of military warfare at West Point. \"The Breaking Point: Sedan and the Fall of France, 1940\" by Colonel Robert A. Doughty (2014). You can read an overview of the history of our understanding of the fall of France here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historiography_of_the_Battle_of_France\n\nFirst remember, France was no dummy. It held out in WW1 against massive odds. The French knew how to fight, they took massive casualties and did not fall. And the French leadership was not naive, they were all WW1 veterans.\n\nThe causes he finds are:\n\n1. The French back then fought like the Russia and China does today. In a top-heavy way where you need exacting orders. The Germans fought the way NATO does today, by mission command. You have freedom to do what is necessary. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_command The French created carefully crafted plans, with phases of attacks, detailed orders for contingencies, down to precise time tables for movements and attacks. They called it \"methodological battle\".\n\n Germany had practical experience from Poland about how to move quickly and delegate. The French had experience in how to fight pitched battles from WW1 that required significant coordination. Essentially, German officers were making changes in the field that required a response from the French general headquarters (GQG).\n\n Had German generals fought the way their orders said they should, France likely would not have fallen. One the key parts of the fall of France is the poor response of the GQG (and specifically the head of the French Armed forces, Gamelin) to Guderian's advances. The GQG ordered French guns to limit their counterattacks understanding that German doctrine was to pause, reinforce, and then move forward. They were 100% right. Those were Guderian's direct orders. But he noticed this change. So Guderian went against direct orders to stop advancing. This panicked Gamelin, he withdrew rather than mounting an active defense thinking the German goal was Paris (as it had been before). Instead, the plan was to head to the coast and cut off the BEF and French armies, Paris didn't matter.\n\n Similar incidents happened when the French and BEF decided to fall back in the Battle for Belgium. Instead of fighting, Gamelin and the GQG fell back, were timid, but they couldn't retreat properly. Retreats are normal. But they're also very dangerous, particularly if you're slow to respond against an enemy that acts quickly. So the French and BEF lost a lot of equipment and strength in the process.\n\n The French were constantly behind. Another example of this comes from Rommel. He trapped much of the French army and the BEF at Dunkirk by going against orders. He moved so fast that that he French just couldn't counterattack properly because their attacks had to be coordinated by Gamelin and the GQG. \n\n2. The French did not reinforce the Ardennes, they did not think this would be the main advance. They continued until far too late to ignore the evidence that this would be the main attack. The Germans intentionally worked to distract them. The attack in Belgium was meant to pin down the best troops so they wouldn't reinforce the Ardennes. And Gamelin thought it would be too hard to cross the Ardennes.\n\n The French blindspot about the Ardennes was well known to the Germans. Even back into the 1920s when the Maginot line was being planned, it stopped short of the Ardennes. Petain (who commanded the French army in the latter part of WW1, who saved it from collapse and mutiny, and who won at Verdun earning the title \"The Lion of Verdun\", and was considered the highest national hero, and had just recently been head of the armed forces) was also a firm believer that nothing of military value could cross the Ardennes. (Tragically, Petain would go on to be the highest traitor too, becoming the head of the Vichy regime, and being sentenced to death after WW2; although it was commuted to life in prison).\n\n All of this was made worse by Gamelin committing what should have been France's main mobile reserves, the 7th Army, to Belgium. Against the advice of most of the French general staff, he overextended into Belgium thinking that this would be the main attack. This left the Ardeness without much in the way of reserves. The Ardeness were also right on the boundary between the 9th and the 2nd Army. But the main reserves for each Army were on the opposite sides of the front, to either support the Maginot line or the Belgian front.\n\n But throughout all of this, you know what? The French were right! They prepared correctly for Hitler's initial plan. Hitler's original plan, as he described it to his generals was to push through Belgium and the Low Countries. Had the OKW, the German High Command, done this, France would not have fallen. But they kept delaying, explaining that this plan wouldn't work. Over time, as different variants of Plan Yellow were designed, more and more emphasis was being placed on the Ardeness and Sedan. This was the only real hope for a decisive victory. It was Manstein that pushed for a total change, if you have one way to win, then just focus on it and nothing else. After many tabletop exercises, the OKW came up with the idea of a feint into Belgium with a thrust through the Ardeness. The perfect plan to counter the weaknesses and blind spots that Gamelin had. Although, one where if the French could reinforce the Ardeness even minimally, would result in disaster.\n\n3. The French army was poorly trained and outfitted. While at the start of the Battle of France nominally the Allies had 135 divisions, they were not very effective. The BEF was only about 10 divisions. The French had about 40 good divisions, these were largely in the wrong locations because of point 2 (they were in Belgium). Their remaining divisions were series B, older reservists with only about 20% active soldiers. They were not fit for the kind of fighting that was coming. Critically, the Battle of Sedan (where the Germans punched through the Ardennes and one of the deciding factors in the fall), was largely between series B divisions and elite German units.\n\nAll of these factors would favor NATO-style armies over Russian and Chinese armies. And you can see this in Ukraine today.\n\nOne of the key reasons why Ukraine has managed to survive against Russia is because they fight in a more modern and flexible way. https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3313982/ncos-key-to-ukrainian-military-successes-against-russia/","date":"2023-04-29","id":"ji5q1xo","parent_id":"13193r4","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\n\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\n\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\n\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\n\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\n\n**How it would play out**\n\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\n\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\n\n**Expected counterpoints**\n\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\n\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\n\n**Deltas**\n\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"13193r4","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/"},{"author":"CriskCross","body":">Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\n\nIf you look at the interstate conflicts we've had in the last 30 years, there's the first Iraq War, the first phase of the second Iraq War, and the first phase of the Afghanistan war. All three were resounding US victories accomplished in a matter of weeks with low casualties. The first Iraq War made China throw out their entire doctrine as obsolete and begin a decades long reform program that won't be complete for the rest of *this* decade. And, for however much it's worth, the Soviet Union also shit itself. \n\nEven in Chinese simulations they focus on coastal defense and area denial over Taiwan, not blue ocean operations. Their strategy relies heavily on the use of ground based air support being able to overwhelm the US naval assets in the area, range constraints make this impossible past a certain point. \n\nAdditionally, any hostilities would result in the USN closing global shipping lanes to Chinese imports and exports, crippling vital industries and plummeting quality of life. Overseas assets would be seized or frozen, they'd be cut off from the global financial sector. This wouldn't be a knockout blow by itself, but it would wear on public support. The games rigged.","date":"2023-04-29","id":"ji5zh9f","parent_id":"13193r4","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\n\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\n\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\n\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\n\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\n\n**How it would play out**\n\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\n\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\n\n**Expected counterpoints**\n\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\n\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\n\n**Deltas**\n\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"13193r4","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/"},{"author":"Electronic-Rub-2255","body":"China doesn't need to attack usa, why would it?? Both usa and china aren't stupid enough to go into war against another economically strong nuclear powered nation, that just mean end of the world. What china wants is becoming a 'soft' superpower. Having economic control over a large section of the globe, and they are definitely on the right track with successful business in Africa and good ties with Russia, middle East and south America. They are playing the long game, once Africa, south America becomes stronger and more developed, china will have influence over almost 3 quarters of earth, it will become a bigger superpower than usa.","date":"2023-08-05","id":"juutdcs","parent_id":"13193r4","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\n\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\n\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\n\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\n\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\n\n**How it would play out**\n\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\n\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\n\n**Expected counterpoints**\n\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\n\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\n\n**Deltas**\n\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"13193r4","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/"},{"author":"WLW10176","body":"Won't happen. We armed in this country. Come and git some . California will fall lol","date":"2023-08-10","id":"jvmtpbm","parent_id":"13193r4","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}]],"string":"[\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\\n\\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\\n\\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\\n\\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\\n\\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\\n\\n**How it would play out**\\n\\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\\n\\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\\n\\n**Expected counterpoints**\\n\\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\\n\\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\\n\\n**Deltas**\\n\\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Presentalbion\",\n \"body\": \"You want people to critique your speculative fiction?\\n\\nWhat exactly is the view you want changed here, given that literally no one can see the future?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"jhz91r0\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"score\": 11,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"The change of view would be to \\\"The USA is not at risk from China conquering in 2024 election.\\\"\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"jhzba0l\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jhz91r0\",\n \"score\": -1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\\n\\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\\n\\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\\n\\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\\n\\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\\n\\n**How it would play out**\\n\\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\\n\\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\\n\\n**Expected counterpoints**\\n\\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\\n\\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\\n\\n**Deltas**\\n\\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Negative-Squirrel81\",\n \"body\": \"The premise of the argument, that by losing the election Donald Trump will be put in jail, is ridiculous.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"jhz9f4q\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"score\": 3,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"Sorry should have clarified, I meant those as separate events. Trump is being charged for crimes and at the same time loses election.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"jhzbd93\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jhz9f4q\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\\n\\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\\n\\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\\n\\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\\n\\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\\n\\n**How it would play out**\\n\\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\\n\\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\\n\\n**Expected counterpoints**\\n\\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\\n\\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\\n\\n**Deltas**\\n\\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Polikonomist\",\n \"body\": \"We have missiles and air superiority fighters that could easily take out any airplanes over most of our half of the Pacific ocean, much less over Canada or Mexico, our allies.\\n\\nThe technological difference between the US and China is way bigger than between France and Germany in WW2 and technological differences matter day more in ship and especially air battles than they do on land.\\n\\nFurther more, Germany was exploiting a previously unseen strategy. I doubt the Chinese could come up with an equivalently devastating unseen strategy.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"jhz9j4o\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"score\": 8,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"Could you give me some examples of how our technology is so far ahead of China's? Afiak we are basically on par.\\n\\nAlso how do you know we have so much air superiority and missiles to cover so much area?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"jhzca40\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jhz9j4o\",\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\\n\\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\\n\\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\\n\\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\\n\\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\\n\\n**How it would play out**\\n\\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\\n\\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\\n\\n**Expected counterpoints**\\n\\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\\n\\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\\n\\n**Deltas**\\n\\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"ForAlgalord\",\n \"body\": \"Perhaps the only benefit of this country's ridiculous gun laws and dangerous amount of nationalists is that any potential invader would have to deal with a TON of guerilla warfare and local resistance. It might be theoretically feasible to grab a chunk of the US given how spread out it is, but good luck holding any sort of colony together with all the armed patriots out and about. I think the lasting impact of an invasion attempt would be far more likely to be a fracturing of the US into multiple countries, or a restructure in which the federal government deals only with national defense and all other issues are handled via regional agreements and governing bodies.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"jhz9t0e\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"It's true there would be guerilla warfare resistance, but I don't see it getting very far without unified leadership. Could even be fighting against each other with how much our country is divided.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"jhzef7q\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jhz9t0e\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\\n\\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\\n\\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\\n\\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\\n\\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\\n\\n**How it would play out**\\n\\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\\n\\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\\n\\n**Expected counterpoints**\\n\\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\\n\\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\\n\\n**Deltas**\\n\\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"suspiciouslyfamiliar\",\n \"body\": \"> As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers.\\n\\nShow us that China has a blue-water navy capable of transporting and deploying the *hundreds of thousands of troops* necessary for a full-scale invasion across the pacific, as well as defeat the other eleven carrier groups that would *immediately* come steaming into the fray. \\n\\nIf you can't do that (spoiler - you can't) then this discussion is moot.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"jhz9z1u\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"score\": 6,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"My view is that all of our powerful navy wouldn't matter due to fractured leadership. The carrier groups wouldn't come steaming because the command would come to late.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"jhzejlr\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jhz9z1u\",\n \"score\": -2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\\n\\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\\n\\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\\n\\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\\n\\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\\n\\n**How it would play out**\\n\\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\\n\\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\\n\\n**Expected counterpoints**\\n\\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\\n\\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\\n\\n**Deltas**\\n\\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"debatebro69420\",\n \"body\": \"As long as gun laws are how they are in the states, no army would be able to invade, let alone hold America. There are simply too many guns ready to ambush troops.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"jhzb2hf\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"I think outlawing guns would be one of their first steps.\\n\\nOrganized troops with more advanced weaponry and unified leadership wouldn't be stopped by rag tag leaderless rebels.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"jhzf9sx\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jhzb2hf\",\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\\n\\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\\n\\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\\n\\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\\n\\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\\n\\n**How it would play out**\\n\\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\\n\\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\\n\\n**Expected counterpoints**\\n\\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\\n\\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\\n\\n**Deltas**\\n\\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"highvaluetwink\",\n \"body\": \"I don’t think China cares about the US the way you people think it does, I think China like a lot of countries just trying to spread their businesses across the globe.\\n\\nMy aunt works in real estate in Dubai and said that multiple Chinese real estate companies are trying to enter the middle east real estate market, that and multiple Chinese cars conpanies did the same, so I assume that they’re just trying to enter every market in the world and grow their economy, a war with the US will give them too much of a headache to focus on that\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"jhzbc0d\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"score\": 3,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\\n\\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\\n\\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\\n\\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\\n\\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\\n\\n**How it would play out**\\n\\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\\n\\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\\n\\n**Expected counterpoints**\\n\\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\\n\\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\\n\\n**Deltas**\\n\\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"UserOfSlurs\",\n \"body\": \"The US Navy is competitive with every other Naval force on earth, *combined*. So good luck to China on trying to land troops on the coast. Not to mention that we both have American vessels stationed in the pacific, as well as allies in Japan and Australia we would likely recieve assistance from if China were genuinely attacking. Beyond that, the US would have unquestionable air superiority, being able to both deploy our Naval air force and our land based aircraft, whereas China only has a pittance of carriers that would probably be sunk before they got to Hawaii.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"jhzirdp\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"score\": 3,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Zerohero2112\",\n \"body\": \"If the US want to have a chance to defeat China in the future then they should change their mindset, it's a trap trying to outspend China in military spending. China naval build up already greatly surpassed the US while costing fraction of the money (the labor costs differences, massive manufacturing capacity etc ... A dollar in China goes way further than a dollar in the US). The Chinese navy adds more tonnage of ships than the whole UK or France navy for every few years, China is getting stronger at terrifying rate.\\n\\nThere is nothing wrong to think like a weaker force trying to fight against a greater one and develop a new plan for the future, it depends on whether the US can swallow it's ego, it's not even close the same size so there is no shame. It would be a terrible mistakes trying to match China on number of ships, tanks etc ... because you can't. Also, the US can't really depends too much on allies, as allies gather around greatly depends on the US being the sole superpower. As the favor getting more and more towards China, US allies would become more and more hesitate.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"jhzmmmb\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jhzirdp\",\n \"score\": -2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\\n\\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\\n\\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\\n\\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\\n\\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\\n\\n**How it would play out**\\n\\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\\n\\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\\n\\n**Expected counterpoints**\\n\\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\\n\\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\\n\\n**Deltas**\\n\\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"cbdqs\",\n \"body\": \"There's this little thing called the Pacific ocean between the US and China and the US has more navy warships than every other country in the world combined. China would barely stand a chance of landing troops on the US mainland if it came to a traditional naval war.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"jhzjg71\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\\n\\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\\n\\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\\n\\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\\n\\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\\n\\n**How it would play out**\\n\\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\\n\\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\\n\\n**Expected counterpoints**\\n\\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\\n\\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\\n\\n**Deltas**\\n\\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"president_pete\",\n \"body\": \">If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\\n\\nIf China attacks Taiwan, the president won't need congressional approval for emergency aid. If the war escalates, the president can do an awful lot with the military before he strictly needs Congress to help.\\n\\nThe president has engaged troops in the past without a formal declaration of war. In fact, it's been generations since we've needed one.\\n\\nAs far as military communications go, we've built our military such that it's not political in the way the rest of our government is. Officers don't care who the president is, because they know China doesn't care. Those who have been pushing for engagement with China will continue pushing for it, everyone can read the same threat assessments.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"jhzjgj9\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"Surely he would need the full powers of wartime though to fight off a full blown invasion, right? Or would the limited powers the President have now be enough to activate the entire army in defense?\\n\\n\\\\> Officers don't care who the president is,\\n\\nHow do you know this? I think even our military will have lots of politically motivated people. Or do they only hire people who don't vote? Could you expand on this more?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-28\",\n \"id\": \"ji0q6kk\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jhzjgj9\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\\n\\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\\n\\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\\n\\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\\n\\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\\n\\n**How it would play out**\\n\\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\\n\\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\\n\\n**Expected counterpoints**\\n\\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\\n\\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\\n\\n**Deltas**\\n\\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"fidelkastro\",\n \"body\": \"This presumes China is this military and logistical juggernaut. China hasn't fought a meaningful war in 70 yrs. Their troops and leadership woefully inexperienced. Alot more is going to go wrong than right and they haven't been tested. America has been fighting for the past 20 yrs\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"jhzkd9p\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"!delta True, our troops have been seeing more combat than China's. In the Germany/France case, the German's had seen action in WW1 (though, so had the French).\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"jhznr28\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jhzkd9p\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\\n\\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\\n\\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\\n\\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\\n\\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\\n\\n**How it would play out**\\n\\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\\n\\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\\n\\n**Expected counterpoints**\\n\\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\\n\\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\\n\\n**Deltas**\\n\\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Donny-Bandish\",\n \"body\": \"china has a “mighty economy” solely off the back of us corporations using it as a manufacturing base. china will never go to war with the us, for doing so would destroy its economy. china’s ambition is largely kept in check by its dependence on us corporations.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"jhzqdc5\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\\n\\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\\n\\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\\n\\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\\n\\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\\n\\n**How it would play out**\\n\\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\\n\\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\\n\\n**Expected counterpoints**\\n\\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\\n\\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\\n\\n**Deltas**\\n\\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Jakyland\",\n \"body\": \"> This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. \\n\\nThis is not how planes work! The very fast planes are fighters or bombers, anything that can transport people is more or less like a commercial aircraft, and very easy to spot and shoot down. \\n\\nIn the most far fetched, extreme case, China might launch a ground invasion of Hawaii or Alaska. China launching a land invasion of the US lower 48 without the assistance of Canada or Mexico is out of the question. You simply can't logistically supply such a large number of troops so far away with only ocean in between while facing enemy resistance.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"jhzy172\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\\n\\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\\n\\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\\n\\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\\n\\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\\n\\n**How it would play out**\\n\\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\\n\\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\\n\\n**Expected counterpoints**\\n\\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\\n\\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\\n\\n**Deltas**\\n\\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"aguafiestas\",\n \"body\": \"> What about nukes? I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\\n\\nThe existence of nukes is the only reason why the Cold War stayed cold. They prevented two global enemies from going to war for over 40 years. Why would that change with China? \\n\\nAnd while China has nukes, there is an *extreme* asymmetry in the [nuclear arsenals](https://fas.org/issues/nuclear-weapons/status-world-nuclear-forces/) of the US and China. The US has over 10x as many nukes as China. Moreover, the US has a large arsenal of deployed nuclear weapons ready to go at a moment's notice. China does not.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"ji05ph0\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"I think it would change because of how we've all seen Ukraine/Russia conflict play out. Russia isn't even using nukes on a country without nukes to retaliate. I think it shows how the world really doesn't want to use nukes.\\n\\nI do see the asymmetry of nukes, but at a certain number it doesn't matter. 400 seems like enough to threaten us to not use ours. Pretty sure 400 could blow up our country pretty thoroughly.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-28\",\n \"id\": \"ji0qfci\",\n \"parent_id\": \"ji05ph0\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\\n\\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\\n\\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\\n\\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\\n\\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\\n\\n**How it would play out**\\n\\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\\n\\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\\n\\n**Expected counterpoints**\\n\\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\\n\\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\\n\\n**Deltas**\\n\\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Normal-Flower4437\",\n \"body\": \"In addition to what everybody is saying here militarily, I think you fundamentally misunderstand China’s perspective and goals here. You are imagining an expansionist state that sees itself as having to capture and control a tremendous amount of land that doesn’t historically belong to it, like Japan or Germany did in World War II. Or as a supremacist state that believes that it ought to be able to control the entire world.\\n\\nWell there are certainly expansionist and supremacist elements to current Chinese goals in the globe, they don’t really manifest the way that you are thinking. China has never really seen itself as going too far beyond its current borders. Other than with its contested western and northern borders, which it has shown no desire to expand, China has historically been rather insular, with its outward ambitions being expressed primarily through economic influence. \\n\\nAnd as far as economic influence goes, China has basically been getting everything at once. It has sweetheart deals with major western consumers, it has an enormous growing market in South America and Africa, it has a growing influence with major oil producing countries, and it has in Normas infrastructural and financial investments throughout the world. \\n\\nIn addition to this, its economic force is so great that it is able to dictate to a certain extent the content of global entertainment. Entertainment and sports franchises are already licking the boot heel. Chinese business interests on a tremendous amount of real estate and farmland throughout the western world. And they have very large diaspora populations who they are able to keep tabs on and exert influence on. \\n\\nFinally, they are watching the west go through misstep after misstep. From the 2008 financial crisis, to the economic decoupling of Great Britain, to the systematic dismantling of the American meritocracy, to the capture of elite universities by administrative bloat, to the ongoing descent throughout western democracies into culture war issues, the west and particularly Great Britain and the United States are losing their influence and losing the faith of many developing economies. \\n\\nChina does not have to invade the United States. All the China has to do is to continue to grow its influence as the United States and Great Britain shrink theirs. all that it has to do is continue to grow economically, even if that growth is significantly slowed, because with 1.4 billion people they are the dominant market place of the century. they don’t even need to win an eventual war in Taiwan, so much as they have to create a situation where the United States decides that it is not worth the fight, just as great Britain decided that it was not worth it to actually enforce the terms of the agreement over Hong Kong.\\n\\nThe path to victory for China is much simpler and requires a lot less bloodshed and struggle than what you are imagining. All they have to do is maintain and grow their economic power and influence, build allies in developing economies and oil economies, and continue to allow and enable strategic miss steps by the west.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"ji08lq8\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\\n\\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\\n\\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\\n\\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\\n\\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\\n\\n**How it would play out**\\n\\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\\n\\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\\n\\n**Expected counterpoints**\\n\\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\\n\\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\\n\\n**Deltas**\\n\\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"markroth69\",\n \"body\": \"What would stop America from just nuking China if it thought the Chinese might actually conquer U.S. territory? \\n\\nHonestly, what would stop America from using nukes against a Chinese invasion fleet in the Pacific if it felt it couldn't stop it with conventional weapons.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-28\",\n \"id\": \"ji0uj9u\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\\n\\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\\n\\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\\n\\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\\n\\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\\n\\n**How it would play out**\\n\\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\\n\\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\\n\\n**Expected counterpoints**\\n\\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\\n\\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\\n\\n**Deltas**\\n\\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"KCShadows838\",\n \"body\": \"Any military force who tried to invade the US with ground troops would get destroyed like you can’t believe\\n\\nNo comparison between 2023 USA and 1940 France. France didn’t have any nukes and wasn’t separated from the invader by a massive ocean patrolled by the #1 navy in the world\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-28\",\n \"id\": \"ji1jbod\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\\n\\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\\n\\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\\n\\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\\n\\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\\n\\n**How it would play out**\\n\\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\\n\\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\\n\\n**Expected counterpoints**\\n\\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\\n\\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\\n\\n**Deltas**\\n\\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Groinmechanic\",\n \"body\": \"I think it's more likely they would secretly ally with Mexico with huge financial incentives, and set up an operation in Mexico before invading through the border, then try coming directly. You can find reports of Chinese and Russian troops in South America already but I don't think they've been officially confirmed. China could always set up heavy weapons factories in Mexico and pay them very well to work on these factories.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-28\",\n \"id\": \"ji26znj\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\\n\\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\\n\\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\\n\\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\\n\\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\\n\\n**How it would play out**\\n\\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\\n\\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\\n\\n**Expected counterpoints**\\n\\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\\n\\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\\n\\n**Deltas**\\n\\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"light_hue_1\",\n \"body\": \"I'm going to focus on your understanding of what happened in the Battle of France. \\n\\nThis is completely wrong \\\"All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\\\"\\n\\nTrench warfare was not obsolete. Much of WW2 was trench warfare. Much of the Italian campaign and a lot of the fighting in the Eastern campaign were trench warfare. Even in the war that's going on now in Ukraine, most of the fighting is as we speak is trench warfare. Yes, trench warfare gets a bad wrap after WW1, but entrenching is a critical part of modern warfare.\\n\\nMany of the ideas of why France fell are very outdated. Let's look at a modern account from a chair of military warfare at West Point. \\\"The Breaking Point: Sedan and the Fall of France, 1940\\\" by Colonel Robert A. Doughty (2014). You can read an overview of the history of our understanding of the fall of France here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historiography_of_the_Battle_of_France\\n\\nFirst remember, France was no dummy. It held out in WW1 against massive odds. The French knew how to fight, they took massive casualties and did not fall. And the French leadership was not naive, they were all WW1 veterans.\\n\\nThe causes he finds are:\\n\\n1. The French back then fought like the Russia and China does today. In a top-heavy way where you need exacting orders. The Germans fought the way NATO does today, by mission command. You have freedom to do what is necessary. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_command The French created carefully crafted plans, with phases of attacks, detailed orders for contingencies, down to precise time tables for movements and attacks. They called it \\\"methodological battle\\\".\\n\\n Germany had practical experience from Poland about how to move quickly and delegate. The French had experience in how to fight pitched battles from WW1 that required significant coordination. Essentially, German officers were making changes in the field that required a response from the French general headquarters (GQG).\\n\\n Had German generals fought the way their orders said they should, France likely would not have fallen. One the key parts of the fall of France is the poor response of the GQG (and specifically the head of the French Armed forces, Gamelin) to Guderian's advances. The GQG ordered French guns to limit their counterattacks understanding that German doctrine was to pause, reinforce, and then move forward. They were 100% right. Those were Guderian's direct orders. But he noticed this change. So Guderian went against direct orders to stop advancing. This panicked Gamelin, he withdrew rather than mounting an active defense thinking the German goal was Paris (as it had been before). Instead, the plan was to head to the coast and cut off the BEF and French armies, Paris didn't matter.\\n\\n Similar incidents happened when the French and BEF decided to fall back in the Battle for Belgium. Instead of fighting, Gamelin and the GQG fell back, were timid, but they couldn't retreat properly. Retreats are normal. But they're also very dangerous, particularly if you're slow to respond against an enemy that acts quickly. So the French and BEF lost a lot of equipment and strength in the process.\\n\\n The French were constantly behind. Another example of this comes from Rommel. He trapped much of the French army and the BEF at Dunkirk by going against orders. He moved so fast that that he French just couldn't counterattack properly because their attacks had to be coordinated by Gamelin and the GQG. \\n\\n2. The French did not reinforce the Ardennes, they did not think this would be the main advance. They continued until far too late to ignore the evidence that this would be the main attack. The Germans intentionally worked to distract them. The attack in Belgium was meant to pin down the best troops so they wouldn't reinforce the Ardennes. And Gamelin thought it would be too hard to cross the Ardennes.\\n\\n The French blindspot about the Ardennes was well known to the Germans. Even back into the 1920s when the Maginot line was being planned, it stopped short of the Ardennes. Petain (who commanded the French army in the latter part of WW1, who saved it from collapse and mutiny, and who won at Verdun earning the title \\\"The Lion of Verdun\\\", and was considered the highest national hero, and had just recently been head of the armed forces) was also a firm believer that nothing of military value could cross the Ardennes. (Tragically, Petain would go on to be the highest traitor too, becoming the head of the Vichy regime, and being sentenced to death after WW2; although it was commuted to life in prison).\\n\\n All of this was made worse by Gamelin committing what should have been France's main mobile reserves, the 7th Army, to Belgium. Against the advice of most of the French general staff, he overextended into Belgium thinking that this would be the main attack. This left the Ardeness without much in the way of reserves. The Ardeness were also right on the boundary between the 9th and the 2nd Army. But the main reserves for each Army were on the opposite sides of the front, to either support the Maginot line or the Belgian front.\\n\\n But throughout all of this, you know what? The French were right! They prepared correctly for Hitler's initial plan. Hitler's original plan, as he described it to his generals was to push through Belgium and the Low Countries. Had the OKW, the German High Command, done this, France would not have fallen. But they kept delaying, explaining that this plan wouldn't work. Over time, as different variants of Plan Yellow were designed, more and more emphasis was being placed on the Ardeness and Sedan. This was the only real hope for a decisive victory. It was Manstein that pushed for a total change, if you have one way to win, then just focus on it and nothing else. After many tabletop exercises, the OKW came up with the idea of a feint into Belgium with a thrust through the Ardeness. The perfect plan to counter the weaknesses and blind spots that Gamelin had. Although, one where if the French could reinforce the Ardeness even minimally, would result in disaster.\\n\\n3. The French army was poorly trained and outfitted. While at the start of the Battle of France nominally the Allies had 135 divisions, they were not very effective. The BEF was only about 10 divisions. The French had about 40 good divisions, these were largely in the wrong locations because of point 2 (they were in Belgium). Their remaining divisions were series B, older reservists with only about 20% active soldiers. They were not fit for the kind of fighting that was coming. Critically, the Battle of Sedan (where the Germans punched through the Ardennes and one of the deciding factors in the fall), was largely between series B divisions and elite German units.\\n\\nAll of these factors would favor NATO-style armies over Russian and Chinese armies. And you can see this in Ukraine today.\\n\\nOne of the key reasons why Ukraine has managed to survive against Russia is because they fight in a more modern and flexible way. https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3313982/ncos-key-to-ukrainian-military-successes-against-russia/\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-29\",\n \"id\": \"ji5q1xo\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\\n\\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\\n\\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\\n\\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\\n\\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\\n\\n**How it would play out**\\n\\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\\n\\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\\n\\n**Expected counterpoints**\\n\\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\\n\\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\\n\\n**Deltas**\\n\\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CriskCross\",\n \"body\": \">Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\\n\\nIf you look at the interstate conflicts we've had in the last 30 years, there's the first Iraq War, the first phase of the second Iraq War, and the first phase of the Afghanistan war. All three were resounding US victories accomplished in a matter of weeks with low casualties. The first Iraq War made China throw out their entire doctrine as obsolete and begin a decades long reform program that won't be complete for the rest of *this* decade. And, for however much it's worth, the Soviet Union also shit itself. \\n\\nEven in Chinese simulations they focus on coastal defense and area denial over Taiwan, not blue ocean operations. Their strategy relies heavily on the use of ground based air support being able to overwhelm the US naval assets in the area, range constraints make this impossible past a certain point. \\n\\nAdditionally, any hostilities would result in the USN closing global shipping lanes to Chinese imports and exports, crippling vital industries and plummeting quality of life. Overseas assets would be seized or frozen, they'd be cut off from the global financial sector. This wouldn't be a knockout blow by itself, but it would wear on public support. The games rigged.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-29\",\n \"id\": \"ji5zh9f\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\\n\\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\\n\\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\\n\\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\\n\\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\\n\\n**How it would play out**\\n\\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\\n\\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\\n\\n**Expected counterpoints**\\n\\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\\n\\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\\n\\n**Deltas**\\n\\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Electronic-Rub-2255\",\n \"body\": \"China doesn't need to attack usa, why would it?? Both usa and china aren't stupid enough to go into war against another economically strong nuclear powered nation, that just mean end of the world. What china wants is becoming a 'soft' superpower. Having economic control over a large section of the globe, and they are definitely on the right track with successful business in Africa and good ties with Russia, middle East and south America. They are playing the long game, once Africa, south America becomes stronger and more developed, china will have influence over almost 3 quarters of earth, it will become a bigger superpower than usa.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-05\",\n \"id\": \"juutdcs\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\\n\\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\\n\\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\\n\\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\\n\\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\\n\\n**How it would play out**\\n\\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\\n\\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\\n\\n**Expected counterpoints**\\n\\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\\n\\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\\n\\n**Deltas**\\n\\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"WLW10176\",\n \"body\": \"Won't happen. We armed in this country. Come and git some . California will fall lol\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-10\",\n \"id\": \"jvmtpbm\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ]\n]","isConversational":false},"2":{"kind":"string","value":"moderate"}}},{"rowIdx":39,"cells":{"0":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\n\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\n\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\n\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\n\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\n\n**How it would play out**\n\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\n\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\n\n**Expected counterpoints**\n\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\n\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\n\n**Deltas**\n\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"13193r4","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/"},{"author":"Grunt08","body":"I thought I was reading /r/NonCredibleDefense for a second.\n\nChina doesn't have the airlift and air refueling capacity to move large number of troops far from its borders. It's an open question whether they could establish a beachhead in Taiwan, which is like...right there. They have enough planes to move perhaps a thousand unsupported infantry in one direction; forgetting fuel, that would mean one trip every 2-3 days. Once we factor in China's lack of air refueling capacity...a few of those planes aren't making it back on each trip unless you scale it back to maximize your tanker to plane ratio.\n\nSo if they were totally unopposed they could ferry a few hundred unsupported (meaning unsupplied, meaning you better hope your ammo lasts) infantry every 2-3 days. A lot of dead VDV in Ukraine would tell you how bad a plan that is if they hadn't been smoked by Ukrainian militiamen after attempting to execute a much less ambitious plan against an airfield only a short flight from their own border.\n\nWhere would they fly? Perhaps by Alaska, where NORAD has been drilling for the Russian incursion since the 50's and a bunch of F-22s and F-35s supported by air defense systems on the ground and air. That would mean everyone dying as they're shot down, so...\n\nMaybe bring fighters? That'll tax your tankers *and* Chinese fighters ain't great *and* they're not battle tested at all *and* their pilots are inexperienced. America (and Canada) would have *a lot* more and better fighters with better command and control...so everyone dies again.\n\nMaybe go the long way across the Pacific? I mean...you'll be detected half a day before you show up and a few fighter wings and half the California National Guard will be waiting if the dudes in Japan, Hawaii and on carriers don't handle you.\n\n>They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. \n\nThe Canadians and Mexicans would both fuck them up. We're talking waves of a few hundred unsupported, totally inexperienced infantry at a time. The Mounties and the CJNG could handle them.\n\n>Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines\n\nNo there is not. At all.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"jhzd72h","parent_id":"13193r4","score":6,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"Okay this got me thinking more about the cost and impracticality of flying an invasion force over. I was thinking we transported thousands of troops to Vietnam, but they were not being harassed and had a controlled place to land in. Slight !delta\n\nHowever, I still feel like its possible. US had enough fuel for Vietnam, why wouldn't China now, nearly a century later? Also, you say Mexican army would deal with them, but are you sure? They can't even deal with the Cartel...","date":"2023-04-27","id":"jhzhg5d","parent_id":"jhzd72h","score":-2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"DeltaBot","body":"Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/Grunt08 ([276∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/Grunt08)).\n\n^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)","date":"2023-04-27","id":"jhzhjun","parent_id":"jhzhg5d","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],"string":"[\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\\n\\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\\n\\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\\n\\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\\n\\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\\n\\n**How it would play out**\\n\\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\\n\\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\\n\\n**Expected counterpoints**\\n\\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\\n\\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\\n\\n**Deltas**\\n\\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Grunt08\",\n \"body\": \"I thought I was reading /r/NonCredibleDefense for a second.\\n\\nChina doesn't have the airlift and air refueling capacity to move large number of troops far from its borders. It's an open question whether they could establish a beachhead in Taiwan, which is like...right there. They have enough planes to move perhaps a thousand unsupported infantry in one direction; forgetting fuel, that would mean one trip every 2-3 days. Once we factor in China's lack of air refueling capacity...a few of those planes aren't making it back on each trip unless you scale it back to maximize your tanker to plane ratio.\\n\\nSo if they were totally unopposed they could ferry a few hundred unsupported (meaning unsupplied, meaning you better hope your ammo lasts) infantry every 2-3 days. A lot of dead VDV in Ukraine would tell you how bad a plan that is if they hadn't been smoked by Ukrainian militiamen after attempting to execute a much less ambitious plan against an airfield only a short flight from their own border.\\n\\nWhere would they fly? Perhaps by Alaska, where NORAD has been drilling for the Russian incursion since the 50's and a bunch of F-22s and F-35s supported by air defense systems on the ground and air. That would mean everyone dying as they're shot down, so...\\n\\nMaybe bring fighters? That'll tax your tankers *and* Chinese fighters ain't great *and* they're not battle tested at all *and* their pilots are inexperienced. America (and Canada) would have *a lot* more and better fighters with better command and control...so everyone dies again.\\n\\nMaybe go the long way across the Pacific? I mean...you'll be detected half a day before you show up and a few fighter wings and half the California National Guard will be waiting if the dudes in Japan, Hawaii and on carriers don't handle you.\\n\\n>They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. \\n\\nThe Canadians and Mexicans would both fuck them up. We're talking waves of a few hundred unsupported, totally inexperienced infantry at a time. The Mounties and the CJNG could handle them.\\n\\n>Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines\\n\\nNo there is not. At all.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"jhzd72h\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"score\": 6,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"Okay this got me thinking more about the cost and impracticality of flying an invasion force over. I was thinking we transported thousands of troops to Vietnam, but they were not being harassed and had a controlled place to land in. Slight !delta\\n\\nHowever, I still feel like its possible. US had enough fuel for Vietnam, why wouldn't China now, nearly a century later? Also, you say Mexican army would deal with them, but are you sure? They can't even deal with the Cartel...\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"jhzhg5d\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jhzd72h\",\n \"score\": -2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"DeltaBot\",\n \"body\": \"Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/Grunt08 ([276∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/Grunt08)).\\n\\n^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"jhzhjun\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jhzhg5d\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n]","isConversational":false},"1":{"kind":"list like","value":[[{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\n\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\n\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\n\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\n\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\n\n**How it would play out**\n\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\n\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\n\n**Expected counterpoints**\n\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\n\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\n\n**Deltas**\n\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"13193r4","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/"},{"author":"Presentalbion","body":"You want people to critique your speculative fiction?\n\nWhat exactly is the view you want changed here, given that literally no one can see the future?","date":"2023-04-27","id":"jhz91r0","parent_id":"13193r4","score":11,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"The change of view would be to \"The USA is not at risk from China conquering in 2024 election.\"","date":"2023-04-27","id":"jhzba0l","parent_id":"jhz91r0","score":-1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\n\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\n\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\n\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\n\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\n\n**How it would play out**\n\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\n\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\n\n**Expected counterpoints**\n\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\n\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\n\n**Deltas**\n\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"13193r4","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/"},{"author":"Negative-Squirrel81","body":"The premise of the argument, that by losing the election Donald Trump will be put in jail, is ridiculous.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"jhz9f4q","parent_id":"13193r4","score":3,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"Sorry should have clarified, I meant those as separate events. Trump is being charged for crimes and at the same time loses election.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"jhzbd93","parent_id":"jhz9f4q","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\n\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\n\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\n\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\n\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\n\n**How it would play out**\n\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\n\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\n\n**Expected counterpoints**\n\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\n\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\n\n**Deltas**\n\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"13193r4","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/"},{"author":"Polikonomist","body":"We have missiles and air superiority fighters that could easily take out any airplanes over most of our half of the Pacific ocean, much less over Canada or Mexico, our allies.\n\nThe technological difference between the US and China is way bigger than between France and Germany in WW2 and technological differences matter day more in ship and especially air battles than they do on land.\n\nFurther more, Germany was exploiting a previously unseen strategy. I doubt the Chinese could come up with an equivalently devastating unseen strategy.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"jhz9j4o","parent_id":"13193r4","score":8,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"Could you give me some examples of how our technology is so far ahead of China's? Afiak we are basically on par.\n\nAlso how do you know we have so much air superiority and missiles to cover so much area?","date":"2023-04-27","id":"jhzca40","parent_id":"jhz9j4o","score":0,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\n\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\n\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\n\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\n\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\n\n**How it would play out**\n\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\n\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\n\n**Expected counterpoints**\n\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\n\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\n\n**Deltas**\n\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"13193r4","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/"},{"author":"ForAlgalord","body":"Perhaps the only benefit of this country's ridiculous gun laws and dangerous amount of nationalists is that any potential invader would have to deal with a TON of guerilla warfare and local resistance. It might be theoretically feasible to grab a chunk of the US given how spread out it is, but good luck holding any sort of colony together with all the armed patriots out and about. I think the lasting impact of an invasion attempt would be far more likely to be a fracturing of the US into multiple countries, or a restructure in which the federal government deals only with national defense and all other issues are handled via regional agreements and governing bodies.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"jhz9t0e","parent_id":"13193r4","score":0,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"It's true there would be guerilla warfare resistance, but I don't see it getting very far without unified leadership. Could even be fighting against each other with how much our country is divided.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"jhzef7q","parent_id":"jhz9t0e","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\n\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\n\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\n\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\n\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\n\n**How it would play out**\n\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\n\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\n\n**Expected counterpoints**\n\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\n\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\n\n**Deltas**\n\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"13193r4","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/"},{"author":"suspiciouslyfamiliar","body":"> As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers.\n\nShow us that China has a blue-water navy capable of transporting and deploying the *hundreds of thousands of troops* necessary for a full-scale invasion across the pacific, as well as defeat the other eleven carrier groups that would *immediately* come steaming into the fray. \n\nIf you can't do that (spoiler - you can't) then this discussion is moot.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"jhz9z1u","parent_id":"13193r4","score":6,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"My view is that all of our powerful navy wouldn't matter due to fractured leadership. The carrier groups wouldn't come steaming because the command would come to late.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"jhzejlr","parent_id":"jhz9z1u","score":-2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\n\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\n\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\n\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\n\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\n\n**How it would play out**\n\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\n\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\n\n**Expected counterpoints**\n\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\n\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\n\n**Deltas**\n\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"13193r4","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/"},{"author":"debatebro69420","body":"As long as gun laws are how they are in the states, no army would be able to invade, let alone hold America. There are simply too many guns ready to ambush troops.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"jhzb2hf","parent_id":"13193r4","score":0,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"I think outlawing guns would be one of their first steps.\n\nOrganized troops with more advanced weaponry and unified leadership wouldn't be stopped by rag tag leaderless rebels.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"jhzf9sx","parent_id":"jhzb2hf","score":0,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\n\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\n\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\n\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\n\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\n\n**How it would play out**\n\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\n\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\n\n**Expected counterpoints**\n\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\n\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\n\n**Deltas**\n\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"13193r4","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/"},{"author":"highvaluetwink","body":"I don’t think China cares about the US the way you people think it does, I think China like a lot of countries just trying to spread their businesses across the globe.\n\nMy aunt works in real estate in Dubai and said that multiple Chinese real estate companies are trying to enter the middle east real estate market, that and multiple Chinese cars conpanies did the same, so I assume that they’re just trying to enter every market in the world and grow their economy, a war with the US will give them too much of a headache to focus on that","date":"2023-04-27","id":"jhzbc0d","parent_id":"13193r4","score":3,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\n\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\n\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\n\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\n\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\n\n**How it would play out**\n\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\n\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\n\n**Expected counterpoints**\n\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\n\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\n\n**Deltas**\n\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"13193r4","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/"},{"author":"UserOfSlurs","body":"The US Navy is competitive with every other Naval force on earth, *combined*. So good luck to China on trying to land troops on the coast. Not to mention that we both have American vessels stationed in the pacific, as well as allies in Japan and Australia we would likely recieve assistance from if China were genuinely attacking. Beyond that, the US would have unquestionable air superiority, being able to both deploy our Naval air force and our land based aircraft, whereas China only has a pittance of carriers that would probably be sunk before they got to Hawaii.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"jhzirdp","parent_id":"13193r4","score":3,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Zerohero2112","body":"If the US want to have a chance to defeat China in the future then they should change their mindset, it's a trap trying to outspend China in military spending. China naval build up already greatly surpassed the US while costing fraction of the money (the labor costs differences, massive manufacturing capacity etc ... A dollar in China goes way further than a dollar in the US). The Chinese navy adds more tonnage of ships than the whole UK or France navy for every few years, China is getting stronger at terrifying rate.\n\nThere is nothing wrong to think like a weaker force trying to fight against a greater one and develop a new plan for the future, it depends on whether the US can swallow it's ego, it's not even close the same size so there is no shame. It would be a terrible mistakes trying to match China on number of ships, tanks etc ... because you can't. Also, the US can't really depends too much on allies, as allies gather around greatly depends on the US being the sole superpower. As the favor getting more and more towards China, US allies would become more and more hesitate.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"jhzmmmb","parent_id":"jhzirdp","score":-2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\n\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\n\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\n\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\n\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\n\n**How it would play out**\n\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\n\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\n\n**Expected counterpoints**\n\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\n\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\n\n**Deltas**\n\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"13193r4","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/"},{"author":"cbdqs","body":"There's this little thing called the Pacific ocean between the US and China and the US has more navy warships than every other country in the world combined. China would barely stand a chance of landing troops on the US mainland if it came to a traditional naval war.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"jhzjg71","parent_id":"13193r4","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\n\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\n\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\n\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\n\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\n\n**How it would play out**\n\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\n\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\n\n**Expected counterpoints**\n\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\n\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\n\n**Deltas**\n\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"13193r4","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/"},{"author":"president_pete","body":">If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\n\nIf China attacks Taiwan, the president won't need congressional approval for emergency aid. If the war escalates, the president can do an awful lot with the military before he strictly needs Congress to help.\n\nThe president has engaged troops in the past without a formal declaration of war. In fact, it's been generations since we've needed one.\n\nAs far as military communications go, we've built our military such that it's not political in the way the rest of our government is. Officers don't care who the president is, because they know China doesn't care. Those who have been pushing for engagement with China will continue pushing for it, everyone can read the same threat assessments.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"jhzjgj9","parent_id":"13193r4","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"Surely he would need the full powers of wartime though to fight off a full blown invasion, right? Or would the limited powers the President have now be enough to activate the entire army in defense?\n\n\\> Officers don't care who the president is,\n\nHow do you know this? I think even our military will have lots of politically motivated people. Or do they only hire people who don't vote? Could you expand on this more?","date":"2023-04-28","id":"ji0q6kk","parent_id":"jhzjgj9","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\n\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\n\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\n\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\n\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\n\n**How it would play out**\n\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\n\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\n\n**Expected counterpoints**\n\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\n\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\n\n**Deltas**\n\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"13193r4","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/"},{"author":"fidelkastro","body":"This presumes China is this military and logistical juggernaut. China hasn't fought a meaningful war in 70 yrs. Their troops and leadership woefully inexperienced. Alot more is going to go wrong than right and they haven't been tested. America has been fighting for the past 20 yrs","date":"2023-04-27","id":"jhzkd9p","parent_id":"13193r4","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"!delta True, our troops have been seeing more combat than China's. In the Germany/France case, the German's had seen action in WW1 (though, so had the French).","date":"2023-04-27","id":"jhznr28","parent_id":"jhzkd9p","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\n\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\n\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\n\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\n\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\n\n**How it would play out**\n\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\n\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\n\n**Expected counterpoints**\n\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\n\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\n\n**Deltas**\n\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"13193r4","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/"},{"author":"Donny-Bandish","body":"china has a “mighty economy” solely off the back of us corporations using it as a manufacturing base. china will never go to war with the us, for doing so would destroy its economy. china’s ambition is largely kept in check by its dependence on us corporations.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"jhzqdc5","parent_id":"13193r4","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\n\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\n\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\n\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\n\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\n\n**How it would play out**\n\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\n\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\n\n**Expected counterpoints**\n\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\n\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\n\n**Deltas**\n\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"13193r4","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/"},{"author":"Jakyland","body":"> This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. \n\nThis is not how planes work! The very fast planes are fighters or bombers, anything that can transport people is more or less like a commercial aircraft, and very easy to spot and shoot down. \n\nIn the most far fetched, extreme case, China might launch a ground invasion of Hawaii or Alaska. China launching a land invasion of the US lower 48 without the assistance of Canada or Mexico is out of the question. You simply can't logistically supply such a large number of troops so far away with only ocean in between while facing enemy resistance.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"jhzy172","parent_id":"13193r4","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\n\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\n\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\n\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\n\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\n\n**How it would play out**\n\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\n\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\n\n**Expected counterpoints**\n\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\n\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\n\n**Deltas**\n\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"13193r4","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/"},{"author":"aguafiestas","body":"> What about nukes? I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\n\nThe existence of nukes is the only reason why the Cold War stayed cold. They prevented two global enemies from going to war for over 40 years. Why would that change with China? \n\nAnd while China has nukes, there is an *extreme* asymmetry in the [nuclear arsenals](https://fas.org/issues/nuclear-weapons/status-world-nuclear-forces/) of the US and China. The US has over 10x as many nukes as China. Moreover, the US has a large arsenal of deployed nuclear weapons ready to go at a moment's notice. China does not.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"ji05ph0","parent_id":"13193r4","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"I think it would change because of how we've all seen Ukraine/Russia conflict play out. Russia isn't even using nukes on a country without nukes to retaliate. I think it shows how the world really doesn't want to use nukes.\n\nI do see the asymmetry of nukes, but at a certain number it doesn't matter. 400 seems like enough to threaten us to not use ours. Pretty sure 400 could blow up our country pretty thoroughly.","date":"2023-04-28","id":"ji0qfci","parent_id":"ji05ph0","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\n\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\n\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\n\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\n\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\n\n**How it would play out**\n\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\n\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\n\n**Expected counterpoints**\n\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\n\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\n\n**Deltas**\n\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"13193r4","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/"},{"author":"Normal-Flower4437","body":"In addition to what everybody is saying here militarily, I think you fundamentally misunderstand China’s perspective and goals here. You are imagining an expansionist state that sees itself as having to capture and control a tremendous amount of land that doesn’t historically belong to it, like Japan or Germany did in World War II. Or as a supremacist state that believes that it ought to be able to control the entire world.\n\nWell there are certainly expansionist and supremacist elements to current Chinese goals in the globe, they don’t really manifest the way that you are thinking. China has never really seen itself as going too far beyond its current borders. Other than with its contested western and northern borders, which it has shown no desire to expand, China has historically been rather insular, with its outward ambitions being expressed primarily through economic influence. \n\nAnd as far as economic influence goes, China has basically been getting everything at once. It has sweetheart deals with major western consumers, it has an enormous growing market in South America and Africa, it has a growing influence with major oil producing countries, and it has in Normas infrastructural and financial investments throughout the world. \n\nIn addition to this, its economic force is so great that it is able to dictate to a certain extent the content of global entertainment. Entertainment and sports franchises are already licking the boot heel. Chinese business interests on a tremendous amount of real estate and farmland throughout the western world. And they have very large diaspora populations who they are able to keep tabs on and exert influence on. \n\nFinally, they are watching the west go through misstep after misstep. From the 2008 financial crisis, to the economic decoupling of Great Britain, to the systematic dismantling of the American meritocracy, to the capture of elite universities by administrative bloat, to the ongoing descent throughout western democracies into culture war issues, the west and particularly Great Britain and the United States are losing their influence and losing the faith of many developing economies. \n\nChina does not have to invade the United States. All the China has to do is to continue to grow its influence as the United States and Great Britain shrink theirs. all that it has to do is continue to grow economically, even if that growth is significantly slowed, because with 1.4 billion people they are the dominant market place of the century. they don’t even need to win an eventual war in Taiwan, so much as they have to create a situation where the United States decides that it is not worth the fight, just as great Britain decided that it was not worth it to actually enforce the terms of the agreement over Hong Kong.\n\nThe path to victory for China is much simpler and requires a lot less bloodshed and struggle than what you are imagining. All they have to do is maintain and grow their economic power and influence, build allies in developing economies and oil economies, and continue to allow and enable strategic miss steps by the west.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"ji08lq8","parent_id":"13193r4","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\n\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\n\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\n\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\n\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\n\n**How it would play out**\n\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\n\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\n\n**Expected counterpoints**\n\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\n\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\n\n**Deltas**\n\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"13193r4","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/"},{"author":"markroth69","body":"What would stop America from just nuking China if it thought the Chinese might actually conquer U.S. territory? \n\nHonestly, what would stop America from using nukes against a Chinese invasion fleet in the Pacific if it felt it couldn't stop it with conventional weapons.","date":"2023-04-28","id":"ji0uj9u","parent_id":"13193r4","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\n\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\n\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\n\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\n\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\n\n**How it would play out**\n\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\n\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\n\n**Expected counterpoints**\n\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\n\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\n\n**Deltas**\n\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"13193r4","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/"},{"author":"KCShadows838","body":"Any military force who tried to invade the US with ground troops would get destroyed like you can’t believe\n\nNo comparison between 2023 USA and 1940 France. France didn’t have any nukes and wasn’t separated from the invader by a massive ocean patrolled by the #1 navy in the world","date":"2023-04-28","id":"ji1jbod","parent_id":"13193r4","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\n\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\n\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\n\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\n\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\n\n**How it would play out**\n\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\n\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\n\n**Expected counterpoints**\n\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\n\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\n\n**Deltas**\n\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"13193r4","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/"},{"author":"Groinmechanic","body":"I think it's more likely they would secretly ally with Mexico with huge financial incentives, and set up an operation in Mexico before invading through the border, then try coming directly. You can find reports of Chinese and Russian troops in South America already but I don't think they've been officially confirmed. China could always set up heavy weapons factories in Mexico and pay them very well to work on these factories.","date":"2023-04-28","id":"ji26znj","parent_id":"13193r4","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\n\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\n\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\n\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\n\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\n\n**How it would play out**\n\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\n\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\n\n**Expected counterpoints**\n\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\n\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\n\n**Deltas**\n\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"13193r4","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/"},{"author":"light_hue_1","body":"I'm going to focus on your understanding of what happened in the Battle of France. \n\nThis is completely wrong \"All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\"\n\nTrench warfare was not obsolete. Much of WW2 was trench warfare. Much of the Italian campaign and a lot of the fighting in the Eastern campaign were trench warfare. Even in the war that's going on now in Ukraine, most of the fighting is as we speak is trench warfare. Yes, trench warfare gets a bad wrap after WW1, but entrenching is a critical part of modern warfare.\n\nMany of the ideas of why France fell are very outdated. Let's look at a modern account from a chair of military warfare at West Point. \"The Breaking Point: Sedan and the Fall of France, 1940\" by Colonel Robert A. Doughty (2014). You can read an overview of the history of our understanding of the fall of France here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historiography_of_the_Battle_of_France\n\nFirst remember, France was no dummy. It held out in WW1 against massive odds. The French knew how to fight, they took massive casualties and did not fall. And the French leadership was not naive, they were all WW1 veterans.\n\nThe causes he finds are:\n\n1. The French back then fought like the Russia and China does today. In a top-heavy way where you need exacting orders. The Germans fought the way NATO does today, by mission command. You have freedom to do what is necessary. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_command The French created carefully crafted plans, with phases of attacks, detailed orders for contingencies, down to precise time tables for movements and attacks. They called it \"methodological battle\".\n\n Germany had practical experience from Poland about how to move quickly and delegate. The French had experience in how to fight pitched battles from WW1 that required significant coordination. Essentially, German officers were making changes in the field that required a response from the French general headquarters (GQG).\n\n Had German generals fought the way their orders said they should, France likely would not have fallen. One the key parts of the fall of France is the poor response of the GQG (and specifically the head of the French Armed forces, Gamelin) to Guderian's advances. The GQG ordered French guns to limit their counterattacks understanding that German doctrine was to pause, reinforce, and then move forward. They were 100% right. Those were Guderian's direct orders. But he noticed this change. So Guderian went against direct orders to stop advancing. This panicked Gamelin, he withdrew rather than mounting an active defense thinking the German goal was Paris (as it had been before). Instead, the plan was to head to the coast and cut off the BEF and French armies, Paris didn't matter.\n\n Similar incidents happened when the French and BEF decided to fall back in the Battle for Belgium. Instead of fighting, Gamelin and the GQG fell back, were timid, but they couldn't retreat properly. Retreats are normal. But they're also very dangerous, particularly if you're slow to respond against an enemy that acts quickly. So the French and BEF lost a lot of equipment and strength in the process.\n\n The French were constantly behind. Another example of this comes from Rommel. He trapped much of the French army and the BEF at Dunkirk by going against orders. He moved so fast that that he French just couldn't counterattack properly because their attacks had to be coordinated by Gamelin and the GQG. \n\n2. The French did not reinforce the Ardennes, they did not think this would be the main advance. They continued until far too late to ignore the evidence that this would be the main attack. The Germans intentionally worked to distract them. The attack in Belgium was meant to pin down the best troops so they wouldn't reinforce the Ardennes. And Gamelin thought it would be too hard to cross the Ardennes.\n\n The French blindspot about the Ardennes was well known to the Germans. Even back into the 1920s when the Maginot line was being planned, it stopped short of the Ardennes. Petain (who commanded the French army in the latter part of WW1, who saved it from collapse and mutiny, and who won at Verdun earning the title \"The Lion of Verdun\", and was considered the highest national hero, and had just recently been head of the armed forces) was also a firm believer that nothing of military value could cross the Ardennes. (Tragically, Petain would go on to be the highest traitor too, becoming the head of the Vichy regime, and being sentenced to death after WW2; although it was commuted to life in prison).\n\n All of this was made worse by Gamelin committing what should have been France's main mobile reserves, the 7th Army, to Belgium. Against the advice of most of the French general staff, he overextended into Belgium thinking that this would be the main attack. This left the Ardeness without much in the way of reserves. The Ardeness were also right on the boundary between the 9th and the 2nd Army. But the main reserves for each Army were on the opposite sides of the front, to either support the Maginot line or the Belgian front.\n\n But throughout all of this, you know what? The French were right! They prepared correctly for Hitler's initial plan. Hitler's original plan, as he described it to his generals was to push through Belgium and the Low Countries. Had the OKW, the German High Command, done this, France would not have fallen. But they kept delaying, explaining that this plan wouldn't work. Over time, as different variants of Plan Yellow were designed, more and more emphasis was being placed on the Ardeness and Sedan. This was the only real hope for a decisive victory. It was Manstein that pushed for a total change, if you have one way to win, then just focus on it and nothing else. After many tabletop exercises, the OKW came up with the idea of a feint into Belgium with a thrust through the Ardeness. The perfect plan to counter the weaknesses and blind spots that Gamelin had. Although, one where if the French could reinforce the Ardeness even minimally, would result in disaster.\n\n3. The French army was poorly trained and outfitted. While at the start of the Battle of France nominally the Allies had 135 divisions, they were not very effective. The BEF was only about 10 divisions. The French had about 40 good divisions, these were largely in the wrong locations because of point 2 (they were in Belgium). Their remaining divisions were series B, older reservists with only about 20% active soldiers. They were not fit for the kind of fighting that was coming. Critically, the Battle of Sedan (where the Germans punched through the Ardennes and one of the deciding factors in the fall), was largely between series B divisions and elite German units.\n\nAll of these factors would favor NATO-style armies over Russian and Chinese armies. And you can see this in Ukraine today.\n\nOne of the key reasons why Ukraine has managed to survive against Russia is because they fight in a more modern and flexible way. https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3313982/ncos-key-to-ukrainian-military-successes-against-russia/","date":"2023-04-29","id":"ji5q1xo","parent_id":"13193r4","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\n\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\n\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\n\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\n\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\n\n**How it would play out**\n\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\n\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\n\n**Expected counterpoints**\n\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\n\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\n\n**Deltas**\n\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"13193r4","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/"},{"author":"CriskCross","body":">Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\n\nIf you look at the interstate conflicts we've had in the last 30 years, there's the first Iraq War, the first phase of the second Iraq War, and the first phase of the Afghanistan war. All three were resounding US victories accomplished in a matter of weeks with low casualties. The first Iraq War made China throw out their entire doctrine as obsolete and begin a decades long reform program that won't be complete for the rest of *this* decade. And, for however much it's worth, the Soviet Union also shit itself. \n\nEven in Chinese simulations they focus on coastal defense and area denial over Taiwan, not blue ocean operations. Their strategy relies heavily on the use of ground based air support being able to overwhelm the US naval assets in the area, range constraints make this impossible past a certain point. \n\nAdditionally, any hostilities would result in the USN closing global shipping lanes to Chinese imports and exports, crippling vital industries and plummeting quality of life. Overseas assets would be seized or frozen, they'd be cut off from the global financial sector. This wouldn't be a knockout blow by itself, but it would wear on public support. The games rigged.","date":"2023-04-29","id":"ji5zh9f","parent_id":"13193r4","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\n\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\n\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\n\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\n\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\n\n**How it would play out**\n\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\n\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\n\n**Expected counterpoints**\n\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\n\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\n\n**Deltas**\n\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"13193r4","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/"},{"author":"Electronic-Rub-2255","body":"China doesn't need to attack usa, why would it?? Both usa and china aren't stupid enough to go into war against another economically strong nuclear powered nation, that just mean end of the world. What china wants is becoming a 'soft' superpower. Having economic control over a large section of the globe, and they are definitely on the right track with successful business in Africa and good ties with Russia, middle East and south America. They are playing the long game, once Africa, south America becomes stronger and more developed, china will have influence over almost 3 quarters of earth, it will become a bigger superpower than usa.","date":"2023-08-05","id":"juutdcs","parent_id":"13193r4","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\n\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\n\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\n\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\n\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\n\n**How it would play out**\n\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\n\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\n\n**Expected counterpoints**\n\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\n\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\n\n**Deltas**\n\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.","date":"2023-04-27","id":"13193r4","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/"},{"author":"WLW10176","body":"Won't happen. We armed in this country. Come and git some . California will fall lol","date":"2023-08-10","id":"jvmtpbm","parent_id":"13193r4","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}]],"string":"[\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\\n\\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\\n\\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\\n\\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\\n\\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\\n\\n**How it would play out**\\n\\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\\n\\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\\n\\n**Expected counterpoints**\\n\\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\\n\\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\\n\\n**Deltas**\\n\\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Presentalbion\",\n \"body\": \"You want people to critique your speculative fiction?\\n\\nWhat exactly is the view you want changed here, given that literally no one can see the future?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"jhz91r0\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"score\": 11,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"The change of view would be to \\\"The USA is not at risk from China conquering in 2024 election.\\\"\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"jhzba0l\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jhz91r0\",\n \"score\": -1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\\n\\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\\n\\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\\n\\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\\n\\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\\n\\n**How it would play out**\\n\\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\\n\\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\\n\\n**Expected counterpoints**\\n\\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\\n\\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\\n\\n**Deltas**\\n\\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Negative-Squirrel81\",\n \"body\": \"The premise of the argument, that by losing the election Donald Trump will be put in jail, is ridiculous.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"jhz9f4q\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"score\": 3,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"Sorry should have clarified, I meant those as separate events. Trump is being charged for crimes and at the same time loses election.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"jhzbd93\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jhz9f4q\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\\n\\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\\n\\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\\n\\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\\n\\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\\n\\n**How it would play out**\\n\\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\\n\\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\\n\\n**Expected counterpoints**\\n\\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\\n\\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\\n\\n**Deltas**\\n\\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Polikonomist\",\n \"body\": \"We have missiles and air superiority fighters that could easily take out any airplanes over most of our half of the Pacific ocean, much less over Canada or Mexico, our allies.\\n\\nThe technological difference between the US and China is way bigger than between France and Germany in WW2 and technological differences matter day more in ship and especially air battles than they do on land.\\n\\nFurther more, Germany was exploiting a previously unseen strategy. I doubt the Chinese could come up with an equivalently devastating unseen strategy.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"jhz9j4o\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"score\": 8,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"Could you give me some examples of how our technology is so far ahead of China's? Afiak we are basically on par.\\n\\nAlso how do you know we have so much air superiority and missiles to cover so much area?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"jhzca40\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jhz9j4o\",\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\\n\\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\\n\\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\\n\\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\\n\\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\\n\\n**How it would play out**\\n\\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\\n\\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\\n\\n**Expected counterpoints**\\n\\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\\n\\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\\n\\n**Deltas**\\n\\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"ForAlgalord\",\n \"body\": \"Perhaps the only benefit of this country's ridiculous gun laws and dangerous amount of nationalists is that any potential invader would have to deal with a TON of guerilla warfare and local resistance. It might be theoretically feasible to grab a chunk of the US given how spread out it is, but good luck holding any sort of colony together with all the armed patriots out and about. I think the lasting impact of an invasion attempt would be far more likely to be a fracturing of the US into multiple countries, or a restructure in which the federal government deals only with national defense and all other issues are handled via regional agreements and governing bodies.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"jhz9t0e\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"It's true there would be guerilla warfare resistance, but I don't see it getting very far without unified leadership. Could even be fighting against each other with how much our country is divided.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"jhzef7q\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jhz9t0e\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\\n\\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\\n\\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\\n\\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\\n\\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\\n\\n**How it would play out**\\n\\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\\n\\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\\n\\n**Expected counterpoints**\\n\\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\\n\\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\\n\\n**Deltas**\\n\\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"suspiciouslyfamiliar\",\n \"body\": \"> As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers.\\n\\nShow us that China has a blue-water navy capable of transporting and deploying the *hundreds of thousands of troops* necessary for a full-scale invasion across the pacific, as well as defeat the other eleven carrier groups that would *immediately* come steaming into the fray. \\n\\nIf you can't do that (spoiler - you can't) then this discussion is moot.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"jhz9z1u\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"score\": 6,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"My view is that all of our powerful navy wouldn't matter due to fractured leadership. The carrier groups wouldn't come steaming because the command would come to late.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"jhzejlr\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jhz9z1u\",\n \"score\": -2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\\n\\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\\n\\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\\n\\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\\n\\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\\n\\n**How it would play out**\\n\\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\\n\\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\\n\\n**Expected counterpoints**\\n\\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\\n\\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\\n\\n**Deltas**\\n\\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"debatebro69420\",\n \"body\": \"As long as gun laws are how they are in the states, no army would be able to invade, let alone hold America. There are simply too many guns ready to ambush troops.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"jhzb2hf\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"I think outlawing guns would be one of their first steps.\\n\\nOrganized troops with more advanced weaponry and unified leadership wouldn't be stopped by rag tag leaderless rebels.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"jhzf9sx\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jhzb2hf\",\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\\n\\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\\n\\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\\n\\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\\n\\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\\n\\n**How it would play out**\\n\\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\\n\\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\\n\\n**Expected counterpoints**\\n\\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\\n\\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\\n\\n**Deltas**\\n\\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"highvaluetwink\",\n \"body\": \"I don’t think China cares about the US the way you people think it does, I think China like a lot of countries just trying to spread their businesses across the globe.\\n\\nMy aunt works in real estate in Dubai and said that multiple Chinese real estate companies are trying to enter the middle east real estate market, that and multiple Chinese cars conpanies did the same, so I assume that they’re just trying to enter every market in the world and grow their economy, a war with the US will give them too much of a headache to focus on that\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"jhzbc0d\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"score\": 3,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\\n\\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\\n\\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\\n\\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\\n\\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\\n\\n**How it would play out**\\n\\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\\n\\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\\n\\n**Expected counterpoints**\\n\\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\\n\\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\\n\\n**Deltas**\\n\\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"UserOfSlurs\",\n \"body\": \"The US Navy is competitive with every other Naval force on earth, *combined*. So good luck to China on trying to land troops on the coast. Not to mention that we both have American vessels stationed in the pacific, as well as allies in Japan and Australia we would likely recieve assistance from if China were genuinely attacking. Beyond that, the US would have unquestionable air superiority, being able to both deploy our Naval air force and our land based aircraft, whereas China only has a pittance of carriers that would probably be sunk before they got to Hawaii.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"jhzirdp\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"score\": 3,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Zerohero2112\",\n \"body\": \"If the US want to have a chance to defeat China in the future then they should change their mindset, it's a trap trying to outspend China in military spending. China naval build up already greatly surpassed the US while costing fraction of the money (the labor costs differences, massive manufacturing capacity etc ... A dollar in China goes way further than a dollar in the US). The Chinese navy adds more tonnage of ships than the whole UK or France navy for every few years, China is getting stronger at terrifying rate.\\n\\nThere is nothing wrong to think like a weaker force trying to fight against a greater one and develop a new plan for the future, it depends on whether the US can swallow it's ego, it's not even close the same size so there is no shame. It would be a terrible mistakes trying to match China on number of ships, tanks etc ... because you can't. Also, the US can't really depends too much on allies, as allies gather around greatly depends on the US being the sole superpower. As the favor getting more and more towards China, US allies would become more and more hesitate.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"jhzmmmb\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jhzirdp\",\n \"score\": -2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\\n\\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\\n\\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\\n\\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\\n\\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\\n\\n**How it would play out**\\n\\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\\n\\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\\n\\n**Expected counterpoints**\\n\\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\\n\\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\\n\\n**Deltas**\\n\\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"cbdqs\",\n \"body\": \"There's this little thing called the Pacific ocean between the US and China and the US has more navy warships than every other country in the world combined. China would barely stand a chance of landing troops on the US mainland if it came to a traditional naval war.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"jhzjg71\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\\n\\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\\n\\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\\n\\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\\n\\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\\n\\n**How it would play out**\\n\\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\\n\\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\\n\\n**Expected counterpoints**\\n\\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\\n\\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\\n\\n**Deltas**\\n\\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"president_pete\",\n \"body\": \">If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\\n\\nIf China attacks Taiwan, the president won't need congressional approval for emergency aid. If the war escalates, the president can do an awful lot with the military before he strictly needs Congress to help.\\n\\nThe president has engaged troops in the past without a formal declaration of war. In fact, it's been generations since we've needed one.\\n\\nAs far as military communications go, we've built our military such that it's not political in the way the rest of our government is. Officers don't care who the president is, because they know China doesn't care. Those who have been pushing for engagement with China will continue pushing for it, everyone can read the same threat assessments.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"jhzjgj9\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"Surely he would need the full powers of wartime though to fight off a full blown invasion, right? Or would the limited powers the President have now be enough to activate the entire army in defense?\\n\\n\\\\> Officers don't care who the president is,\\n\\nHow do you know this? I think even our military will have lots of politically motivated people. Or do they only hire people who don't vote? Could you expand on this more?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-28\",\n \"id\": \"ji0q6kk\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jhzjgj9\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\\n\\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\\n\\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\\n\\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\\n\\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\\n\\n**How it would play out**\\n\\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\\n\\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\\n\\n**Expected counterpoints**\\n\\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\\n\\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\\n\\n**Deltas**\\n\\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"fidelkastro\",\n \"body\": \"This presumes China is this military and logistical juggernaut. China hasn't fought a meaningful war in 70 yrs. Their troops and leadership woefully inexperienced. Alot more is going to go wrong than right and they haven't been tested. America has been fighting for the past 20 yrs\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"jhzkd9p\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"!delta True, our troops have been seeing more combat than China's. In the Germany/France case, the German's had seen action in WW1 (though, so had the French).\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"jhznr28\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jhzkd9p\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\\n\\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\\n\\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\\n\\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\\n\\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\\n\\n**How it would play out**\\n\\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\\n\\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\\n\\n**Expected counterpoints**\\n\\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\\n\\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\\n\\n**Deltas**\\n\\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Donny-Bandish\",\n \"body\": \"china has a “mighty economy” solely off the back of us corporations using it as a manufacturing base. china will never go to war with the us, for doing so would destroy its economy. china’s ambition is largely kept in check by its dependence on us corporations.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"jhzqdc5\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\\n\\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\\n\\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\\n\\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\\n\\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\\n\\n**How it would play out**\\n\\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\\n\\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\\n\\n**Expected counterpoints**\\n\\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\\n\\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\\n\\n**Deltas**\\n\\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Jakyland\",\n \"body\": \"> This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. \\n\\nThis is not how planes work! The very fast planes are fighters or bombers, anything that can transport people is more or less like a commercial aircraft, and very easy to spot and shoot down. \\n\\nIn the most far fetched, extreme case, China might launch a ground invasion of Hawaii or Alaska. China launching a land invasion of the US lower 48 without the assistance of Canada or Mexico is out of the question. You simply can't logistically supply such a large number of troops so far away with only ocean in between while facing enemy resistance.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"jhzy172\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\\n\\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\\n\\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\\n\\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\\n\\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\\n\\n**How it would play out**\\n\\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\\n\\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\\n\\n**Expected counterpoints**\\n\\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\\n\\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\\n\\n**Deltas**\\n\\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"aguafiestas\",\n \"body\": \"> What about nukes? I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\\n\\nThe existence of nukes is the only reason why the Cold War stayed cold. They prevented two global enemies from going to war for over 40 years. Why would that change with China? \\n\\nAnd while China has nukes, there is an *extreme* asymmetry in the [nuclear arsenals](https://fas.org/issues/nuclear-weapons/status-world-nuclear-forces/) of the US and China. The US has over 10x as many nukes as China. Moreover, the US has a large arsenal of deployed nuclear weapons ready to go at a moment's notice. China does not.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"ji05ph0\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"I think it would change because of how we've all seen Ukraine/Russia conflict play out. Russia isn't even using nukes on a country without nukes to retaliate. I think it shows how the world really doesn't want to use nukes.\\n\\nI do see the asymmetry of nukes, but at a certain number it doesn't matter. 400 seems like enough to threaten us to not use ours. Pretty sure 400 could blow up our country pretty thoroughly.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-28\",\n \"id\": \"ji0qfci\",\n \"parent_id\": \"ji05ph0\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\\n\\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\\n\\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\\n\\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\\n\\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\\n\\n**How it would play out**\\n\\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\\n\\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\\n\\n**Expected counterpoints**\\n\\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\\n\\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\\n\\n**Deltas**\\n\\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Normal-Flower4437\",\n \"body\": \"In addition to what everybody is saying here militarily, I think you fundamentally misunderstand China’s perspective and goals here. You are imagining an expansionist state that sees itself as having to capture and control a tremendous amount of land that doesn’t historically belong to it, like Japan or Germany did in World War II. Or as a supremacist state that believes that it ought to be able to control the entire world.\\n\\nWell there are certainly expansionist and supremacist elements to current Chinese goals in the globe, they don’t really manifest the way that you are thinking. China has never really seen itself as going too far beyond its current borders. Other than with its contested western and northern borders, which it has shown no desire to expand, China has historically been rather insular, with its outward ambitions being expressed primarily through economic influence. \\n\\nAnd as far as economic influence goes, China has basically been getting everything at once. It has sweetheart deals with major western consumers, it has an enormous growing market in South America and Africa, it has a growing influence with major oil producing countries, and it has in Normas infrastructural and financial investments throughout the world. \\n\\nIn addition to this, its economic force is so great that it is able to dictate to a certain extent the content of global entertainment. Entertainment and sports franchises are already licking the boot heel. Chinese business interests on a tremendous amount of real estate and farmland throughout the western world. And they have very large diaspora populations who they are able to keep tabs on and exert influence on. \\n\\nFinally, they are watching the west go through misstep after misstep. From the 2008 financial crisis, to the economic decoupling of Great Britain, to the systematic dismantling of the American meritocracy, to the capture of elite universities by administrative bloat, to the ongoing descent throughout western democracies into culture war issues, the west and particularly Great Britain and the United States are losing their influence and losing the faith of many developing economies. \\n\\nChina does not have to invade the United States. All the China has to do is to continue to grow its influence as the United States and Great Britain shrink theirs. all that it has to do is continue to grow economically, even if that growth is significantly slowed, because with 1.4 billion people they are the dominant market place of the century. they don’t even need to win an eventual war in Taiwan, so much as they have to create a situation where the United States decides that it is not worth the fight, just as great Britain decided that it was not worth it to actually enforce the terms of the agreement over Hong Kong.\\n\\nThe path to victory for China is much simpler and requires a lot less bloodshed and struggle than what you are imagining. All they have to do is maintain and grow their economic power and influence, build allies in developing economies and oil economies, and continue to allow and enable strategic miss steps by the west.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"ji08lq8\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\\n\\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\\n\\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\\n\\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\\n\\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\\n\\n**How it would play out**\\n\\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\\n\\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\\n\\n**Expected counterpoints**\\n\\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\\n\\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\\n\\n**Deltas**\\n\\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"markroth69\",\n \"body\": \"What would stop America from just nuking China if it thought the Chinese might actually conquer U.S. territory? \\n\\nHonestly, what would stop America from using nukes against a Chinese invasion fleet in the Pacific if it felt it couldn't stop it with conventional weapons.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-28\",\n \"id\": \"ji0uj9u\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\\n\\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\\n\\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\\n\\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\\n\\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\\n\\n**How it would play out**\\n\\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\\n\\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\\n\\n**Expected counterpoints**\\n\\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\\n\\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\\n\\n**Deltas**\\n\\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"KCShadows838\",\n \"body\": \"Any military force who tried to invade the US with ground troops would get destroyed like you can’t believe\\n\\nNo comparison between 2023 USA and 1940 France. France didn’t have any nukes and wasn’t separated from the invader by a massive ocean patrolled by the #1 navy in the world\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-28\",\n \"id\": \"ji1jbod\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\\n\\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\\n\\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\\n\\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\\n\\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\\n\\n**How it would play out**\\n\\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\\n\\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\\n\\n**Expected counterpoints**\\n\\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\\n\\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\\n\\n**Deltas**\\n\\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Groinmechanic\",\n \"body\": \"I think it's more likely they would secretly ally with Mexico with huge financial incentives, and set up an operation in Mexico before invading through the border, then try coming directly. You can find reports of Chinese and Russian troops in South America already but I don't think they've been officially confirmed. China could always set up heavy weapons factories in Mexico and pay them very well to work on these factories.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-28\",\n \"id\": \"ji26znj\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\\n\\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\\n\\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\\n\\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\\n\\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\\n\\n**How it would play out**\\n\\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\\n\\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\\n\\n**Expected counterpoints**\\n\\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\\n\\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\\n\\n**Deltas**\\n\\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"light_hue_1\",\n \"body\": \"I'm going to focus on your understanding of what happened in the Battle of France. \\n\\nThis is completely wrong \\\"All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\\\"\\n\\nTrench warfare was not obsolete. Much of WW2 was trench warfare. Much of the Italian campaign and a lot of the fighting in the Eastern campaign were trench warfare. Even in the war that's going on now in Ukraine, most of the fighting is as we speak is trench warfare. Yes, trench warfare gets a bad wrap after WW1, but entrenching is a critical part of modern warfare.\\n\\nMany of the ideas of why France fell are very outdated. Let's look at a modern account from a chair of military warfare at West Point. \\\"The Breaking Point: Sedan and the Fall of France, 1940\\\" by Colonel Robert A. Doughty (2014). You can read an overview of the history of our understanding of the fall of France here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historiography_of_the_Battle_of_France\\n\\nFirst remember, France was no dummy. It held out in WW1 against massive odds. The French knew how to fight, they took massive casualties and did not fall. And the French leadership was not naive, they were all WW1 veterans.\\n\\nThe causes he finds are:\\n\\n1. The French back then fought like the Russia and China does today. In a top-heavy way where you need exacting orders. The Germans fought the way NATO does today, by mission command. You have freedom to do what is necessary. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_command The French created carefully crafted plans, with phases of attacks, detailed orders for contingencies, down to precise time tables for movements and attacks. They called it \\\"methodological battle\\\".\\n\\n Germany had practical experience from Poland about how to move quickly and delegate. The French had experience in how to fight pitched battles from WW1 that required significant coordination. Essentially, German officers were making changes in the field that required a response from the French general headquarters (GQG).\\n\\n Had German generals fought the way their orders said they should, France likely would not have fallen. One the key parts of the fall of France is the poor response of the GQG (and specifically the head of the French Armed forces, Gamelin) to Guderian's advances. The GQG ordered French guns to limit their counterattacks understanding that German doctrine was to pause, reinforce, and then move forward. They were 100% right. Those were Guderian's direct orders. But he noticed this change. So Guderian went against direct orders to stop advancing. This panicked Gamelin, he withdrew rather than mounting an active defense thinking the German goal was Paris (as it had been before). Instead, the plan was to head to the coast and cut off the BEF and French armies, Paris didn't matter.\\n\\n Similar incidents happened when the French and BEF decided to fall back in the Battle for Belgium. Instead of fighting, Gamelin and the GQG fell back, were timid, but they couldn't retreat properly. Retreats are normal. But they're also very dangerous, particularly if you're slow to respond against an enemy that acts quickly. So the French and BEF lost a lot of equipment and strength in the process.\\n\\n The French were constantly behind. Another example of this comes from Rommel. He trapped much of the French army and the BEF at Dunkirk by going against orders. He moved so fast that that he French just couldn't counterattack properly because their attacks had to be coordinated by Gamelin and the GQG. \\n\\n2. The French did not reinforce the Ardennes, they did not think this would be the main advance. They continued until far too late to ignore the evidence that this would be the main attack. The Germans intentionally worked to distract them. The attack in Belgium was meant to pin down the best troops so they wouldn't reinforce the Ardennes. And Gamelin thought it would be too hard to cross the Ardennes.\\n\\n The French blindspot about the Ardennes was well known to the Germans. Even back into the 1920s when the Maginot line was being planned, it stopped short of the Ardennes. Petain (who commanded the French army in the latter part of WW1, who saved it from collapse and mutiny, and who won at Verdun earning the title \\\"The Lion of Verdun\\\", and was considered the highest national hero, and had just recently been head of the armed forces) was also a firm believer that nothing of military value could cross the Ardennes. (Tragically, Petain would go on to be the highest traitor too, becoming the head of the Vichy regime, and being sentenced to death after WW2; although it was commuted to life in prison).\\n\\n All of this was made worse by Gamelin committing what should have been France's main mobile reserves, the 7th Army, to Belgium. Against the advice of most of the French general staff, he overextended into Belgium thinking that this would be the main attack. This left the Ardeness without much in the way of reserves. The Ardeness were also right on the boundary between the 9th and the 2nd Army. But the main reserves for each Army were on the opposite sides of the front, to either support the Maginot line or the Belgian front.\\n\\n But throughout all of this, you know what? The French were right! They prepared correctly for Hitler's initial plan. Hitler's original plan, as he described it to his generals was to push through Belgium and the Low Countries. Had the OKW, the German High Command, done this, France would not have fallen. But they kept delaying, explaining that this plan wouldn't work. Over time, as different variants of Plan Yellow were designed, more and more emphasis was being placed on the Ardeness and Sedan. This was the only real hope for a decisive victory. It was Manstein that pushed for a total change, if you have one way to win, then just focus on it and nothing else. After many tabletop exercises, the OKW came up with the idea of a feint into Belgium with a thrust through the Ardeness. The perfect plan to counter the weaknesses and blind spots that Gamelin had. Although, one where if the French could reinforce the Ardeness even minimally, would result in disaster.\\n\\n3. The French army was poorly trained and outfitted. While at the start of the Battle of France nominally the Allies had 135 divisions, they were not very effective. The BEF was only about 10 divisions. The French had about 40 good divisions, these were largely in the wrong locations because of point 2 (they were in Belgium). Their remaining divisions were series B, older reservists with only about 20% active soldiers. They were not fit for the kind of fighting that was coming. Critically, the Battle of Sedan (where the Germans punched through the Ardennes and one of the deciding factors in the fall), was largely between series B divisions and elite German units.\\n\\nAll of these factors would favor NATO-style armies over Russian and Chinese armies. And you can see this in Ukraine today.\\n\\nOne of the key reasons why Ukraine has managed to survive against Russia is because they fight in a more modern and flexible way. https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3313982/ncos-key-to-ukrainian-military-successes-against-russia/\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-29\",\n \"id\": \"ji5q1xo\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\\n\\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\\n\\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\\n\\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\\n\\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\\n\\n**How it would play out**\\n\\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\\n\\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\\n\\n**Expected counterpoints**\\n\\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\\n\\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\\n\\n**Deltas**\\n\\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CriskCross\",\n \"body\": \">Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\\n\\nIf you look at the interstate conflicts we've had in the last 30 years, there's the first Iraq War, the first phase of the second Iraq War, and the first phase of the Afghanistan war. All three were resounding US victories accomplished in a matter of weeks with low casualties. The first Iraq War made China throw out their entire doctrine as obsolete and begin a decades long reform program that won't be complete for the rest of *this* decade. And, for however much it's worth, the Soviet Union also shit itself. \\n\\nEven in Chinese simulations they focus on coastal defense and area denial over Taiwan, not blue ocean operations. Their strategy relies heavily on the use of ground based air support being able to overwhelm the US naval assets in the area, range constraints make this impossible past a certain point. \\n\\nAdditionally, any hostilities would result in the USN closing global shipping lanes to Chinese imports and exports, crippling vital industries and plummeting quality of life. Overseas assets would be seized or frozen, they'd be cut off from the global financial sector. This wouldn't be a knockout blow by itself, but it would wear on public support. The games rigged.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-29\",\n \"id\": \"ji5zh9f\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\\n\\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\\n\\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\\n\\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\\n\\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\\n\\n**How it would play out**\\n\\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\\n\\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\\n\\n**Expected counterpoints**\\n\\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\\n\\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\\n\\n**Deltas**\\n\\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Electronic-Rub-2255\",\n \"body\": \"China doesn't need to attack usa, why would it?? Both usa and china aren't stupid enough to go into war against another economically strong nuclear powered nation, that just mean end of the world. What china wants is becoming a 'soft' superpower. Having economic control over a large section of the globe, and they are definitely on the right track with successful business in Africa and good ties with Russia, middle East and south America. They are playing the long game, once Africa, south America becomes stronger and more developed, china will have influence over almost 3 quarters of earth, it will become a bigger superpower than usa.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-05\",\n \"id\": \"juutdcs\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"EDIT: Not sure whats going on, but even my delta comments are getting downvoted. So, while many great comments are still being made, I'm going to refrain from replying. Sorry.\\n\\nWatching a lecture on WW2 and as we go over the fall of France, I can't help but notice the similarities between their weaknesses and today's USA.\\n\\nFrance had the largest military in Europe, with equal or superior technology as the Germans. Yet, none of that mattered when the Germans crushed them in a matter of months. All due to 2 key weaknesses: political divide and outdated tactics. Quick mobility and emphasis on armored vehicles made trench warfare near obsolete. When the French faced early losses, they weren't able to rally or make any sort of comeback due to infighting in both military and government leadership.\\n\\nPresent day USA has the largest military with all the newest gadgets money can buy. Yet, just like the French in WW2, I think we could be ripe for the picking. Our country is extremely divided. I don't know specifics about our military leadership, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also split on party lines. Our military has been engaged in very specific missions that would not reflect warfare with another powerful country. It's been hunting terrorists among civilian populations, and even at that we've been thoroughly humiliated. Vietnam, Afghanistan.\\n\\nAs far as threats go I'm not scared of Russia, seeing their military blunder just as much as ours in Ukraine. Which leaves China. China has mighty economy, large population, and advanced enough tech to do the job. Their fascist leadership and use of propaganda may be morally weak, but it ensures a united country. They hate USA ideologies, and are Empirically inclined for conquest. We might have even seen foreshadowing of their intentions with their spotted spy balloons and culture attack as seen with Tiktok.\\n\\n**How it would play out**\\n\\nI see it happening much like Germany conquered France in WW2.\\n\\n* First the Germans attacked Belgium, drawing in the allied troops. It was a trap and their army was quickly encircled.\\n* China would attack Taiwan, drawing in USA navy and possibly even land troops for a potential trap.\\n* Then the Germans pounded straight for Paris, while the leadership of France floundered and bickered amongst themselves.\\n* Okay, here is why I say in the 2024 election. If the Chinese wait to strike shortly after the election the timing will be perfect. Trump loses and is put in jail, causing nearly half the country to riot. As the Chinese come to conquer our land our leadership flounders and bickers. President asks for declaration of war, but congress won't due it because they don't want political opponent to have that much power. Meanwhile military leadership communication is poor due to cross-party lines not trusting each other. Hell, the military might even be occupied dealing with alt-right uprising in our country.\\n* Just like that, Chinese troops pour over USA soil while our troops watch it happen, waiting for a failed leadership to take substantial action. The White house is taken. Maybe leadership evacuates elsewhere, but its already over. There is no country to rally against the invasion: everyone is nearly in civil war already.\\n\\n**Expected counterpoints**\\n\\n*What about nukes?* I don't think would play a factor. Russia isn't even using nukes against a non-nuke country they are at war with. No country will use nukes against a country that has nukes. Better to let another government take over than doom humanity.\\n\\n*USA is so much farther from China than France was from Germany.* This is the biggest flaw I already see in my view. However, I think with how fast and efficient planes have become they could fly over a lot of troops in a short time period. They could land nearby in a weaker country like Mexico or Canada if need be. Also, there's the possibility of stealthed ships or submarines having prepared by making the journey weeks in advance.\\n\\n**Deltas**\\n\\n* It would be difficult to bring over heavy armor across the ocean. Just troops and planes is a lot harder to take USA with.\\n* An invasion force wouldn't have a supply chain.\\n* Japan sits between USA and China, making any move across the Pacific more difficult.\\n* Washington is on Atlantic coast. China would come across Pacific.\\n* US is one of China's top food importers. They would need to conquer US quickly or suffer huge food deficit.\\n* Didn't think I would give a delta on this point, but having so many guns in our country would make it difficult for an occupying force. Possibly too costly.\\n* China could be fearing Russia too much to make any big moves right now.\\n* US troops have been seeing action, China's haven't.\\n* The fuel cost and logistics for flying an army across the Pacific are not achieved by China.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-27\",\n \"id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The USA is at risk of being conquered by China in the 2024 election (comparing to WW2 France and Germany)\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13193r4/cmv_the_usa_is_at_risk_of_being_conquered_by/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"WLW10176\",\n \"body\": \"Won't happen. We armed in this country. Come and git some . California will fall lol\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-10\",\n \"id\": \"jvmtpbm\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13193r4\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ]\n]","isConversational":false},"2":{"kind":"string","value":"moderate"}}},{"rowIdx":40,"cells":{"0":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Originally, I wanted to make a post called \"CMV: Meghan Markle didn't wreck the British Royal Family\", as my brother frequently asserts that Meghan Markle's irresponsibility and bad-mouthing created a toxic environment that wrecked in the British Royal Family. I'm kind of glad that [this drama makes monarchism less popular](https://archive.is/HNaCR), but the more I read into this, the less Harry and Meghan look like good guys:\n\n* [Spare: Ghost-writer defends inaccuracies in Prince Harry's memoir after Air NZ shuts down claim, readers point out Xbox error](https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/entertainment/2023/01/spare-ghost-writer-defends-inaccuracies-in-prince-harry-s-memoir-after-air-nz-shuts-down-claim-as-readers-point-out-xbox-error.html)\n* [Meghan Markle is branded a 'narcissist' akin to Sam Bankman-Fried, Kanye West, Trump and Elizabeth Holmes in new Politico story which claims Americans are tiring of her behavior](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11575867/Meghan-Markle-branded-narcissist-akin-Bankman-Fried-Kanye-Trump.html)\n\nThis might just be my republicanism-tainted opinion here, but this is still not enough for me to admit that the British Royal Family are the good guys either. Even if we are to ignore [the sheltering of Prince Andrew](https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity-life/royals/press-banned-from-photographing-queen-being-escorted-by-andrew/news-story/7ff4c45589025b42ed5998163340cd9b), I don't see how it's fair to blame Meghan for making British Royal Family into a toxic environment since they are perfectly capable of doing that to themselves:\n\n* [Princess Diana Said to Attempt Suicide 5 Times](https://archive.is/xskMh)\n* [A history of royal divorces](https://www.theweek.co.uk/105754/a-history-of-royal-divorces)\n* [‘Short-tempered’ William ‘difficult’ to work with: Royal source](https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity-life/royals/shorttempered-william-difficult-to-work-with-royal-source/news-story/13732c692cd6e5c7ffcc8e73e756c67f)\n\nTo simplify: Harry and Meghan are probably being dishonest to get attention, while the British Royal Family is a toxic environment even if Meghan had never entered the picture.\n\n**Edit**: I understand that sources on either side may not be trustworthy. But either way, this further proves the point as there is no credible information that either side are the \"good guys\".\n\nP.S.: Don't bother answering if your answer boils down to \"who cares\"","date":"2023-04-28","id":"131qwe7","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There are no \"good guys\" in the British Royal Family vs. Harry & Meghan saga","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/131qwe7/cmv_there_are_no_good_guys_in_the_british_royal/"},{"author":"haptalaon","body":"> Meghan Markle is branded a 'narcissist' akin to Sam Bankman-Fried, Kanye West, Trump and Elizabeth Holmes in new Politico story which claims Americans are tiring of her behavior\n\nI'd like to challenge this in particular.\n\nThe daily mail is a bad source - it's a tabloid, both politically biased and publishes whatever the newspaper equivalent of ragebait is. [Wikipedia will not allow the daily mail as a source](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/feb/08/wikipedia-bans-daily-mail-as-unreliable-source-for-website) because it is unreliable.\n\nThat headline is particularly egregious (what do Sam Bankman-Fried, Kanye West, Trump and Elizabeth Holmes have to do with this, other than they drive engagement & get clicks?)\n\n& narcissism is an actual medical diagnosis. No one is qualified to make a medical diagnosis based on vibes, so unless Princess M's psychiatrist has given an interview, it's using narcissism as a buzzword\n\nComments must challenge one aspect of the OP's belief, so the aspect I'd like to pick up on is - do you believe the daily mail is a good place to get accurate information?","date":"2023-04-28","id":"ji4gw33","parent_id":"131qwe7","score":6,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">& narcissism is an actual medical diagnosis. No one is qualified to make a medical diagnosis based on vibes, so unless Princess M's psychiatrist has given an interview, it's using narcissism as a buzzword\n\n!delta\n\nRight-wingers often tell me that the word \"racist\" has become meaningless because the left uses it so lightly, and for that same reason, we shouldn't be using the term \"narcissist\" lightly either.\n\n>The daily mail is a bad source - it's a tabloid, both politically biased and publishes whatever the newspaper equivalent of ragebait is. Wikipedia will not allow the daily mail as a source because it is unreliable. \n> \n>That headline is particularly egregious (what do Sam Bankman-Fried, Kanye West, Trump and Elizabeth Holmes have to do with this, other than they drive engagement & get clicks?)\n\nExactly - the Daily Mail is not a source I'd normally use, but I don't want to be accused of closed-mindedness by monarchists, so I decided to include it to look balanced. As for why they mention Sam Bankman-Fried, Kanye West, Trump and Elizabeth Holmes, it is indeed to get clicks because they are implying that Meghan Markle is on the same level as these infamous 21st Century villains.","date":"2023-05-12","id":"jjy61lg","parent_id":"ji4gw33","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"DeltaBot","body":"Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/haptalaon ([1∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/haptalaon)).\n\n^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)","date":"2023-05-12","id":"jjy64c9","parent_id":"jjy61lg","score":3,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],"string":"[\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Originally, I wanted to make a post called \\\"CMV: Meghan Markle didn't wreck the British Royal Family\\\", as my brother frequently asserts that Meghan Markle's irresponsibility and bad-mouthing created a toxic environment that wrecked in the British Royal Family. I'm kind of glad that [this drama makes monarchism less popular](https://archive.is/HNaCR), but the more I read into this, the less Harry and Meghan look like good guys:\\n\\n* [Spare: Ghost-writer defends inaccuracies in Prince Harry's memoir after Air NZ shuts down claim, readers point out Xbox error](https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/entertainment/2023/01/spare-ghost-writer-defends-inaccuracies-in-prince-harry-s-memoir-after-air-nz-shuts-down-claim-as-readers-point-out-xbox-error.html)\\n* [Meghan Markle is branded a 'narcissist' akin to Sam Bankman-Fried, Kanye West, Trump and Elizabeth Holmes in new Politico story which claims Americans are tiring of her behavior](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11575867/Meghan-Markle-branded-narcissist-akin-Bankman-Fried-Kanye-Trump.html)\\n\\nThis might just be my republicanism-tainted opinion here, but this is still not enough for me to admit that the British Royal Family are the good guys either. Even if we are to ignore [the sheltering of Prince Andrew](https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity-life/royals/press-banned-from-photographing-queen-being-escorted-by-andrew/news-story/7ff4c45589025b42ed5998163340cd9b), I don't see how it's fair to blame Meghan for making British Royal Family into a toxic environment since they are perfectly capable of doing that to themselves:\\n\\n* [Princess Diana Said to Attempt Suicide 5 Times](https://archive.is/xskMh)\\n* [A history of royal divorces](https://www.theweek.co.uk/105754/a-history-of-royal-divorces)\\n* [‘Short-tempered’ William ‘difficult’ to work with: Royal source](https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity-life/royals/shorttempered-william-difficult-to-work-with-royal-source/news-story/13732c692cd6e5c7ffcc8e73e756c67f)\\n\\nTo simplify: Harry and Meghan are probably being dishonest to get attention, while the British Royal Family is a toxic environment even if Meghan had never entered the picture.\\n\\n**Edit**: I understand that sources on either side may not be trustworthy. But either way, this further proves the point as there is no credible information that either side are the \\\"good guys\\\".\\n\\nP.S.: Don't bother answering if your answer boils down to \\\"who cares\\\"\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-28\",\n \"id\": \"131qwe7\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There are no \\\"good guys\\\" in the British Royal Family vs. Harry & Meghan saga\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/131qwe7/cmv_there_are_no_good_guys_in_the_british_royal/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"haptalaon\",\n \"body\": \"> Meghan Markle is branded a 'narcissist' akin to Sam Bankman-Fried, Kanye West, Trump and Elizabeth Holmes in new Politico story which claims Americans are tiring of her behavior\\n\\nI'd like to challenge this in particular.\\n\\nThe daily mail is a bad source - it's a tabloid, both politically biased and publishes whatever the newspaper equivalent of ragebait is. [Wikipedia will not allow the daily mail as a source](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/feb/08/wikipedia-bans-daily-mail-as-unreliable-source-for-website) because it is unreliable.\\n\\nThat headline is particularly egregious (what do Sam Bankman-Fried, Kanye West, Trump and Elizabeth Holmes have to do with this, other than they drive engagement & get clicks?)\\n\\n& narcissism is an actual medical diagnosis. No one is qualified to make a medical diagnosis based on vibes, so unless Princess M's psychiatrist has given an interview, it's using narcissism as a buzzword\\n\\nComments must challenge one aspect of the OP's belief, so the aspect I'd like to pick up on is - do you believe the daily mail is a good place to get accurate information?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-28\",\n \"id\": \"ji4gw33\",\n \"parent_id\": \"131qwe7\",\n \"score\": 6,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">& narcissism is an actual medical diagnosis. No one is qualified to make a medical diagnosis based on vibes, so unless Princess M's psychiatrist has given an interview, it's using narcissism as a buzzword\\n\\n!delta\\n\\nRight-wingers often tell me that the word \\\"racist\\\" has become meaningless because the left uses it so lightly, and for that same reason, we shouldn't be using the term \\\"narcissist\\\" lightly either.\\n\\n>The daily mail is a bad source - it's a tabloid, both politically biased and publishes whatever the newspaper equivalent of ragebait is. Wikipedia will not allow the daily mail as a source because it is unreliable. \\n> \\n>That headline is particularly egregious (what do Sam Bankman-Fried, Kanye West, Trump and Elizabeth Holmes have to do with this, other than they drive engagement & get clicks?)\\n\\nExactly - the Daily Mail is not a source I'd normally use, but I don't want to be accused of closed-mindedness by monarchists, so I decided to include it to look balanced. As for why they mention Sam Bankman-Fried, Kanye West, Trump and Elizabeth Holmes, it is indeed to get clicks because they are implying that Meghan Markle is on the same level as these infamous 21st Century villains.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-12\",\n \"id\": \"jjy61lg\",\n \"parent_id\": \"ji4gw33\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"DeltaBot\",\n \"body\": \"Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/haptalaon ([1∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/haptalaon)).\\n\\n^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-12\",\n \"id\": \"jjy64c9\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jjy61lg\",\n \"score\": 3,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n]","isConversational":false},"1":{"kind":"list like","value":[[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Originally, I wanted to make a post called \"CMV: Meghan Markle didn't wreck the British Royal Family\", as my brother frequently asserts that Meghan Markle's irresponsibility and bad-mouthing created a toxic environment that wrecked in the British Royal Family. I'm kind of glad that [this drama makes monarchism less popular](https://archive.is/HNaCR), but the more I read into this, the less Harry and Meghan look like good guys:\n\n* [Spare: Ghost-writer defends inaccuracies in Prince Harry's memoir after Air NZ shuts down claim, readers point out Xbox error](https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/entertainment/2023/01/spare-ghost-writer-defends-inaccuracies-in-prince-harry-s-memoir-after-air-nz-shuts-down-claim-as-readers-point-out-xbox-error.html)\n* [Meghan Markle is branded a 'narcissist' akin to Sam Bankman-Fried, Kanye West, Trump and Elizabeth Holmes in new Politico story which claims Americans are tiring of her behavior](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11575867/Meghan-Markle-branded-narcissist-akin-Bankman-Fried-Kanye-Trump.html)\n\nThis might just be my republicanism-tainted opinion here, but this is still not enough for me to admit that the British Royal Family are the good guys either. Even if we are to ignore [the sheltering of Prince Andrew](https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity-life/royals/press-banned-from-photographing-queen-being-escorted-by-andrew/news-story/7ff4c45589025b42ed5998163340cd9b), I don't see how it's fair to blame Meghan for making British Royal Family into a toxic environment since they are perfectly capable of doing that to themselves:\n\n* [Princess Diana Said to Attempt Suicide 5 Times](https://archive.is/xskMh)\n* [A history of royal divorces](https://www.theweek.co.uk/105754/a-history-of-royal-divorces)\n* [‘Short-tempered’ William ‘difficult’ to work with: Royal source](https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity-life/royals/shorttempered-william-difficult-to-work-with-royal-source/news-story/13732c692cd6e5c7ffcc8e73e756c67f)\n\nTo simplify: Harry and Meghan are probably being dishonest to get attention, while the British Royal Family is a toxic environment even if Meghan had never entered the picture.\n\n**Edit**: I understand that sources on either side may not be trustworthy. But either way, this further proves the point as there is no credible information that either side are the \"good guys\".\n\nP.S.: Don't bother answering if your answer boils down to \"who cares\"","date":"2023-04-28","id":"131qwe7","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There are no \"good guys\" in the British Royal Family vs. Harry & Meghan saga","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/131qwe7/cmv_there_are_no_good_guys_in_the_british_royal/"},{"author":"Presentalbion","body":"How would you measure \"good guys\" in this context?\n\nHarry and Meghan don't need to be dishonest to get attention, they are already internationally famous.\n\n>the British Royal Family is a toxic environment even if Meghan had never entered the picture.\n\nSo it sounds like at the very least Meghan didn't create a toxic environment, that already existed.\n\nSo at minimum the Royal Family is a toxic environment, which would make them \"bad\" when compared to someone who is not toxic entering a toxic environment?","date":"2023-04-28","id":"ji1s4br","parent_id":"131qwe7","score":6,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">How would you measure \"good guys\" in this context?\r \n\r\n\nYou're right. No side can be \"good guys\" because it would be ridiculous to say that either side were innocent victims in this.\n\n>Harry and Meghan don't need to be dishonest to get attention, they are already internationally famous.\n\nSome people claim that they do - non-Americans like myself have never heard of Meghan Markle until Prince Harry started dating her (I guess people who watched *Suits* would know her, but *Suits* wasn't particularly popular either).\n\n>So at minimum the Royal Family is a toxic environment, which would make them \"bad\" when compared to someone who is not toxic entering a toxic environment?\r \n\r\n\nIf Meghan is as dishonest and narcissistic as these sources say, then she has no moral high ground over the Royal Family either.","date":"2023-04-28","id":"ji1swoy","parent_id":"ji1s4br","score":-1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Originally, I wanted to make a post called \"CMV: Meghan Markle didn't wreck the British Royal Family\", as my brother frequently asserts that Meghan Markle's irresponsibility and bad-mouthing created a toxic environment that wrecked in the British Royal Family. I'm kind of glad that [this drama makes monarchism less popular](https://archive.is/HNaCR), but the more I read into this, the less Harry and Meghan look like good guys:\n\n* [Spare: Ghost-writer defends inaccuracies in Prince Harry's memoir after Air NZ shuts down claim, readers point out Xbox error](https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/entertainment/2023/01/spare-ghost-writer-defends-inaccuracies-in-prince-harry-s-memoir-after-air-nz-shuts-down-claim-as-readers-point-out-xbox-error.html)\n* [Meghan Markle is branded a 'narcissist' akin to Sam Bankman-Fried, Kanye West, Trump and Elizabeth Holmes in new Politico story which claims Americans are tiring of her behavior](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11575867/Meghan-Markle-branded-narcissist-akin-Bankman-Fried-Kanye-Trump.html)\n\nThis might just be my republicanism-tainted opinion here, but this is still not enough for me to admit that the British Royal Family are the good guys either. Even if we are to ignore [the sheltering of Prince Andrew](https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity-life/royals/press-banned-from-photographing-queen-being-escorted-by-andrew/news-story/7ff4c45589025b42ed5998163340cd9b), I don't see how it's fair to blame Meghan for making British Royal Family into a toxic environment since they are perfectly capable of doing that to themselves:\n\n* [Princess Diana Said to Attempt Suicide 5 Times](https://archive.is/xskMh)\n* [A history of royal divorces](https://www.theweek.co.uk/105754/a-history-of-royal-divorces)\n* [‘Short-tempered’ William ‘difficult’ to work with: Royal source](https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity-life/royals/shorttempered-william-difficult-to-work-with-royal-source/news-story/13732c692cd6e5c7ffcc8e73e756c67f)\n\nTo simplify: Harry and Meghan are probably being dishonest to get attention, while the British Royal Family is a toxic environment even if Meghan had never entered the picture.\n\n**Edit**: I understand that sources on either side may not be trustworthy. But either way, this further proves the point as there is no credible information that either side are the \"good guys\".\n\nP.S.: Don't bother answering if your answer boils down to \"who cares\"","date":"2023-04-28","id":"131qwe7","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There are no \"good guys\" in the British Royal Family vs. Harry & Meghan saga","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/131qwe7/cmv_there_are_no_good_guys_in_the_british_royal/"},{"author":"DuhChappers","body":"I mean, when it comes to Harry and Meghan all the article that you link to can really say is that other people around them feel like they are narcissistic in a \"benign\" way. And considering the way the British media treated Meghan for years, if that's all they can find on her then I imagine she's pretty alright. Meanwhile you correctly point out that the Royal Family is gross, though you leave out [Prince Andrew's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein](https://www.townandcountrymag.com/society/money-and-power/a28339290/royal-family-prince-andrew-jeffrey-epstein-relationship/), more or less proving that he participated in underage sex trafficking.\n\nSo even if both sides aren't perfect, I would take the couple who were hounded in the press and seem to be at least trying to live a good life over the extremely wealthy and powerful aristocrats protecting a sex trafficker that cost the British public [over 100 million pounds per year to support](https://britishheritage.com/royals/royal-family-cost-british-taxpayer#:~:text=Ever%20wondered%20how%20much%20the,from%20the%20previous%20financial%20year.).","date":"2023-04-28","id":"ji1sew0","parent_id":"131qwe7","score":10,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">Meanwhile you correctly point out that the Royal Family is gross, though you leave out [Prince Andrew's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein](https://www.townandcountrymag.com/society/money-and-power/a28339290/royal-family-prince-andrew-jeffrey-epstein-relationship/), more or less proving that he participated in underage sex trafficking.\n\nI deliberately glossed over that because when I've had republicanism vs. monarchism debates IRL, whenever I try to play the Prince Andrew card, they dismiss my argument by saying something like \"*why are you so obsessed with him, he has a near-zero chance of becoming King*\".\n\n>So even if both sides aren't perfect, I would take the couple who were hounded in the press and seem to be at least trying to live a good life over the extremely wealthy and powerful aristocrats protecting a sex trafficker that cost the British public [over 100 million pounds per year to support](https://britishheritage.com/royals/royal-family-cost-british-taxpayer#:~:text=Ever%20wondered%20how%20much%20the,from%20the%20previous%20financial%20year).\n\nMeghan and Harry are lying about some things, how can we be sure that they aren't even worse? Although then again, it's extremely unlikely they're worse than Prince Andrew. I really want to use the \"*what about Prince Andrew*\" argument against monarchists, but they just played their cards better than me, so now I can't use that argument.","date":"2023-04-28","id":"ji1ulsh","parent_id":"ji1sew0","score":3,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Originally, I wanted to make a post called \"CMV: Meghan Markle didn't wreck the British Royal Family\", as my brother frequently asserts that Meghan Markle's irresponsibility and bad-mouthing created a toxic environment that wrecked in the British Royal Family. I'm kind of glad that [this drama makes monarchism less popular](https://archive.is/HNaCR), but the more I read into this, the less Harry and Meghan look like good guys:\n\n* [Spare: Ghost-writer defends inaccuracies in Prince Harry's memoir after Air NZ shuts down claim, readers point out Xbox error](https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/entertainment/2023/01/spare-ghost-writer-defends-inaccuracies-in-prince-harry-s-memoir-after-air-nz-shuts-down-claim-as-readers-point-out-xbox-error.html)\n* [Meghan Markle is branded a 'narcissist' akin to Sam Bankman-Fried, Kanye West, Trump and Elizabeth Holmes in new Politico story which claims Americans are tiring of her behavior](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11575867/Meghan-Markle-branded-narcissist-akin-Bankman-Fried-Kanye-Trump.html)\n\nThis might just be my republicanism-tainted opinion here, but this is still not enough for me to admit that the British Royal Family are the good guys either. Even if we are to ignore [the sheltering of Prince Andrew](https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity-life/royals/press-banned-from-photographing-queen-being-escorted-by-andrew/news-story/7ff4c45589025b42ed5998163340cd9b), I don't see how it's fair to blame Meghan for making British Royal Family into a toxic environment since they are perfectly capable of doing that to themselves:\n\n* [Princess Diana Said to Attempt Suicide 5 Times](https://archive.is/xskMh)\n* [A history of royal divorces](https://www.theweek.co.uk/105754/a-history-of-royal-divorces)\n* [‘Short-tempered’ William ‘difficult’ to work with: Royal source](https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity-life/royals/shorttempered-william-difficult-to-work-with-royal-source/news-story/13732c692cd6e5c7ffcc8e73e756c67f)\n\nTo simplify: Harry and Meghan are probably being dishonest to get attention, while the British Royal Family is a toxic environment even if Meghan had never entered the picture.\n\n**Edit**: I understand that sources on either side may not be trustworthy. But either way, this further proves the point as there is no credible information that either side are the \"good guys\".\n\nP.S.: Don't bother answering if your answer boils down to \"who cares\"","date":"2023-04-28","id":"131qwe7","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There are no \"good guys\" in the British Royal Family vs. Harry & Meghan saga","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/131qwe7/cmv_there_are_no_good_guys_in_the_british_royal/"},{"author":"Vesurel","body":"When you say there are no good guys, do you think both sides are equally wrong, because to me it seems like 'both sides are bad' to vastly different extents. The royal family is abusive, on both a individual and national level and Harry and Meghan are being somewhat annoying when they call out this abuse.","date":"2023-04-28","id":"ji1siqd","parent_id":"131qwe7","score":8,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">Harry and Meghan are being somewhat annoying when they call out this abuse.\n\nThey're also proven to be somewhat dishonest. How are we sure they're not even worse than what the media shows?","date":"2023-04-28","id":"ji1uy3g","parent_id":"ji1siqd","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Originally, I wanted to make a post called \"CMV: Meghan Markle didn't wreck the British Royal Family\", as my brother frequently asserts that Meghan Markle's irresponsibility and bad-mouthing created a toxic environment that wrecked in the British Royal Family. I'm kind of glad that [this drama makes monarchism less popular](https://archive.is/HNaCR), but the more I read into this, the less Harry and Meghan look like good guys:\n\n* [Spare: Ghost-writer defends inaccuracies in Prince Harry's memoir after Air NZ shuts down claim, readers point out Xbox error](https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/entertainment/2023/01/spare-ghost-writer-defends-inaccuracies-in-prince-harry-s-memoir-after-air-nz-shuts-down-claim-as-readers-point-out-xbox-error.html)\n* [Meghan Markle is branded a 'narcissist' akin to Sam Bankman-Fried, Kanye West, Trump and Elizabeth Holmes in new Politico story which claims Americans are tiring of her behavior](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11575867/Meghan-Markle-branded-narcissist-akin-Bankman-Fried-Kanye-Trump.html)\n\nThis might just be my republicanism-tainted opinion here, but this is still not enough for me to admit that the British Royal Family are the good guys either. Even if we are to ignore [the sheltering of Prince Andrew](https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity-life/royals/press-banned-from-photographing-queen-being-escorted-by-andrew/news-story/7ff4c45589025b42ed5998163340cd9b), I don't see how it's fair to blame Meghan for making British Royal Family into a toxic environment since they are perfectly capable of doing that to themselves:\n\n* [Princess Diana Said to Attempt Suicide 5 Times](https://archive.is/xskMh)\n* [A history of royal divorces](https://www.theweek.co.uk/105754/a-history-of-royal-divorces)\n* [‘Short-tempered’ William ‘difficult’ to work with: Royal source](https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity-life/royals/shorttempered-william-difficult-to-work-with-royal-source/news-story/13732c692cd6e5c7ffcc8e73e756c67f)\n\nTo simplify: Harry and Meghan are probably being dishonest to get attention, while the British Royal Family is a toxic environment even if Meghan had never entered the picture.\n\n**Edit**: I understand that sources on either side may not be trustworthy. But either way, this further proves the point as there is no credible information that either side are the \"good guys\".\n\nP.S.: Don't bother answering if your answer boils down to \"who cares\"","date":"2023-04-28","id":"131qwe7","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There are no \"good guys\" in the British Royal Family vs. Harry & Meghan saga","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/131qwe7/cmv_there_are_no_good_guys_in_the_british_royal/"},{"author":"Skrungus69","body":"To be honest the main reason i think harry and meghan are at least a little bit better than the rest is that their actions are hastening the demise of an institution that shouldnt exist anymore.\n\nBeing slightly arseholish isnt quite as bad as the shit the rest of them are constantly up to","date":"2023-04-28","id":"ji1vsc3","parent_id":"131qwe7","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Originally, I wanted to make a post called \"CMV: Meghan Markle didn't wreck the British Royal Family\", as my brother frequently asserts that Meghan Markle's irresponsibility and bad-mouthing created a toxic environment that wrecked in the British Royal Family. I'm kind of glad that [this drama makes monarchism less popular](https://archive.is/HNaCR), but the more I read into this, the less Harry and Meghan look like good guys:\n\n* [Spare: Ghost-writer defends inaccuracies in Prince Harry's memoir after Air NZ shuts down claim, readers point out Xbox error](https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/entertainment/2023/01/spare-ghost-writer-defends-inaccuracies-in-prince-harry-s-memoir-after-air-nz-shuts-down-claim-as-readers-point-out-xbox-error.html)\n* [Meghan Markle is branded a 'narcissist' akin to Sam Bankman-Fried, Kanye West, Trump and Elizabeth Holmes in new Politico story which claims Americans are tiring of her behavior](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11575867/Meghan-Markle-branded-narcissist-akin-Bankman-Fried-Kanye-Trump.html)\n\nThis might just be my republicanism-tainted opinion here, but this is still not enough for me to admit that the British Royal Family are the good guys either. Even if we are to ignore [the sheltering of Prince Andrew](https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity-life/royals/press-banned-from-photographing-queen-being-escorted-by-andrew/news-story/7ff4c45589025b42ed5998163340cd9b), I don't see how it's fair to blame Meghan for making British Royal Family into a toxic environment since they are perfectly capable of doing that to themselves:\n\n* [Princess Diana Said to Attempt Suicide 5 Times](https://archive.is/xskMh)\n* [A history of royal divorces](https://www.theweek.co.uk/105754/a-history-of-royal-divorces)\n* [‘Short-tempered’ William ‘difficult’ to work with: Royal source](https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity-life/royals/shorttempered-william-difficult-to-work-with-royal-source/news-story/13732c692cd6e5c7ffcc8e73e756c67f)\n\nTo simplify: Harry and Meghan are probably being dishonest to get attention, while the British Royal Family is a toxic environment even if Meghan had never entered the picture.\n\n**Edit**: I understand that sources on either side may not be trustworthy. But either way, this further proves the point as there is no credible information that either side are the \"good guys\".\n\nP.S.: Don't bother answering if your answer boils down to \"who cares\"","date":"2023-04-28","id":"131qwe7","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There are no \"good guys\" in the British Royal Family vs. Harry & Meghan saga","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/131qwe7/cmv_there_are_no_good_guys_in_the_british_royal/"},{"author":"NotMyBestMistake","body":"Considering that the worst thing Harry and Meghan are accused of are exaggerations and a bunch of people complaining about how they \"feel\" narcissistic, I feel it's pretty easy to find an easy \"good guy\" in the situation. One side might have exaggerated things, whereas the other is a corrupt, greedy institution of entrenched racism, imperial ignorance, and protecting child rapists (at public tax-payer expense).","date":"2023-04-28","id":"ji1vwh7","parent_id":"131qwe7","score":13,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">the worst thing Harry and Meghan are accused of are exaggerations\n\nHow are we sure of this? \n\n>One side might have exaggerated things, whereas the other is a corrupt, greedy institution of entrenched racism, imperial ignorance, and protecting child rapists (at public tax-payer expense).\n\nThe monarchist argument is that the monarchy may be a taxpayer expense, [but they repay this cost many times over](https://reason.com/2022/09/20/the-british-monarchy-is-better-for-taxpayers-than-you-might-think/). How am I to defeat that argument?","date":"2023-04-28","id":"ji1xyv5","parent_id":"ji1vwh7","score":-1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Originally, I wanted to make a post called \"CMV: Meghan Markle didn't wreck the British Royal Family\", as my brother frequently asserts that Meghan Markle's irresponsibility and bad-mouthing created a toxic environment that wrecked in the British Royal Family. I'm kind of glad that [this drama makes monarchism less popular](https://archive.is/HNaCR), but the more I read into this, the less Harry and Meghan look like good guys:\n\n* [Spare: Ghost-writer defends inaccuracies in Prince Harry's memoir after Air NZ shuts down claim, readers point out Xbox error](https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/entertainment/2023/01/spare-ghost-writer-defends-inaccuracies-in-prince-harry-s-memoir-after-air-nz-shuts-down-claim-as-readers-point-out-xbox-error.html)\n* [Meghan Markle is branded a 'narcissist' akin to Sam Bankman-Fried, Kanye West, Trump and Elizabeth Holmes in new Politico story which claims Americans are tiring of her behavior](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11575867/Meghan-Markle-branded-narcissist-akin-Bankman-Fried-Kanye-Trump.html)\n\nThis might just be my republicanism-tainted opinion here, but this is still not enough for me to admit that the British Royal Family are the good guys either. Even if we are to ignore [the sheltering of Prince Andrew](https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity-life/royals/press-banned-from-photographing-queen-being-escorted-by-andrew/news-story/7ff4c45589025b42ed5998163340cd9b), I don't see how it's fair to blame Meghan for making British Royal Family into a toxic environment since they are perfectly capable of doing that to themselves:\n\n* [Princess Diana Said to Attempt Suicide 5 Times](https://archive.is/xskMh)\n* [A history of royal divorces](https://www.theweek.co.uk/105754/a-history-of-royal-divorces)\n* [‘Short-tempered’ William ‘difficult’ to work with: Royal source](https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity-life/royals/shorttempered-william-difficult-to-work-with-royal-source/news-story/13732c692cd6e5c7ffcc8e73e756c67f)\n\nTo simplify: Harry and Meghan are probably being dishonest to get attention, while the British Royal Family is a toxic environment even if Meghan had never entered the picture.\n\n**Edit**: I understand that sources on either side may not be trustworthy. But either way, this further proves the point as there is no credible information that either side are the \"good guys\".\n\nP.S.: Don't bother answering if your answer boils down to \"who cares\"","date":"2023-04-28","id":"131qwe7","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There are no \"good guys\" in the British Royal Family vs. Harry & Meghan saga","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/131qwe7/cmv_there_are_no_good_guys_in_the_british_royal/"},{"author":"Galious","body":"I think that most people who follow stories about royal families stories care more about the fiction and storytelling than reality and they hate Meghan because she's breaking the suspension of disbelief.\n\nIt's like you are in theater and one actor decide in the middle of the play to say \"it's just pretend, I don't want to play anymore\" and instead of just going away, she sits in a corner and start talking on her phone and annoy everyone who wants to just see what happen next in the story.\n\nMy point is that I don't know those people enough to say who is the worse or most toxic. But as a spectator, [the whole circus of Meghan and Harry \"Stop looking at us\" world tour](https://resources.stuff.co.nz/content/dam/images/4/z/3/g/9/g/image.related.StuffLandscapeSixteenByNine.710x400.4z3g8c.png/1676933558235.jpg?format=pjpg&optimize=medium) is doing a lot to break the fiction and hurting the storytelling.","date":"2023-04-28","id":"ji1xq1y","parent_id":"131qwe7","score":6,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Normal-Flower4437","body":"The whole point of the monarchy is the storytelling. They play a symbolic role, a role upon which a lot of national identity and morale relies upon. \n\nSomeone breaking that illusion because “they said some things that felt *negatively subtextual* to me” is just…no sense of scale. \n\nIt’s two people pretending that they’re leaving a normal family. They aren’t. They’re impacting a national narrative because of internal family drama.","date":"2023-04-28","id":"ji1z2cj","parent_id":"ji1xq1y","score":3,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Originally, I wanted to make a post called \"CMV: Meghan Markle didn't wreck the British Royal Family\", as my brother frequently asserts that Meghan Markle's irresponsibility and bad-mouthing created a toxic environment that wrecked in the British Royal Family. I'm kind of glad that [this drama makes monarchism less popular](https://archive.is/HNaCR), but the more I read into this, the less Harry and Meghan look like good guys:\n\n* [Spare: Ghost-writer defends inaccuracies in Prince Harry's memoir after Air NZ shuts down claim, readers point out Xbox error](https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/entertainment/2023/01/spare-ghost-writer-defends-inaccuracies-in-prince-harry-s-memoir-after-air-nz-shuts-down-claim-as-readers-point-out-xbox-error.html)\n* [Meghan Markle is branded a 'narcissist' akin to Sam Bankman-Fried, Kanye West, Trump and Elizabeth Holmes in new Politico story which claims Americans are tiring of her behavior](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11575867/Meghan-Markle-branded-narcissist-akin-Bankman-Fried-Kanye-Trump.html)\n\nThis might just be my republicanism-tainted opinion here, but this is still not enough for me to admit that the British Royal Family are the good guys either. Even if we are to ignore [the sheltering of Prince Andrew](https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity-life/royals/press-banned-from-photographing-queen-being-escorted-by-andrew/news-story/7ff4c45589025b42ed5998163340cd9b), I don't see how it's fair to blame Meghan for making British Royal Family into a toxic environment since they are perfectly capable of doing that to themselves:\n\n* [Princess Diana Said to Attempt Suicide 5 Times](https://archive.is/xskMh)\n* [A history of royal divorces](https://www.theweek.co.uk/105754/a-history-of-royal-divorces)\n* [‘Short-tempered’ William ‘difficult’ to work with: Royal source](https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity-life/royals/shorttempered-william-difficult-to-work-with-royal-source/news-story/13732c692cd6e5c7ffcc8e73e756c67f)\n\nTo simplify: Harry and Meghan are probably being dishonest to get attention, while the British Royal Family is a toxic environment even if Meghan had never entered the picture.\n\n**Edit**: I understand that sources on either side may not be trustworthy. But either way, this further proves the point as there is no credible information that either side are the \"good guys\".\n\nP.S.: Don't bother answering if your answer boils down to \"who cares\"","date":"2023-04-28","id":"131qwe7","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There are no \"good guys\" in the British Royal Family vs. Harry & Meghan saga","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/131qwe7/cmv_there_are_no_good_guys_in_the_british_royal/"},{"author":"New-Topic2603","body":"Trying a different tact to what I've seen others say.\n\nBase assumption: Harry is a good guy but has been tricked or is dumb or the pressure of the situation has mentally weakened him.\n\nI don't hold the views of the media around Meghan being a super villain but her behaviour is certainly strange. \n\nA central part of this is the fact that from what I've seen she. Brings up her race' (which she has to tell people as she doesn't outwardly appear as black immediately to many). Rather than her being American.\n\nI would fully expect the royal family to be intolerant of Americans, especially the area Meghan is from due to cultural clashes.\n\nNow with this idea. Let's say Harry didn't understand this and thought it was all racism or it was racism. \n\nI think it's possible from that point to assume that while all other parties may have had negative intentions at point, it's very possible that his intentions were always good.\n\nI'm not sure I've seen anything he's done that could be described as intentionally malicious that would counter this potential.\n\nMy argument does rely on him being somewhat mentally or emotionally compromised which I can't provide hard proof of.","date":"2023-04-28","id":"ji1zu2p","parent_id":"131qwe7","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">My argument does rely on him being somewhat mentally or emotionally compromised which I can't provide hard proof of.\n\nI mean, even before Harry met Meghan, he did not seem OK. With his unruly partying, escapism in the military, I long suspected that there was something off about him, or more likely, something toxic in the family that made him end up like this.","date":"2023-04-28","id":"ji20gr9","parent_id":"ji1zu2p","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Originally, I wanted to make a post called \"CMV: Meghan Markle didn't wreck the British Royal Family\", as my brother frequently asserts that Meghan Markle's irresponsibility and bad-mouthing created a toxic environment that wrecked in the British Royal Family. I'm kind of glad that [this drama makes monarchism less popular](https://archive.is/HNaCR), but the more I read into this, the less Harry and Meghan look like good guys:\n\n* [Spare: Ghost-writer defends inaccuracies in Prince Harry's memoir after Air NZ shuts down claim, readers point out Xbox error](https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/entertainment/2023/01/spare-ghost-writer-defends-inaccuracies-in-prince-harry-s-memoir-after-air-nz-shuts-down-claim-as-readers-point-out-xbox-error.html)\n* [Meghan Markle is branded a 'narcissist' akin to Sam Bankman-Fried, Kanye West, Trump and Elizabeth Holmes in new Politico story which claims Americans are tiring of her behavior](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11575867/Meghan-Markle-branded-narcissist-akin-Bankman-Fried-Kanye-Trump.html)\n\nThis might just be my republicanism-tainted opinion here, but this is still not enough for me to admit that the British Royal Family are the good guys either. Even if we are to ignore [the sheltering of Prince Andrew](https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity-life/royals/press-banned-from-photographing-queen-being-escorted-by-andrew/news-story/7ff4c45589025b42ed5998163340cd9b), I don't see how it's fair to blame Meghan for making British Royal Family into a toxic environment since they are perfectly capable of doing that to themselves:\n\n* [Princess Diana Said to Attempt Suicide 5 Times](https://archive.is/xskMh)\n* [A history of royal divorces](https://www.theweek.co.uk/105754/a-history-of-royal-divorces)\n* [‘Short-tempered’ William ‘difficult’ to work with: Royal source](https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity-life/royals/shorttempered-william-difficult-to-work-with-royal-source/news-story/13732c692cd6e5c7ffcc8e73e756c67f)\n\nTo simplify: Harry and Meghan are probably being dishonest to get attention, while the British Royal Family is a toxic environment even if Meghan had never entered the picture.\n\n**Edit**: I understand that sources on either side may not be trustworthy. But either way, this further proves the point as there is no credible information that either side are the \"good guys\".\n\nP.S.: Don't bother answering if your answer boils down to \"who cares\"","date":"2023-04-28","id":"131qwe7","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There are no \"good guys\" in the British Royal Family vs. Harry & Meghan saga","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/131qwe7/cmv_there_are_no_good_guys_in_the_british_royal/"},{"author":"Square-Dragonfruit76","body":"> I understand that sources on either side may not be trustworthy. But either way, this further proves the point as there is no credible information that either side are the \"good guys\".\n\nSaying that you don't know who the good guy is is very different than saying there are no good guys.","date":"2023-04-28","id":"ji2uixl","parent_id":"131qwe7","score":3,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Originally, I wanted to make a post called \"CMV: Meghan Markle didn't wreck the British Royal Family\", as my brother frequently asserts that Meghan Markle's irresponsibility and bad-mouthing created a toxic environment that wrecked in the British Royal Family. I'm kind of glad that [this drama makes monarchism less popular](https://archive.is/HNaCR), but the more I read into this, the less Harry and Meghan look like good guys:\n\n* [Spare: Ghost-writer defends inaccuracies in Prince Harry's memoir after Air NZ shuts down claim, readers point out Xbox error](https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/entertainment/2023/01/spare-ghost-writer-defends-inaccuracies-in-prince-harry-s-memoir-after-air-nz-shuts-down-claim-as-readers-point-out-xbox-error.html)\n* [Meghan Markle is branded a 'narcissist' akin to Sam Bankman-Fried, Kanye West, Trump and Elizabeth Holmes in new Politico story which claims Americans are tiring of her behavior](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11575867/Meghan-Markle-branded-narcissist-akin-Bankman-Fried-Kanye-Trump.html)\n\nThis might just be my republicanism-tainted opinion here, but this is still not enough for me to admit that the British Royal Family are the good guys either. Even if we are to ignore [the sheltering of Prince Andrew](https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity-life/royals/press-banned-from-photographing-queen-being-escorted-by-andrew/news-story/7ff4c45589025b42ed5998163340cd9b), I don't see how it's fair to blame Meghan for making British Royal Family into a toxic environment since they are perfectly capable of doing that to themselves:\n\n* [Princess Diana Said to Attempt Suicide 5 Times](https://archive.is/xskMh)\n* [A history of royal divorces](https://www.theweek.co.uk/105754/a-history-of-royal-divorces)\n* [‘Short-tempered’ William ‘difficult’ to work with: Royal source](https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity-life/royals/shorttempered-william-difficult-to-work-with-royal-source/news-story/13732c692cd6e5c7ffcc8e73e756c67f)\n\nTo simplify: Harry and Meghan are probably being dishonest to get attention, while the British Royal Family is a toxic environment even if Meghan had never entered the picture.\n\n**Edit**: I understand that sources on either side may not be trustworthy. But either way, this further proves the point as there is no credible information that either side are the \"good guys\".\n\nP.S.: Don't bother answering if your answer boils down to \"who cares\"","date":"2023-04-28","id":"131qwe7","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There are no \"good guys\" in the British Royal Family vs. Harry & Meghan saga","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/131qwe7/cmv_there_are_no_good_guys_in_the_british_royal/"},{"author":"OutsideCreativ","body":">I don't see how its fair to blame Meghan for making British Royal Family into a toxic environment \n\nThis is inherently false because the British Royal Family is not a toxic environment. Meghan constructed a narrative which identified it as such but that was a construct of her mind. Check our pictures of the *rest* of the royal family- they seem to get along just fine.","date":"2023-04-29","id":"ji5amvh","parent_id":"131qwe7","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">This is inherently false because the British Royal Family is not a toxic environment.\n\nI do not make assertions like this lightly. Hence why I included 3 links in the post details to prove this (4 if you include the one about Prince Andrew). As I mentioned to u/DuhChappers, I even downplayed the importance of Prince Andrew's scandals because monarchists I've debated IRL don't care.\n\n>Meghan constructed a narrative which identified it as such but that was a construct of her mind.\n\nIs Meghan Markle a POS? [Probably](https://www.skynews.com.au/world-news/queen-elizabeth-saw-through-duchess-of-sussex-and-said-prince-harry-meeting-evil-meghan-markle-was-a-complete-catastrophe/news-story/009055ae327c013e3570f1587b521a43). But even if she can't be trusted, the toxicity was there before she even met Prince Harry.\n\n>Check our pictures of the rest of the royal family- they seem to get along just fine.\n\nThe Royal Family have access to a PR machine. Even if the rest of them are genuinely happy, Harry isn't, and neither was Diana.","date":"2023-05-12","id":"jjy5kpt","parent_id":"ji5amvh","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Originally, I wanted to make a post called \"CMV: Meghan Markle didn't wreck the British Royal Family\", as my brother frequently asserts that Meghan Markle's irresponsibility and bad-mouthing created a toxic environment that wrecked in the British Royal Family. I'm kind of glad that [this drama makes monarchism less popular](https://archive.is/HNaCR), but the more I read into this, the less Harry and Meghan look like good guys:\n\n* [Spare: Ghost-writer defends inaccuracies in Prince Harry's memoir after Air NZ shuts down claim, readers point out Xbox error](https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/entertainment/2023/01/spare-ghost-writer-defends-inaccuracies-in-prince-harry-s-memoir-after-air-nz-shuts-down-claim-as-readers-point-out-xbox-error.html)\n* [Meghan Markle is branded a 'narcissist' akin to Sam Bankman-Fried, Kanye West, Trump and Elizabeth Holmes in new Politico story which claims Americans are tiring of her behavior](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11575867/Meghan-Markle-branded-narcissist-akin-Bankman-Fried-Kanye-Trump.html)\n\nThis might just be my republicanism-tainted opinion here, but this is still not enough for me to admit that the British Royal Family are the good guys either. Even if we are to ignore [the sheltering of Prince Andrew](https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity-life/royals/press-banned-from-photographing-queen-being-escorted-by-andrew/news-story/7ff4c45589025b42ed5998163340cd9b), I don't see how it's fair to blame Meghan for making British Royal Family into a toxic environment since they are perfectly capable of doing that to themselves:\n\n* [Princess Diana Said to Attempt Suicide 5 Times](https://archive.is/xskMh)\n* [A history of royal divorces](https://www.theweek.co.uk/105754/a-history-of-royal-divorces)\n* [‘Short-tempered’ William ‘difficult’ to work with: Royal source](https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity-life/royals/shorttempered-william-difficult-to-work-with-royal-source/news-story/13732c692cd6e5c7ffcc8e73e756c67f)\n\nTo simplify: Harry and Meghan are probably being dishonest to get attention, while the British Royal Family is a toxic environment even if Meghan had never entered the picture.\n\n**Edit**: I understand that sources on either side may not be trustworthy. But either way, this further proves the point as there is no credible information that either side are the \"good guys\".\n\nP.S.: Don't bother answering if your answer boils down to \"who cares\"","date":"2023-04-28","id":"131qwe7","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There are no \"good guys\" in the British Royal Family vs. Harry & Meghan saga","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/131qwe7/cmv_there_are_no_good_guys_in_the_british_royal/"},{"author":"El_dorado_au","body":"My current gripe isn’t really with Harry and Meghan, but the media that promotes their BS.\n\nThere may be valid criticisms of the royal family that are grounded in fact, but the media promoting H&M’s BS doesn’t help with that.\n\nI regard the claims about Prince Andrew as fairly plausible, even if those kinds of claims attract the crazies, FWIW.\n\nThe only “good guy” in this conflict is the truth, and failing that, I’d have to label the rest of the royal family as the good guys.","date":"2023-04-30","id":"ji9uhu9","parent_id":"131qwe7","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">The only “good guy” in this conflict is the truth, \n\nI agree with that part\n\n>and failing that, I’d have to label the rest of the royal family as the good guys.\n\nI can't see the rest of the royal family as the good guys. I've provided links in the post details to show that they're already a toxic environment since long before Harry and Meghan's BS.","date":"2023-05-14","id":"jk4a31z","parent_id":"ji9uhu9","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}]],"string":"[\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Originally, I wanted to make a post called \\\"CMV: Meghan Markle didn't wreck the British Royal Family\\\", as my brother frequently asserts that Meghan Markle's irresponsibility and bad-mouthing created a toxic environment that wrecked in the British Royal Family. I'm kind of glad that [this drama makes monarchism less popular](https://archive.is/HNaCR), but the more I read into this, the less Harry and Meghan look like good guys:\\n\\n* [Spare: Ghost-writer defends inaccuracies in Prince Harry's memoir after Air NZ shuts down claim, readers point out Xbox error](https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/entertainment/2023/01/spare-ghost-writer-defends-inaccuracies-in-prince-harry-s-memoir-after-air-nz-shuts-down-claim-as-readers-point-out-xbox-error.html)\\n* [Meghan Markle is branded a 'narcissist' akin to Sam Bankman-Fried, Kanye West, Trump and Elizabeth Holmes in new Politico story which claims Americans are tiring of her behavior](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11575867/Meghan-Markle-branded-narcissist-akin-Bankman-Fried-Kanye-Trump.html)\\n\\nThis might just be my republicanism-tainted opinion here, but this is still not enough for me to admit that the British Royal Family are the good guys either. Even if we are to ignore [the sheltering of Prince Andrew](https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity-life/royals/press-banned-from-photographing-queen-being-escorted-by-andrew/news-story/7ff4c45589025b42ed5998163340cd9b), I don't see how it's fair to blame Meghan for making British Royal Family into a toxic environment since they are perfectly capable of doing that to themselves:\\n\\n* [Princess Diana Said to Attempt Suicide 5 Times](https://archive.is/xskMh)\\n* [A history of royal divorces](https://www.theweek.co.uk/105754/a-history-of-royal-divorces)\\n* [‘Short-tempered’ William ‘difficult’ to work with: Royal source](https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity-life/royals/shorttempered-william-difficult-to-work-with-royal-source/news-story/13732c692cd6e5c7ffcc8e73e756c67f)\\n\\nTo simplify: Harry and Meghan are probably being dishonest to get attention, while the British Royal Family is a toxic environment even if Meghan had never entered the picture.\\n\\n**Edit**: I understand that sources on either side may not be trustworthy. But either way, this further proves the point as there is no credible information that either side are the \\\"good guys\\\".\\n\\nP.S.: Don't bother answering if your answer boils down to \\\"who cares\\\"\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-28\",\n \"id\": \"131qwe7\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There are no \\\"good guys\\\" in the British Royal Family vs. Harry & Meghan saga\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/131qwe7/cmv_there_are_no_good_guys_in_the_british_royal/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Presentalbion\",\n \"body\": \"How would you measure \\\"good guys\\\" in this context?\\n\\nHarry and Meghan don't need to be dishonest to get attention, they are already internationally famous.\\n\\n>the British Royal Family is a toxic environment even if Meghan had never entered the picture.\\n\\nSo it sounds like at the very least Meghan didn't create a toxic environment, that already existed.\\n\\nSo at minimum the Royal Family is a toxic environment, which would make them \\\"bad\\\" when compared to someone who is not toxic entering a toxic environment?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-28\",\n \"id\": \"ji1s4br\",\n \"parent_id\": \"131qwe7\",\n \"score\": 6,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">How would you measure \\\"good guys\\\" in this context?\\r \\n\\r\\n\\nYou're right. No side can be \\\"good guys\\\" because it would be ridiculous to say that either side were innocent victims in this.\\n\\n>Harry and Meghan don't need to be dishonest to get attention, they are already internationally famous.\\n\\nSome people claim that they do - non-Americans like myself have never heard of Meghan Markle until Prince Harry started dating her (I guess people who watched *Suits* would know her, but *Suits* wasn't particularly popular either).\\n\\n>So at minimum the Royal Family is a toxic environment, which would make them \\\"bad\\\" when compared to someone who is not toxic entering a toxic environment?\\r \\n\\r\\n\\nIf Meghan is as dishonest and narcissistic as these sources say, then she has no moral high ground over the Royal Family either.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-28\",\n \"id\": \"ji1swoy\",\n \"parent_id\": \"ji1s4br\",\n \"score\": -1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Originally, I wanted to make a post called \\\"CMV: Meghan Markle didn't wreck the British Royal Family\\\", as my brother frequently asserts that Meghan Markle's irresponsibility and bad-mouthing created a toxic environment that wrecked in the British Royal Family. I'm kind of glad that [this drama makes monarchism less popular](https://archive.is/HNaCR), but the more I read into this, the less Harry and Meghan look like good guys:\\n\\n* [Spare: Ghost-writer defends inaccuracies in Prince Harry's memoir after Air NZ shuts down claim, readers point out Xbox error](https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/entertainment/2023/01/spare-ghost-writer-defends-inaccuracies-in-prince-harry-s-memoir-after-air-nz-shuts-down-claim-as-readers-point-out-xbox-error.html)\\n* [Meghan Markle is branded a 'narcissist' akin to Sam Bankman-Fried, Kanye West, Trump and Elizabeth Holmes in new Politico story which claims Americans are tiring of her behavior](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11575867/Meghan-Markle-branded-narcissist-akin-Bankman-Fried-Kanye-Trump.html)\\n\\nThis might just be my republicanism-tainted opinion here, but this is still not enough for me to admit that the British Royal Family are the good guys either. Even if we are to ignore [the sheltering of Prince Andrew](https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity-life/royals/press-banned-from-photographing-queen-being-escorted-by-andrew/news-story/7ff4c45589025b42ed5998163340cd9b), I don't see how it's fair to blame Meghan for making British Royal Family into a toxic environment since they are perfectly capable of doing that to themselves:\\n\\n* [Princess Diana Said to Attempt Suicide 5 Times](https://archive.is/xskMh)\\n* [A history of royal divorces](https://www.theweek.co.uk/105754/a-history-of-royal-divorces)\\n* [‘Short-tempered’ William ‘difficult’ to work with: Royal source](https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity-life/royals/shorttempered-william-difficult-to-work-with-royal-source/news-story/13732c692cd6e5c7ffcc8e73e756c67f)\\n\\nTo simplify: Harry and Meghan are probably being dishonest to get attention, while the British Royal Family is a toxic environment even if Meghan had never entered the picture.\\n\\n**Edit**: I understand that sources on either side may not be trustworthy. But either way, this further proves the point as there is no credible information that either side are the \\\"good guys\\\".\\n\\nP.S.: Don't bother answering if your answer boils down to \\\"who cares\\\"\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-28\",\n \"id\": \"131qwe7\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There are no \\\"good guys\\\" in the British Royal Family vs. Harry & Meghan saga\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/131qwe7/cmv_there_are_no_good_guys_in_the_british_royal/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"DuhChappers\",\n \"body\": \"I mean, when it comes to Harry and Meghan all the article that you link to can really say is that other people around them feel like they are narcissistic in a \\\"benign\\\" way. And considering the way the British media treated Meghan for years, if that's all they can find on her then I imagine she's pretty alright. Meanwhile you correctly point out that the Royal Family is gross, though you leave out [Prince Andrew's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein](https://www.townandcountrymag.com/society/money-and-power/a28339290/royal-family-prince-andrew-jeffrey-epstein-relationship/), more or less proving that he participated in underage sex trafficking.\\n\\nSo even if both sides aren't perfect, I would take the couple who were hounded in the press and seem to be at least trying to live a good life over the extremely wealthy and powerful aristocrats protecting a sex trafficker that cost the British public [over 100 million pounds per year to support](https://britishheritage.com/royals/royal-family-cost-british-taxpayer#:~:text=Ever%20wondered%20how%20much%20the,from%20the%20previous%20financial%20year.).\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-28\",\n \"id\": \"ji1sew0\",\n \"parent_id\": \"131qwe7\",\n \"score\": 10,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">Meanwhile you correctly point out that the Royal Family is gross, though you leave out [Prince Andrew's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein](https://www.townandcountrymag.com/society/money-and-power/a28339290/royal-family-prince-andrew-jeffrey-epstein-relationship/), more or less proving that he participated in underage sex trafficking.\\n\\nI deliberately glossed over that because when I've had republicanism vs. monarchism debates IRL, whenever I try to play the Prince Andrew card, they dismiss my argument by saying something like \\\"*why are you so obsessed with him, he has a near-zero chance of becoming King*\\\".\\n\\n>So even if both sides aren't perfect, I would take the couple who were hounded in the press and seem to be at least trying to live a good life over the extremely wealthy and powerful aristocrats protecting a sex trafficker that cost the British public [over 100 million pounds per year to support](https://britishheritage.com/royals/royal-family-cost-british-taxpayer#:~:text=Ever%20wondered%20how%20much%20the,from%20the%20previous%20financial%20year).\\n\\nMeghan and Harry are lying about some things, how can we be sure that they aren't even worse? Although then again, it's extremely unlikely they're worse than Prince Andrew. I really want to use the \\\"*what about Prince Andrew*\\\" argument against monarchists, but they just played their cards better than me, so now I can't use that argument.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-28\",\n \"id\": \"ji1ulsh\",\n \"parent_id\": \"ji1sew0\",\n \"score\": 3,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Originally, I wanted to make a post called \\\"CMV: Meghan Markle didn't wreck the British Royal Family\\\", as my brother frequently asserts that Meghan Markle's irresponsibility and bad-mouthing created a toxic environment that wrecked in the British Royal Family. I'm kind of glad that [this drama makes monarchism less popular](https://archive.is/HNaCR), but the more I read into this, the less Harry and Meghan look like good guys:\\n\\n* [Spare: Ghost-writer defends inaccuracies in Prince Harry's memoir after Air NZ shuts down claim, readers point out Xbox error](https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/entertainment/2023/01/spare-ghost-writer-defends-inaccuracies-in-prince-harry-s-memoir-after-air-nz-shuts-down-claim-as-readers-point-out-xbox-error.html)\\n* [Meghan Markle is branded a 'narcissist' akin to Sam Bankman-Fried, Kanye West, Trump and Elizabeth Holmes in new Politico story which claims Americans are tiring of her behavior](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11575867/Meghan-Markle-branded-narcissist-akin-Bankman-Fried-Kanye-Trump.html)\\n\\nThis might just be my republicanism-tainted opinion here, but this is still not enough for me to admit that the British Royal Family are the good guys either. Even if we are to ignore [the sheltering of Prince Andrew](https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity-life/royals/press-banned-from-photographing-queen-being-escorted-by-andrew/news-story/7ff4c45589025b42ed5998163340cd9b), I don't see how it's fair to blame Meghan for making British Royal Family into a toxic environment since they are perfectly capable of doing that to themselves:\\n\\n* [Princess Diana Said to Attempt Suicide 5 Times](https://archive.is/xskMh)\\n* [A history of royal divorces](https://www.theweek.co.uk/105754/a-history-of-royal-divorces)\\n* [‘Short-tempered’ William ‘difficult’ to work with: Royal source](https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity-life/royals/shorttempered-william-difficult-to-work-with-royal-source/news-story/13732c692cd6e5c7ffcc8e73e756c67f)\\n\\nTo simplify: Harry and Meghan are probably being dishonest to get attention, while the British Royal Family is a toxic environment even if Meghan had never entered the picture.\\n\\n**Edit**: I understand that sources on either side may not be trustworthy. But either way, this further proves the point as there is no credible information that either side are the \\\"good guys\\\".\\n\\nP.S.: Don't bother answering if your answer boils down to \\\"who cares\\\"\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-28\",\n \"id\": \"131qwe7\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There are no \\\"good guys\\\" in the British Royal Family vs. Harry & Meghan saga\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/131qwe7/cmv_there_are_no_good_guys_in_the_british_royal/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Vesurel\",\n \"body\": \"When you say there are no good guys, do you think both sides are equally wrong, because to me it seems like 'both sides are bad' to vastly different extents. The royal family is abusive, on both a individual and national level and Harry and Meghan are being somewhat annoying when they call out this abuse.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-28\",\n \"id\": \"ji1siqd\",\n \"parent_id\": \"131qwe7\",\n \"score\": 8,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">Harry and Meghan are being somewhat annoying when they call out this abuse.\\n\\nThey're also proven to be somewhat dishonest. How are we sure they're not even worse than what the media shows?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-28\",\n \"id\": \"ji1uy3g\",\n \"parent_id\": \"ji1siqd\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Originally, I wanted to make a post called \\\"CMV: Meghan Markle didn't wreck the British Royal Family\\\", as my brother frequently asserts that Meghan Markle's irresponsibility and bad-mouthing created a toxic environment that wrecked in the British Royal Family. I'm kind of glad that [this drama makes monarchism less popular](https://archive.is/HNaCR), but the more I read into this, the less Harry and Meghan look like good guys:\\n\\n* [Spare: Ghost-writer defends inaccuracies in Prince Harry's memoir after Air NZ shuts down claim, readers point out Xbox error](https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/entertainment/2023/01/spare-ghost-writer-defends-inaccuracies-in-prince-harry-s-memoir-after-air-nz-shuts-down-claim-as-readers-point-out-xbox-error.html)\\n* [Meghan Markle is branded a 'narcissist' akin to Sam Bankman-Fried, Kanye West, Trump and Elizabeth Holmes in new Politico story which claims Americans are tiring of her behavior](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11575867/Meghan-Markle-branded-narcissist-akin-Bankman-Fried-Kanye-Trump.html)\\n\\nThis might just be my republicanism-tainted opinion here, but this is still not enough for me to admit that the British Royal Family are the good guys either. Even if we are to ignore [the sheltering of Prince Andrew](https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity-life/royals/press-banned-from-photographing-queen-being-escorted-by-andrew/news-story/7ff4c45589025b42ed5998163340cd9b), I don't see how it's fair to blame Meghan for making British Royal Family into a toxic environment since they are perfectly capable of doing that to themselves:\\n\\n* [Princess Diana Said to Attempt Suicide 5 Times](https://archive.is/xskMh)\\n* [A history of royal divorces](https://www.theweek.co.uk/105754/a-history-of-royal-divorces)\\n* [‘Short-tempered’ William ‘difficult’ to work with: Royal source](https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity-life/royals/shorttempered-william-difficult-to-work-with-royal-source/news-story/13732c692cd6e5c7ffcc8e73e756c67f)\\n\\nTo simplify: Harry and Meghan are probably being dishonest to get attention, while the British Royal Family is a toxic environment even if Meghan had never entered the picture.\\n\\n**Edit**: I understand that sources on either side may not be trustworthy. But either way, this further proves the point as there is no credible information that either side are the \\\"good guys\\\".\\n\\nP.S.: Don't bother answering if your answer boils down to \\\"who cares\\\"\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-28\",\n \"id\": \"131qwe7\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There are no \\\"good guys\\\" in the British Royal Family vs. Harry & Meghan saga\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/131qwe7/cmv_there_are_no_good_guys_in_the_british_royal/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Skrungus69\",\n \"body\": \"To be honest the main reason i think harry and meghan are at least a little bit better than the rest is that their actions are hastening the demise of an institution that shouldnt exist anymore.\\n\\nBeing slightly arseholish isnt quite as bad as the shit the rest of them are constantly up to\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-28\",\n \"id\": \"ji1vsc3\",\n \"parent_id\": \"131qwe7\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Originally, I wanted to make a post called \\\"CMV: Meghan Markle didn't wreck the British Royal Family\\\", as my brother frequently asserts that Meghan Markle's irresponsibility and bad-mouthing created a toxic environment that wrecked in the British Royal Family. I'm kind of glad that [this drama makes monarchism less popular](https://archive.is/HNaCR), but the more I read into this, the less Harry and Meghan look like good guys:\\n\\n* [Spare: Ghost-writer defends inaccuracies in Prince Harry's memoir after Air NZ shuts down claim, readers point out Xbox error](https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/entertainment/2023/01/spare-ghost-writer-defends-inaccuracies-in-prince-harry-s-memoir-after-air-nz-shuts-down-claim-as-readers-point-out-xbox-error.html)\\n* [Meghan Markle is branded a 'narcissist' akin to Sam Bankman-Fried, Kanye West, Trump and Elizabeth Holmes in new Politico story which claims Americans are tiring of her behavior](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11575867/Meghan-Markle-branded-narcissist-akin-Bankman-Fried-Kanye-Trump.html)\\n\\nThis might just be my republicanism-tainted opinion here, but this is still not enough for me to admit that the British Royal Family are the good guys either. Even if we are to ignore [the sheltering of Prince Andrew](https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity-life/royals/press-banned-from-photographing-queen-being-escorted-by-andrew/news-story/7ff4c45589025b42ed5998163340cd9b), I don't see how it's fair to blame Meghan for making British Royal Family into a toxic environment since they are perfectly capable of doing that to themselves:\\n\\n* [Princess Diana Said to Attempt Suicide 5 Times](https://archive.is/xskMh)\\n* [A history of royal divorces](https://www.theweek.co.uk/105754/a-history-of-royal-divorces)\\n* [‘Short-tempered’ William ‘difficult’ to work with: Royal source](https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity-life/royals/shorttempered-william-difficult-to-work-with-royal-source/news-story/13732c692cd6e5c7ffcc8e73e756c67f)\\n\\nTo simplify: Harry and Meghan are probably being dishonest to get attention, while the British Royal Family is a toxic environment even if Meghan had never entered the picture.\\n\\n**Edit**: I understand that sources on either side may not be trustworthy. But either way, this further proves the point as there is no credible information that either side are the \\\"good guys\\\".\\n\\nP.S.: Don't bother answering if your answer boils down to \\\"who cares\\\"\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-28\",\n \"id\": \"131qwe7\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There are no \\\"good guys\\\" in the British Royal Family vs. Harry & Meghan saga\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/131qwe7/cmv_there_are_no_good_guys_in_the_british_royal/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"NotMyBestMistake\",\n \"body\": \"Considering that the worst thing Harry and Meghan are accused of are exaggerations and a bunch of people complaining about how they \\\"feel\\\" narcissistic, I feel it's pretty easy to find an easy \\\"good guy\\\" in the situation. One side might have exaggerated things, whereas the other is a corrupt, greedy institution of entrenched racism, imperial ignorance, and protecting child rapists (at public tax-payer expense).\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-28\",\n \"id\": \"ji1vwh7\",\n \"parent_id\": \"131qwe7\",\n \"score\": 13,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">the worst thing Harry and Meghan are accused of are exaggerations\\n\\nHow are we sure of this? \\n\\n>One side might have exaggerated things, whereas the other is a corrupt, greedy institution of entrenched racism, imperial ignorance, and protecting child rapists (at public tax-payer expense).\\n\\nThe monarchist argument is that the monarchy may be a taxpayer expense, [but they repay this cost many times over](https://reason.com/2022/09/20/the-british-monarchy-is-better-for-taxpayers-than-you-might-think/). How am I to defeat that argument?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-28\",\n \"id\": \"ji1xyv5\",\n \"parent_id\": \"ji1vwh7\",\n \"score\": -1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Originally, I wanted to make a post called \\\"CMV: Meghan Markle didn't wreck the British Royal Family\\\", as my brother frequently asserts that Meghan Markle's irresponsibility and bad-mouthing created a toxic environment that wrecked in the British Royal Family. I'm kind of glad that [this drama makes monarchism less popular](https://archive.is/HNaCR), but the more I read into this, the less Harry and Meghan look like good guys:\\n\\n* [Spare: Ghost-writer defends inaccuracies in Prince Harry's memoir after Air NZ shuts down claim, readers point out Xbox error](https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/entertainment/2023/01/spare-ghost-writer-defends-inaccuracies-in-prince-harry-s-memoir-after-air-nz-shuts-down-claim-as-readers-point-out-xbox-error.html)\\n* [Meghan Markle is branded a 'narcissist' akin to Sam Bankman-Fried, Kanye West, Trump and Elizabeth Holmes in new Politico story which claims Americans are tiring of her behavior](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11575867/Meghan-Markle-branded-narcissist-akin-Bankman-Fried-Kanye-Trump.html)\\n\\nThis might just be my republicanism-tainted opinion here, but this is still not enough for me to admit that the British Royal Family are the good guys either. Even if we are to ignore [the sheltering of Prince Andrew](https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity-life/royals/press-banned-from-photographing-queen-being-escorted-by-andrew/news-story/7ff4c45589025b42ed5998163340cd9b), I don't see how it's fair to blame Meghan for making British Royal Family into a toxic environment since they are perfectly capable of doing that to themselves:\\n\\n* [Princess Diana Said to Attempt Suicide 5 Times](https://archive.is/xskMh)\\n* [A history of royal divorces](https://www.theweek.co.uk/105754/a-history-of-royal-divorces)\\n* [‘Short-tempered’ William ‘difficult’ to work with: Royal source](https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity-life/royals/shorttempered-william-difficult-to-work-with-royal-source/news-story/13732c692cd6e5c7ffcc8e73e756c67f)\\n\\nTo simplify: Harry and Meghan are probably being dishonest to get attention, while the British Royal Family is a toxic environment even if Meghan had never entered the picture.\\n\\n**Edit**: I understand that sources on either side may not be trustworthy. But either way, this further proves the point as there is no credible information that either side are the \\\"good guys\\\".\\n\\nP.S.: Don't bother answering if your answer boils down to \\\"who cares\\\"\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-28\",\n \"id\": \"131qwe7\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There are no \\\"good guys\\\" in the British Royal Family vs. Harry & Meghan saga\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/131qwe7/cmv_there_are_no_good_guys_in_the_british_royal/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Galious\",\n \"body\": \"I think that most people who follow stories about royal families stories care more about the fiction and storytelling than reality and they hate Meghan because she's breaking the suspension of disbelief.\\n\\nIt's like you are in theater and one actor decide in the middle of the play to say \\\"it's just pretend, I don't want to play anymore\\\" and instead of just going away, she sits in a corner and start talking on her phone and annoy everyone who wants to just see what happen next in the story.\\n\\nMy point is that I don't know those people enough to say who is the worse or most toxic. But as a spectator, [the whole circus of Meghan and Harry \\\"Stop looking at us\\\" world tour](https://resources.stuff.co.nz/content/dam/images/4/z/3/g/9/g/image.related.StuffLandscapeSixteenByNine.710x400.4z3g8c.png/1676933558235.jpg?format=pjpg&optimize=medium) is doing a lot to break the fiction and hurting the storytelling.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-28\",\n \"id\": \"ji1xq1y\",\n \"parent_id\": \"131qwe7\",\n \"score\": 6,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Normal-Flower4437\",\n \"body\": \"The whole point of the monarchy is the storytelling. They play a symbolic role, a role upon which a lot of national identity and morale relies upon. \\n\\nSomeone breaking that illusion because “they said some things that felt *negatively subtextual* to me” is just…no sense of scale. \\n\\nIt’s two people pretending that they’re leaving a normal family. They aren’t. They’re impacting a national narrative because of internal family drama.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-28\",\n \"id\": \"ji1z2cj\",\n \"parent_id\": \"ji1xq1y\",\n \"score\": 3,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Originally, I wanted to make a post called \\\"CMV: Meghan Markle didn't wreck the British Royal Family\\\", as my brother frequently asserts that Meghan Markle's irresponsibility and bad-mouthing created a toxic environment that wrecked in the British Royal Family. I'm kind of glad that [this drama makes monarchism less popular](https://archive.is/HNaCR), but the more I read into this, the less Harry and Meghan look like good guys:\\n\\n* [Spare: Ghost-writer defends inaccuracies in Prince Harry's memoir after Air NZ shuts down claim, readers point out Xbox error](https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/entertainment/2023/01/spare-ghost-writer-defends-inaccuracies-in-prince-harry-s-memoir-after-air-nz-shuts-down-claim-as-readers-point-out-xbox-error.html)\\n* [Meghan Markle is branded a 'narcissist' akin to Sam Bankman-Fried, Kanye West, Trump and Elizabeth Holmes in new Politico story which claims Americans are tiring of her behavior](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11575867/Meghan-Markle-branded-narcissist-akin-Bankman-Fried-Kanye-Trump.html)\\n\\nThis might just be my republicanism-tainted opinion here, but this is still not enough for me to admit that the British Royal Family are the good guys either. Even if we are to ignore [the sheltering of Prince Andrew](https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity-life/royals/press-banned-from-photographing-queen-being-escorted-by-andrew/news-story/7ff4c45589025b42ed5998163340cd9b), I don't see how it's fair to blame Meghan for making British Royal Family into a toxic environment since they are perfectly capable of doing that to themselves:\\n\\n* [Princess Diana Said to Attempt Suicide 5 Times](https://archive.is/xskMh)\\n* [A history of royal divorces](https://www.theweek.co.uk/105754/a-history-of-royal-divorces)\\n* [‘Short-tempered’ William ‘difficult’ to work with: Royal source](https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity-life/royals/shorttempered-william-difficult-to-work-with-royal-source/news-story/13732c692cd6e5c7ffcc8e73e756c67f)\\n\\nTo simplify: Harry and Meghan are probably being dishonest to get attention, while the British Royal Family is a toxic environment even if Meghan had never entered the picture.\\n\\n**Edit**: I understand that sources on either side may not be trustworthy. But either way, this further proves the point as there is no credible information that either side are the \\\"good guys\\\".\\n\\nP.S.: Don't bother answering if your answer boils down to \\\"who cares\\\"\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-28\",\n \"id\": \"131qwe7\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There are no \\\"good guys\\\" in the British Royal Family vs. Harry & Meghan saga\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/131qwe7/cmv_there_are_no_good_guys_in_the_british_royal/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"New-Topic2603\",\n \"body\": \"Trying a different tact to what I've seen others say.\\n\\nBase assumption: Harry is a good guy but has been tricked or is dumb or the pressure of the situation has mentally weakened him.\\n\\nI don't hold the views of the media around Meghan being a super villain but her behaviour is certainly strange. \\n\\nA central part of this is the fact that from what I've seen she. Brings up her race' (which she has to tell people as she doesn't outwardly appear as black immediately to many). Rather than her being American.\\n\\nI would fully expect the royal family to be intolerant of Americans, especially the area Meghan is from due to cultural clashes.\\n\\nNow with this idea. Let's say Harry didn't understand this and thought it was all racism or it was racism. \\n\\nI think it's possible from that point to assume that while all other parties may have had negative intentions at point, it's very possible that his intentions were always good.\\n\\nI'm not sure I've seen anything he's done that could be described as intentionally malicious that would counter this potential.\\n\\nMy argument does rely on him being somewhat mentally or emotionally compromised which I can't provide hard proof of.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-28\",\n \"id\": \"ji1zu2p\",\n \"parent_id\": \"131qwe7\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">My argument does rely on him being somewhat mentally or emotionally compromised which I can't provide hard proof of.\\n\\nI mean, even before Harry met Meghan, he did not seem OK. With his unruly partying, escapism in the military, I long suspected that there was something off about him, or more likely, something toxic in the family that made him end up like this.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-28\",\n \"id\": \"ji20gr9\",\n \"parent_id\": \"ji1zu2p\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Originally, I wanted to make a post called \\\"CMV: Meghan Markle didn't wreck the British Royal Family\\\", as my brother frequently asserts that Meghan Markle's irresponsibility and bad-mouthing created a toxic environment that wrecked in the British Royal Family. I'm kind of glad that [this drama makes monarchism less popular](https://archive.is/HNaCR), but the more I read into this, the less Harry and Meghan look like good guys:\\n\\n* [Spare: Ghost-writer defends inaccuracies in Prince Harry's memoir after Air NZ shuts down claim, readers point out Xbox error](https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/entertainment/2023/01/spare-ghost-writer-defends-inaccuracies-in-prince-harry-s-memoir-after-air-nz-shuts-down-claim-as-readers-point-out-xbox-error.html)\\n* [Meghan Markle is branded a 'narcissist' akin to Sam Bankman-Fried, Kanye West, Trump and Elizabeth Holmes in new Politico story which claims Americans are tiring of her behavior](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11575867/Meghan-Markle-branded-narcissist-akin-Bankman-Fried-Kanye-Trump.html)\\n\\nThis might just be my republicanism-tainted opinion here, but this is still not enough for me to admit that the British Royal Family are the good guys either. Even if we are to ignore [the sheltering of Prince Andrew](https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity-life/royals/press-banned-from-photographing-queen-being-escorted-by-andrew/news-story/7ff4c45589025b42ed5998163340cd9b), I don't see how it's fair to blame Meghan for making British Royal Family into a toxic environment since they are perfectly capable of doing that to themselves:\\n\\n* [Princess Diana Said to Attempt Suicide 5 Times](https://archive.is/xskMh)\\n* [A history of royal divorces](https://www.theweek.co.uk/105754/a-history-of-royal-divorces)\\n* [‘Short-tempered’ William ‘difficult’ to work with: Royal source](https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity-life/royals/shorttempered-william-difficult-to-work-with-royal-source/news-story/13732c692cd6e5c7ffcc8e73e756c67f)\\n\\nTo simplify: Harry and Meghan are probably being dishonest to get attention, while the British Royal Family is a toxic environment even if Meghan had never entered the picture.\\n\\n**Edit**: I understand that sources on either side may not be trustworthy. But either way, this further proves the point as there is no credible information that either side are the \\\"good guys\\\".\\n\\nP.S.: Don't bother answering if your answer boils down to \\\"who cares\\\"\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-28\",\n \"id\": \"131qwe7\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There are no \\\"good guys\\\" in the British Royal Family vs. Harry & Meghan saga\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/131qwe7/cmv_there_are_no_good_guys_in_the_british_royal/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Square-Dragonfruit76\",\n \"body\": \"> I understand that sources on either side may not be trustworthy. But either way, this further proves the point as there is no credible information that either side are the \\\"good guys\\\".\\n\\nSaying that you don't know who the good guy is is very different than saying there are no good guys.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-28\",\n \"id\": \"ji2uixl\",\n \"parent_id\": \"131qwe7\",\n \"score\": 3,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Originally, I wanted to make a post called \\\"CMV: Meghan Markle didn't wreck the British Royal Family\\\", as my brother frequently asserts that Meghan Markle's irresponsibility and bad-mouthing created a toxic environment that wrecked in the British Royal Family. I'm kind of glad that [this drama makes monarchism less popular](https://archive.is/HNaCR), but the more I read into this, the less Harry and Meghan look like good guys:\\n\\n* [Spare: Ghost-writer defends inaccuracies in Prince Harry's memoir after Air NZ shuts down claim, readers point out Xbox error](https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/entertainment/2023/01/spare-ghost-writer-defends-inaccuracies-in-prince-harry-s-memoir-after-air-nz-shuts-down-claim-as-readers-point-out-xbox-error.html)\\n* [Meghan Markle is branded a 'narcissist' akin to Sam Bankman-Fried, Kanye West, Trump and Elizabeth Holmes in new Politico story which claims Americans are tiring of her behavior](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11575867/Meghan-Markle-branded-narcissist-akin-Bankman-Fried-Kanye-Trump.html)\\n\\nThis might just be my republicanism-tainted opinion here, but this is still not enough for me to admit that the British Royal Family are the good guys either. Even if we are to ignore [the sheltering of Prince Andrew](https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity-life/royals/press-banned-from-photographing-queen-being-escorted-by-andrew/news-story/7ff4c45589025b42ed5998163340cd9b), I don't see how it's fair to blame Meghan for making British Royal Family into a toxic environment since they are perfectly capable of doing that to themselves:\\n\\n* [Princess Diana Said to Attempt Suicide 5 Times](https://archive.is/xskMh)\\n* [A history of royal divorces](https://www.theweek.co.uk/105754/a-history-of-royal-divorces)\\n* [‘Short-tempered’ William ‘difficult’ to work with: Royal source](https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity-life/royals/shorttempered-william-difficult-to-work-with-royal-source/news-story/13732c692cd6e5c7ffcc8e73e756c67f)\\n\\nTo simplify: Harry and Meghan are probably being dishonest to get attention, while the British Royal Family is a toxic environment even if Meghan had never entered the picture.\\n\\n**Edit**: I understand that sources on either side may not be trustworthy. But either way, this further proves the point as there is no credible information that either side are the \\\"good guys\\\".\\n\\nP.S.: Don't bother answering if your answer boils down to \\\"who cares\\\"\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-28\",\n \"id\": \"131qwe7\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There are no \\\"good guys\\\" in the British Royal Family vs. Harry & Meghan saga\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/131qwe7/cmv_there_are_no_good_guys_in_the_british_royal/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"OutsideCreativ\",\n \"body\": \">I don't see how its fair to blame Meghan for making British Royal Family into a toxic environment \\n\\nThis is inherently false because the British Royal Family is not a toxic environment. Meghan constructed a narrative which identified it as such but that was a construct of her mind. Check our pictures of the *rest* of the royal family- they seem to get along just fine.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-29\",\n \"id\": \"ji5amvh\",\n \"parent_id\": \"131qwe7\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">This is inherently false because the British Royal Family is not a toxic environment.\\n\\nI do not make assertions like this lightly. Hence why I included 3 links in the post details to prove this (4 if you include the one about Prince Andrew). As I mentioned to u/DuhChappers, I even downplayed the importance of Prince Andrew's scandals because monarchists I've debated IRL don't care.\\n\\n>Meghan constructed a narrative which identified it as such but that was a construct of her mind.\\n\\nIs Meghan Markle a POS? [Probably](https://www.skynews.com.au/world-news/queen-elizabeth-saw-through-duchess-of-sussex-and-said-prince-harry-meeting-evil-meghan-markle-was-a-complete-catastrophe/news-story/009055ae327c013e3570f1587b521a43). But even if she can't be trusted, the toxicity was there before she even met Prince Harry.\\n\\n>Check our pictures of the rest of the royal family- they seem to get along just fine.\\n\\nThe Royal Family have access to a PR machine. Even if the rest of them are genuinely happy, Harry isn't, and neither was Diana.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-12\",\n \"id\": \"jjy5kpt\",\n \"parent_id\": \"ji5amvh\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Originally, I wanted to make a post called \\\"CMV: Meghan Markle didn't wreck the British Royal Family\\\", as my brother frequently asserts that Meghan Markle's irresponsibility and bad-mouthing created a toxic environment that wrecked in the British Royal Family. I'm kind of glad that [this drama makes monarchism less popular](https://archive.is/HNaCR), but the more I read into this, the less Harry and Meghan look like good guys:\\n\\n* [Spare: Ghost-writer defends inaccuracies in Prince Harry's memoir after Air NZ shuts down claim, readers point out Xbox error](https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/entertainment/2023/01/spare-ghost-writer-defends-inaccuracies-in-prince-harry-s-memoir-after-air-nz-shuts-down-claim-as-readers-point-out-xbox-error.html)\\n* [Meghan Markle is branded a 'narcissist' akin to Sam Bankman-Fried, Kanye West, Trump and Elizabeth Holmes in new Politico story which claims Americans are tiring of her behavior](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11575867/Meghan-Markle-branded-narcissist-akin-Bankman-Fried-Kanye-Trump.html)\\n\\nThis might just be my republicanism-tainted opinion here, but this is still not enough for me to admit that the British Royal Family are the good guys either. Even if we are to ignore [the sheltering of Prince Andrew](https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity-life/royals/press-banned-from-photographing-queen-being-escorted-by-andrew/news-story/7ff4c45589025b42ed5998163340cd9b), I don't see how it's fair to blame Meghan for making British Royal Family into a toxic environment since they are perfectly capable of doing that to themselves:\\n\\n* [Princess Diana Said to Attempt Suicide 5 Times](https://archive.is/xskMh)\\n* [A history of royal divorces](https://www.theweek.co.uk/105754/a-history-of-royal-divorces)\\n* [‘Short-tempered’ William ‘difficult’ to work with: Royal source](https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity-life/royals/shorttempered-william-difficult-to-work-with-royal-source/news-story/13732c692cd6e5c7ffcc8e73e756c67f)\\n\\nTo simplify: Harry and Meghan are probably being dishonest to get attention, while the British Royal Family is a toxic environment even if Meghan had never entered the picture.\\n\\n**Edit**: I understand that sources on either side may not be trustworthy. But either way, this further proves the point as there is no credible information that either side are the \\\"good guys\\\".\\n\\nP.S.: Don't bother answering if your answer boils down to \\\"who cares\\\"\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-28\",\n \"id\": \"131qwe7\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There are no \\\"good guys\\\" in the British Royal Family vs. Harry & Meghan saga\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/131qwe7/cmv_there_are_no_good_guys_in_the_british_royal/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"El_dorado_au\",\n \"body\": \"My current gripe isn’t really with Harry and Meghan, but the media that promotes their BS.\\n\\nThere may be valid criticisms of the royal family that are grounded in fact, but the media promoting H&M’s BS doesn’t help with that.\\n\\nI regard the claims about Prince Andrew as fairly plausible, even if those kinds of claims attract the crazies, FWIW.\\n\\nThe only “good guy” in this conflict is the truth, and failing that, I’d have to label the rest of the royal family as the good guys.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-30\",\n \"id\": \"ji9uhu9\",\n \"parent_id\": \"131qwe7\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">The only “good guy” in this conflict is the truth, \\n\\nI agree with that part\\n\\n>and failing that, I’d have to label the rest of the royal family as the good guys.\\n\\nI can't see the rest of the royal family as the good guys. I've provided links in the post details to show that they're already a toxic environment since long before Harry and Meghan's BS.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-14\",\n \"id\": \"jk4a31z\",\n \"parent_id\": \"ji9uhu9\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ]\n]","isConversational":false},"2":{"kind":"string","value":"challenge"}}},{"rowIdx":41,"cells":{"0":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"author":"AbiLovesTheology","body":"in my religion class, one of my modules is about interfaith dialogue, where we think about topics from the perspective of people from different religions as well as atheists.\n\nOne of the subtopics is interfaith relationships, and I casually brought up the topic of me hypothetically dating an antitheist. I say hypothetically because I am asexual and aromantic.\n\nMy professor was quite surprised about me bringing this up, and he mentioned there could be a clash of values that could cause conflict within the relationship. I’m Hindu.\n\nThis confused me. I looked up a list of values after class and identified mine. I thought about my values a bit more. I’m not entirely comfortable dating a meat eater. I value calm people and positive people. I value people who tell the truth etc. I wouldn’t date a meat eater, but there are likely vegetarian anti theists.\n\n \nDefinition of an anti theist: Actively opposes a belief in gods of any sort and to institutions built around belief in a deity. They believe that religion is harmful to individuals and society and that it impedes scientific progress and encourages immoral acts.\n\nCMV that I could date an anti theist, because my professor says it’s highly unlikely we would get on and I want to understand why he thinks that. A lot of my friends think that too.","date":"2023-04-30","id":"133lld1","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I Think I Could Hypothetically Date An Anti-Theist","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/133lld1/cmv_i_think_i_could_hypothetically_date_an/"},{"author":"Leckatall","body":"The issue seems like it would be more that an anti-theist would not want to date someone religious.\n\nIt is part of their values that religion is immoral. It isn't really part of your values that thinking religion is immoral is immoral.\n\nA meat eater might be happy to date a vegan as they don't see being vegan as unethical but a vegan would probably be a bit more reserved as they do see their partners behaviour as immoral.","date":"2023-04-30","id":"jial74e","parent_id":"133lld1","score":31,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"AbiLovesTheology","body":"!delta good point. if they see me as doing disgusting unethical things why would they want to date me? thanks for this","date":"2023-04-30","id":"jialauy","parent_id":"jial74e","score":11,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"DeltaBot","body":"Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/Leckatall ([1∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/Leckatall)).\n\n^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)","date":"2023-04-30","id":"jialcfp","parent_id":"jialauy","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],"string":"[\n {\n \"author\": \"AbiLovesTheology\",\n \"body\": \"in my religion class, one of my modules is about interfaith dialogue, where we think about topics from the perspective of people from different religions as well as atheists.\\n\\nOne of the subtopics is interfaith relationships, and I casually brought up the topic of me hypothetically dating an antitheist. I say hypothetically because I am asexual and aromantic.\\n\\nMy professor was quite surprised about me bringing this up, and he mentioned there could be a clash of values that could cause conflict within the relationship. I’m Hindu.\\n\\nThis confused me. I looked up a list of values after class and identified mine. I thought about my values a bit more. I’m not entirely comfortable dating a meat eater. I value calm people and positive people. I value people who tell the truth etc. I wouldn’t date a meat eater, but there are likely vegetarian anti theists.\\n\\n \\nDefinition of an anti theist: Actively opposes a belief in gods of any sort and to institutions built around belief in a deity. They believe that religion is harmful to individuals and society and that it impedes scientific progress and encourages immoral acts.\\n\\nCMV that I could date an anti theist, because my professor says it’s highly unlikely we would get on and I want to understand why he thinks that. A lot of my friends think that too.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-30\",\n \"id\": \"133lld1\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I Think I Could Hypothetically Date An Anti-Theist\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/133lld1/cmv_i_think_i_could_hypothetically_date_an/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Leckatall\",\n \"body\": \"The issue seems like it would be more that an anti-theist would not want to date someone religious.\\n\\nIt is part of their values that religion is immoral. It isn't really part of your values that thinking religion is immoral is immoral.\\n\\nA meat eater might be happy to date a vegan as they don't see being vegan as unethical but a vegan would probably be a bit more reserved as they do see their partners behaviour as immoral.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-30\",\n \"id\": \"jial74e\",\n \"parent_id\": \"133lld1\",\n \"score\": 31,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"AbiLovesTheology\",\n \"body\": \"!delta good point. if they see me as doing disgusting unethical things why would they want to date me? thanks for this\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-30\",\n \"id\": \"jialauy\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jial74e\",\n \"score\": 11,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"DeltaBot\",\n \"body\": \"Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/Leckatall ([1∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/Leckatall)).\\n\\n^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-30\",\n \"id\": \"jialcfp\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jialauy\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n]","isConversational":false},"1":{"kind":"list like","value":[[{"author":"AbiLovesTheology","body":"in my religion class, one of my modules is about interfaith dialogue, where we think about topics from the perspective of people from different religions as well as atheists.\n\nOne of the subtopics is interfaith relationships, and I casually brought up the topic of me hypothetically dating an antitheist. I say hypothetically because I am asexual and aromantic.\n\nMy professor was quite surprised about me bringing this up, and he mentioned there could be a clash of values that could cause conflict within the relationship. I’m Hindu.\n\nThis confused me. I looked up a list of values after class and identified mine. I thought about my values a bit more. I’m not entirely comfortable dating a meat eater. I value calm people and positive people. I value people who tell the truth etc. I wouldn’t date a meat eater, but there are likely vegetarian anti theists.\n\n \nDefinition of an anti theist: Actively opposes a belief in gods of any sort and to institutions built around belief in a deity. They believe that religion is harmful to individuals and society and that it impedes scientific progress and encourages immoral acts.\n\nCMV that I could date an anti theist, because my professor says it’s highly unlikely we would get on and I want to understand why he thinks that. A lot of my friends think that too.","date":"2023-04-30","id":"133lld1","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I Think I Could Hypothetically Date An Anti-Theist","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/133lld1/cmv_i_think_i_could_hypothetically_date_an/"},{"author":"CryptidGrimnoir","body":"Every single faith that I can think of forbids its faithful adherents from entering romantic relationships with non-believers. I acknowledge that you've said you're aromantic, but let's replace \"romantic\" with \"committed\" for the sake of discussion.\n\nWith that in mind, why would you even *want* to have such a relationship with someone who thinks so little of what's a large part of your life?","date":"2023-04-30","id":"jiagdyk","parent_id":"133lld1","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"AbiLovesTheology","body":"Not true in Hinduism to my knowledge.","date":"2023-04-30","id":"jiagoj8","parent_id":"jiagdyk","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"AbiLovesTheology","body":"in my religion class, one of my modules is about interfaith dialogue, where we think about topics from the perspective of people from different religions as well as atheists.\n\nOne of the subtopics is interfaith relationships, and I casually brought up the topic of me hypothetically dating an antitheist. I say hypothetically because I am asexual and aromantic.\n\nMy professor was quite surprised about me bringing this up, and he mentioned there could be a clash of values that could cause conflict within the relationship. I’m Hindu.\n\nThis confused me. I looked up a list of values after class and identified mine. I thought about my values a bit more. I’m not entirely comfortable dating a meat eater. I value calm people and positive people. I value people who tell the truth etc. I wouldn’t date a meat eater, but there are likely vegetarian anti theists.\n\n \nDefinition of an anti theist: Actively opposes a belief in gods of any sort and to institutions built around belief in a deity. They believe that religion is harmful to individuals and society and that it impedes scientific progress and encourages immoral acts.\n\nCMV that I could date an anti theist, because my professor says it’s highly unlikely we would get on and I want to understand why he thinks that. A lot of my friends think that too.","date":"2023-04-30","id":"133lld1","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I Think I Could Hypothetically Date An Anti-Theist","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/133lld1/cmv_i_think_i_could_hypothetically_date_an/"},{"author":"dale_glass","body":"I think this is impossible to disprove, because really nothing stops being people from being illogical, hypocritical, self-destructive or suicidal.\n\nYou can go as far as you like in that direction. Eg, could you go on a date with a serial murderer that targets your particular type and expressed the desire to kill you in particular? Obviously yes. It'd very likely end very badly, but you still could do it.\n\nI think you need to narrow down the view so that there might be something to argue about. Maybe add \"and enjoy it\", or \"have a successful marriage\", or something along those lines.","date":"2023-04-30","id":"jiah3wv","parent_id":"133lld1","score":7,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"AbiLovesTheology","body":"in my religion class, one of my modules is about interfaith dialogue, where we think about topics from the perspective of people from different religions as well as atheists.\n\nOne of the subtopics is interfaith relationships, and I casually brought up the topic of me hypothetically dating an antitheist. I say hypothetically because I am asexual and aromantic.\n\nMy professor was quite surprised about me bringing this up, and he mentioned there could be a clash of values that could cause conflict within the relationship. I’m Hindu.\n\nThis confused me. I looked up a list of values after class and identified mine. I thought about my values a bit more. I’m not entirely comfortable dating a meat eater. I value calm people and positive people. I value people who tell the truth etc. I wouldn’t date a meat eater, but there are likely vegetarian anti theists.\n\n \nDefinition of an anti theist: Actively opposes a belief in gods of any sort and to institutions built around belief in a deity. They believe that religion is harmful to individuals and society and that it impedes scientific progress and encourages immoral acts.\n\nCMV that I could date an anti theist, because my professor says it’s highly unlikely we would get on and I want to understand why he thinks that. A lot of my friends think that too.","date":"2023-04-30","id":"133lld1","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I Think I Could Hypothetically Date An Anti-Theist","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/133lld1/cmv_i_think_i_could_hypothetically_date_an/"},{"author":"Best-Analysis4401","body":"Abi, the fact that your continual passion is understanding the theology of people (I realise not just by your name, but I recognise it from the activity you've had on here in the past), how do you think you'll go with someone who wants to see theology silent?","date":"2023-04-30","id":"jiahet7","parent_id":"133lld1","score":4,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"AbiLovesTheology","body":"Fine. Not every one in a relationship likes or studies the same subject as their partner. For example, I have known people who hate maths date mathematicians, not irl but online.","date":"2023-04-30","id":"jiai4vi","parent_id":"jiahet7","score":3,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"AbiLovesTheology","body":"in my religion class, one of my modules is about interfaith dialogue, where we think about topics from the perspective of people from different religions as well as atheists.\n\nOne of the subtopics is interfaith relationships, and I casually brought up the topic of me hypothetically dating an antitheist. I say hypothetically because I am asexual and aromantic.\n\nMy professor was quite surprised about me bringing this up, and he mentioned there could be a clash of values that could cause conflict within the relationship. I’m Hindu.\n\nThis confused me. I looked up a list of values after class and identified mine. I thought about my values a bit more. I’m not entirely comfortable dating a meat eater. I value calm people and positive people. I value people who tell the truth etc. I wouldn’t date a meat eater, but there are likely vegetarian anti theists.\n\n \nDefinition of an anti theist: Actively opposes a belief in gods of any sort and to institutions built around belief in a deity. They believe that religion is harmful to individuals and society and that it impedes scientific progress and encourages immoral acts.\n\nCMV that I could date an anti theist, because my professor says it’s highly unlikely we would get on and I want to understand why he thinks that. A lot of my friends think that too.","date":"2023-04-30","id":"133lld1","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I Think I Could Hypothetically Date An Anti-Theist","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/133lld1/cmv_i_think_i_could_hypothetically_date_an/"},{"author":"figsbar","body":"You haven't given any reasons you think you would get along\n\nCould you describe how you believe you would interact in this hypothetical relationship?","date":"2023-04-30","id":"jiahvzh","parent_id":"133lld1","score":5,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"AbiLovesTheology","body":"Well, if we had kids we would raise then secularly, go to anti theist conferences, go to debates etc. We would not discuss anything pro Hindu.","date":"2023-04-30","id":"jiai1cu","parent_id":"jiahvzh","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"AbiLovesTheology","body":"in my religion class, one of my modules is about interfaith dialogue, where we think about topics from the perspective of people from different religions as well as atheists.\n\nOne of the subtopics is interfaith relationships, and I casually brought up the topic of me hypothetically dating an antitheist. I say hypothetically because I am asexual and aromantic.\n\nMy professor was quite surprised about me bringing this up, and he mentioned there could be a clash of values that could cause conflict within the relationship. I’m Hindu.\n\nThis confused me. I looked up a list of values after class and identified mine. I thought about my values a bit more. I’m not entirely comfortable dating a meat eater. I value calm people and positive people. I value people who tell the truth etc. I wouldn’t date a meat eater, but there are likely vegetarian anti theists.\n\n \nDefinition of an anti theist: Actively opposes a belief in gods of any sort and to institutions built around belief in a deity. They believe that religion is harmful to individuals and society and that it impedes scientific progress and encourages immoral acts.\n\nCMV that I could date an anti theist, because my professor says it’s highly unlikely we would get on and I want to understand why he thinks that. A lot of my friends think that too.","date":"2023-04-30","id":"133lld1","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I Think I Could Hypothetically Date An Anti-Theist","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/133lld1/cmv_i_think_i_could_hypothetically_date_an/"},{"author":"NegativeOptimism","body":"I think it depends on two things:\n\nPriorities: Are your religious values more important than your relationship? I think that unless you are in a relationship with your soulmate, the love of your life, it would be difficult to over-come constant conflict on important issues, especially when they pertain to big decisions like marriage and children. However, being able to have these discussions, overcome them and still love each other completely is proof of an extremely strong relationship.\n\nCompartmentalisation: Are you both able to isolate your religious life from your relationship? If you can both express your own faiths separately, then come back together and leave religious issues at the door, then a relationship can work. It's similar to how people separate their work and family lives, it's often the healthiest thing to do. If your religion needs to be a part of everything you do, then that separation might be impossible.","date":"2023-04-30","id":"jiain10","parent_id":"133lld1","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"AbiLovesTheology","body":"I think our values would be the same. And I am great and compartmentalisation. Do it all the time.","date":"2023-04-30","id":"jiaizq3","parent_id":"jiain10","score":0,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"AbiLovesTheology","body":"in my religion class, one of my modules is about interfaith dialogue, where we think about topics from the perspective of people from different religions as well as atheists.\n\nOne of the subtopics is interfaith relationships, and I casually brought up the topic of me hypothetically dating an antitheist. I say hypothetically because I am asexual and aromantic.\n\nMy professor was quite surprised about me bringing this up, and he mentioned there could be a clash of values that could cause conflict within the relationship. I’m Hindu.\n\nThis confused me. I looked up a list of values after class and identified mine. I thought about my values a bit more. I’m not entirely comfortable dating a meat eater. I value calm people and positive people. I value people who tell the truth etc. I wouldn’t date a meat eater, but there are likely vegetarian anti theists.\n\n \nDefinition of an anti theist: Actively opposes a belief in gods of any sort and to institutions built around belief in a deity. They believe that religion is harmful to individuals and society and that it impedes scientific progress and encourages immoral acts.\n\nCMV that I could date an anti theist, because my professor says it’s highly unlikely we would get on and I want to understand why he thinks that. A lot of my friends think that too.","date":"2023-04-30","id":"133lld1","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I Think I Could Hypothetically Date An Anti-Theist","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/133lld1/cmv_i_think_i_could_hypothetically_date_an/"},{"author":"jumpup","body":"the bigger issue is are you attractive enough to have the choice to date an anti theist, dating someone with incompatible beliefs isn't that odd, but there needs to be a reason why an anti theist would put up with you, and since you are still in school its unlikely going to to be a high salary","date":"2023-04-30","id":"jiaivyf","parent_id":"133lld1","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"AbiLovesTheology","body":"Well, because we have compatible personalities and we both might love anime and travelling?","date":"2023-04-30","id":"jiajhsq","parent_id":"jiaivyf","score":3,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"AbiLovesTheology","body":"in my religion class, one of my modules is about interfaith dialogue, where we think about topics from the perspective of people from different religions as well as atheists.\n\nOne of the subtopics is interfaith relationships, and I casually brought up the topic of me hypothetically dating an antitheist. I say hypothetically because I am asexual and aromantic.\n\nMy professor was quite surprised about me bringing this up, and he mentioned there could be a clash of values that could cause conflict within the relationship. I’m Hindu.\n\nThis confused me. I looked up a list of values after class and identified mine. I thought about my values a bit more. I’m not entirely comfortable dating a meat eater. I value calm people and positive people. I value people who tell the truth etc. I wouldn’t date a meat eater, but there are likely vegetarian anti theists.\n\n \nDefinition of an anti theist: Actively opposes a belief in gods of any sort and to institutions built around belief in a deity. They believe that religion is harmful to individuals and society and that it impedes scientific progress and encourages immoral acts.\n\nCMV that I could date an anti theist, because my professor says it’s highly unlikely we would get on and I want to understand why he thinks that. A lot of my friends think that too.","date":"2023-04-30","id":"133lld1","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I Think I Could Hypothetically Date An Anti-Theist","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/133lld1/cmv_i_think_i_could_hypothetically_date_an/"},{"author":"CeilingFanUpThere","body":"A person's belief system does not tell you about how respectful or mature they are. For a relationship, it's about the individual and how respectful and trustworthy and caring they are.\n\nI think that if you yourself think a relationship and raising kids with a particular anti-theist could work, it likely would. I understand that it's actually hypothetical for you, though.\n\nThis also applies to relationships between people who eat different diets.","date":"2023-04-30","id":"jiaksut","parent_id":"133lld1","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"AbiLovesTheology","body":"in my religion class, one of my modules is about interfaith dialogue, where we think about topics from the perspective of people from different religions as well as atheists.\n\nOne of the subtopics is interfaith relationships, and I casually brought up the topic of me hypothetically dating an antitheist. I say hypothetically because I am asexual and aromantic.\n\nMy professor was quite surprised about me bringing this up, and he mentioned there could be a clash of values that could cause conflict within the relationship. I’m Hindu.\n\nThis confused me. I looked up a list of values after class and identified mine. I thought about my values a bit more. I’m not entirely comfortable dating a meat eater. I value calm people and positive people. I value people who tell the truth etc. I wouldn’t date a meat eater, but there are likely vegetarian anti theists.\n\n \nDefinition of an anti theist: Actively opposes a belief in gods of any sort and to institutions built around belief in a deity. They believe that religion is harmful to individuals and society and that it impedes scientific progress and encourages immoral acts.\n\nCMV that I could date an anti theist, because my professor says it’s highly unlikely we would get on and I want to understand why he thinks that. A lot of my friends think that too.","date":"2023-04-30","id":"133lld1","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I Think I Could Hypothetically Date An Anti-Theist","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/133lld1/cmv_i_think_i_could_hypothetically_date_an/"},{"author":"Sufficient-Jicama936","body":"Hm I don't know\n\nI'm sort of an anti theist myself. I don't know much about Hinduism, but I know that I would never date a Catholic because the blood drinking thing feels evil to me and I don't want to be around people in a creepy cult. \n\nI assume you're not drinking anyone's blood in Hinduism but I also know a lot of religions sprinkle in little bits of poison here and there into their philosophies that I do find really concerning. I think I'd be afraid of someone who follows blindly a predetermined notion about the world like that. \n\nHm we could probably still get along, but I'd still be a little scared of u","date":"2023-04-30","id":"jiamuiy","parent_id":"133lld1","score":3,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"AbiLovesTheology","body":"in my religion class, one of my modules is about interfaith dialogue, where we think about topics from the perspective of people from different religions as well as atheists.\n\nOne of the subtopics is interfaith relationships, and I casually brought up the topic of me hypothetically dating an antitheist. I say hypothetically because I am asexual and aromantic.\n\nMy professor was quite surprised about me bringing this up, and he mentioned there could be a clash of values that could cause conflict within the relationship. I’m Hindu.\n\nThis confused me. I looked up a list of values after class and identified mine. I thought about my values a bit more. I’m not entirely comfortable dating a meat eater. I value calm people and positive people. I value people who tell the truth etc. I wouldn’t date a meat eater, but there are likely vegetarian anti theists.\n\n \nDefinition of an anti theist: Actively opposes a belief in gods of any sort and to institutions built around belief in a deity. They believe that religion is harmful to individuals and society and that it impedes scientific progress and encourages immoral acts.\n\nCMV that I could date an anti theist, because my professor says it’s highly unlikely we would get on and I want to understand why he thinks that. A lot of my friends think that too.","date":"2023-04-30","id":"133lld1","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I Think I Could Hypothetically Date An Anti-Theist","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/133lld1/cmv_i_think_i_could_hypothetically_date_an/"},{"author":"physioworld","body":"If he thinks it would be impossible to date an anti theist, he probably has a lot of incorrect assumptions about anti theists, like perhaps he’s one of those people who thinks you can’t be a moral person without religion.","date":"2023-04-30","id":"jian8fn","parent_id":"133lld1","score":3,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"AbiLovesTheology","body":"in my religion class, one of my modules is about interfaith dialogue, where we think about topics from the perspective of people from different religions as well as atheists.\n\nOne of the subtopics is interfaith relationships, and I casually brought up the topic of me hypothetically dating an antitheist. I say hypothetically because I am asexual and aromantic.\n\nMy professor was quite surprised about me bringing this up, and he mentioned there could be a clash of values that could cause conflict within the relationship. I’m Hindu.\n\nThis confused me. I looked up a list of values after class and identified mine. I thought about my values a bit more. I’m not entirely comfortable dating a meat eater. I value calm people and positive people. I value people who tell the truth etc. I wouldn’t date a meat eater, but there are likely vegetarian anti theists.\n\n \nDefinition of an anti theist: Actively opposes a belief in gods of any sort and to institutions built around belief in a deity. They believe that religion is harmful to individuals and society and that it impedes scientific progress and encourages immoral acts.\n\nCMV that I could date an anti theist, because my professor says it’s highly unlikely we would get on and I want to understand why he thinks that. A lot of my friends think that too.","date":"2023-04-30","id":"133lld1","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I Think I Could Hypothetically Date An Anti-Theist","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/133lld1/cmv_i_think_i_could_hypothetically_date_an/"},{"author":"CoriolisInSoup","body":"Too many people conflate their beliefs with their identity. Instead of saying \"I don't believe in a god\" they would say \"I AM an atheist\". \n\nIf your identity is anti-theist, then why would you date a theist? It's like a jihadist dating a north american (crusader). \n\nThat said, I tend to oppose religion in most of its forms and deny the existence of a god, and my wife believes in god, spirits and prayer, so it depends on how much you consider your beliefs your identity.","date":"2023-04-30","id":"jibowra","parent_id":"133lld1","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"AbiLovesTheology","body":"in my religion class, one of my modules is about interfaith dialogue, where we think about topics from the perspective of people from different religions as well as atheists.\n\nOne of the subtopics is interfaith relationships, and I casually brought up the topic of me hypothetically dating an antitheist. I say hypothetically because I am asexual and aromantic.\n\nMy professor was quite surprised about me bringing this up, and he mentioned there could be a clash of values that could cause conflict within the relationship. I’m Hindu.\n\nThis confused me. I looked up a list of values after class and identified mine. I thought about my values a bit more. I’m not entirely comfortable dating a meat eater. I value calm people and positive people. I value people who tell the truth etc. I wouldn’t date a meat eater, but there are likely vegetarian anti theists.\n\n \nDefinition of an anti theist: Actively opposes a belief in gods of any sort and to institutions built around belief in a deity. They believe that religion is harmful to individuals and society and that it impedes scientific progress and encourages immoral acts.\n\nCMV that I could date an anti theist, because my professor says it’s highly unlikely we would get on and I want to understand why he thinks that. A lot of my friends think that too.","date":"2023-04-30","id":"133lld1","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I Think I Could Hypothetically Date An Anti-Theist","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/133lld1/cmv_i_think_i_could_hypothetically_date_an/"},{"author":"mourningWank","body":"I am an anti-thiest and I wouldn't be with a religious person because I would potentially be making religious children(adding to the problem), and I struggle with the idea of spending the rest of my life with someone who believes early human fantasy literature is the way to live your life. \n\nI believe in religious freedoms because I believe it takes time for humanity to reach a point where they don't need early human fantasy literature to make sense of the world, BUT what I tolerate in the world at large is drastically different from what I would tolerate in my family unit","date":"2023-04-30","id":"jic6ko0","parent_id":"133lld1","score":3,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"AbiLovesTheology","body":"What if the person interpreted a lot of the stories as metaphors (not literally true) and didn't wan't children/couldn't have them?","date":"2023-04-30","id":"jicfvkj","parent_id":"jic6ko0","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"AbiLovesTheology","body":"in my religion class, one of my modules is about interfaith dialogue, where we think about topics from the perspective of people from different religions as well as atheists.\n\nOne of the subtopics is interfaith relationships, and I casually brought up the topic of me hypothetically dating an antitheist. I say hypothetically because I am asexual and aromantic.\n\nMy professor was quite surprised about me bringing this up, and he mentioned there could be a clash of values that could cause conflict within the relationship. I’m Hindu.\n\nThis confused me. I looked up a list of values after class and identified mine. I thought about my values a bit more. I’m not entirely comfortable dating a meat eater. I value calm people and positive people. I value people who tell the truth etc. I wouldn’t date a meat eater, but there are likely vegetarian anti theists.\n\n \nDefinition of an anti theist: Actively opposes a belief in gods of any sort and to institutions built around belief in a deity. They believe that religion is harmful to individuals and society and that it impedes scientific progress and encourages immoral acts.\n\nCMV that I could date an anti theist, because my professor says it’s highly unlikely we would get on and I want to understand why he thinks that. A lot of my friends think that too.","date":"2023-04-30","id":"133lld1","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I Think I Could Hypothetically Date An Anti-Theist","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/133lld1/cmv_i_think_i_could_hypothetically_date_an/"},{"author":"George_Askeladd","body":"Sorry but anti-theists usually won't date religious people. It clashes with our beliefs and it's really hard to date someone who believes in something as silly as the easter bunny. And there's also always the fear that their religiousness will get stronger, that they'll try to convert us or indoctrinate our kids. And the parents are also an issue because I really don't want strongly religious parents going after me because I'm not religious. Especially in muslim families, the parents are often very rude to their child's partner if said partner isn't religious. \nI just like to stay as far away from religion as possible.","date":"2023-05-14","id":"jk3y1rw","parent_id":"133lld1","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"AbiLovesTheology","body":"My parents aren't religious at all. Why is it hard to date people who believe in silly things? I would never try to convert anyone.","date":"2023-05-14","id":"jk4594b","parent_id":"jk3y1rw","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}]],"string":"[\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"AbiLovesTheology\",\n \"body\": \"in my religion class, one of my modules is about interfaith dialogue, where we think about topics from the perspective of people from different religions as well as atheists.\\n\\nOne of the subtopics is interfaith relationships, and I casually brought up the topic of me hypothetically dating an antitheist. I say hypothetically because I am asexual and aromantic.\\n\\nMy professor was quite surprised about me bringing this up, and he mentioned there could be a clash of values that could cause conflict within the relationship. I’m Hindu.\\n\\nThis confused me. I looked up a list of values after class and identified mine. I thought about my values a bit more. I’m not entirely comfortable dating a meat eater. I value calm people and positive people. I value people who tell the truth etc. I wouldn’t date a meat eater, but there are likely vegetarian anti theists.\\n\\n \\nDefinition of an anti theist: Actively opposes a belief in gods of any sort and to institutions built around belief in a deity. They believe that religion is harmful to individuals and society and that it impedes scientific progress and encourages immoral acts.\\n\\nCMV that I could date an anti theist, because my professor says it’s highly unlikely we would get on and I want to understand why he thinks that. A lot of my friends think that too.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-30\",\n \"id\": \"133lld1\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I Think I Could Hypothetically Date An Anti-Theist\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/133lld1/cmv_i_think_i_could_hypothetically_date_an/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CryptidGrimnoir\",\n \"body\": \"Every single faith that I can think of forbids its faithful adherents from entering romantic relationships with non-believers. I acknowledge that you've said you're aromantic, but let's replace \\\"romantic\\\" with \\\"committed\\\" for the sake of discussion.\\n\\nWith that in mind, why would you even *want* to have such a relationship with someone who thinks so little of what's a large part of your life?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-30\",\n \"id\": \"jiagdyk\",\n \"parent_id\": \"133lld1\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"AbiLovesTheology\",\n \"body\": \"Not true in Hinduism to my knowledge.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-30\",\n \"id\": \"jiagoj8\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jiagdyk\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"AbiLovesTheology\",\n \"body\": \"in my religion class, one of my modules is about interfaith dialogue, where we think about topics from the perspective of people from different religions as well as atheists.\\n\\nOne of the subtopics is interfaith relationships, and I casually brought up the topic of me hypothetically dating an antitheist. I say hypothetically because I am asexual and aromantic.\\n\\nMy professor was quite surprised about me bringing this up, and he mentioned there could be a clash of values that could cause conflict within the relationship. I’m Hindu.\\n\\nThis confused me. I looked up a list of values after class and identified mine. I thought about my values a bit more. I’m not entirely comfortable dating a meat eater. I value calm people and positive people. I value people who tell the truth etc. I wouldn’t date a meat eater, but there are likely vegetarian anti theists.\\n\\n \\nDefinition of an anti theist: Actively opposes a belief in gods of any sort and to institutions built around belief in a deity. They believe that religion is harmful to individuals and society and that it impedes scientific progress and encourages immoral acts.\\n\\nCMV that I could date an anti theist, because my professor says it’s highly unlikely we would get on and I want to understand why he thinks that. A lot of my friends think that too.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-30\",\n \"id\": \"133lld1\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I Think I Could Hypothetically Date An Anti-Theist\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/133lld1/cmv_i_think_i_could_hypothetically_date_an/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"dale_glass\",\n \"body\": \"I think this is impossible to disprove, because really nothing stops being people from being illogical, hypocritical, self-destructive or suicidal.\\n\\nYou can go as far as you like in that direction. Eg, could you go on a date with a serial murderer that targets your particular type and expressed the desire to kill you in particular? Obviously yes. It'd very likely end very badly, but you still could do it.\\n\\nI think you need to narrow down the view so that there might be something to argue about. Maybe add \\\"and enjoy it\\\", or \\\"have a successful marriage\\\", or something along those lines.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-30\",\n \"id\": \"jiah3wv\",\n \"parent_id\": \"133lld1\",\n \"score\": 7,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"AbiLovesTheology\",\n \"body\": \"in my religion class, one of my modules is about interfaith dialogue, where we think about topics from the perspective of people from different religions as well as atheists.\\n\\nOne of the subtopics is interfaith relationships, and I casually brought up the topic of me hypothetically dating an antitheist. I say hypothetically because I am asexual and aromantic.\\n\\nMy professor was quite surprised about me bringing this up, and he mentioned there could be a clash of values that could cause conflict within the relationship. I’m Hindu.\\n\\nThis confused me. I looked up a list of values after class and identified mine. I thought about my values a bit more. I’m not entirely comfortable dating a meat eater. I value calm people and positive people. I value people who tell the truth etc. I wouldn’t date a meat eater, but there are likely vegetarian anti theists.\\n\\n \\nDefinition of an anti theist: Actively opposes a belief in gods of any sort and to institutions built around belief in a deity. They believe that religion is harmful to individuals and society and that it impedes scientific progress and encourages immoral acts.\\n\\nCMV that I could date an anti theist, because my professor says it’s highly unlikely we would get on and I want to understand why he thinks that. A lot of my friends think that too.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-30\",\n \"id\": \"133lld1\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I Think I Could Hypothetically Date An Anti-Theist\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/133lld1/cmv_i_think_i_could_hypothetically_date_an/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Best-Analysis4401\",\n \"body\": \"Abi, the fact that your continual passion is understanding the theology of people (I realise not just by your name, but I recognise it from the activity you've had on here in the past), how do you think you'll go with someone who wants to see theology silent?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-30\",\n \"id\": \"jiahet7\",\n \"parent_id\": \"133lld1\",\n \"score\": 4,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"AbiLovesTheology\",\n \"body\": \"Fine. Not every one in a relationship likes or studies the same subject as their partner. For example, I have known people who hate maths date mathematicians, not irl but online.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-30\",\n \"id\": \"jiai4vi\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jiahet7\",\n \"score\": 3,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"AbiLovesTheology\",\n \"body\": \"in my religion class, one of my modules is about interfaith dialogue, where we think about topics from the perspective of people from different religions as well as atheists.\\n\\nOne of the subtopics is interfaith relationships, and I casually brought up the topic of me hypothetically dating an antitheist. I say hypothetically because I am asexual and aromantic.\\n\\nMy professor was quite surprised about me bringing this up, and he mentioned there could be a clash of values that could cause conflict within the relationship. I’m Hindu.\\n\\nThis confused me. I looked up a list of values after class and identified mine. I thought about my values a bit more. I’m not entirely comfortable dating a meat eater. I value calm people and positive people. I value people who tell the truth etc. I wouldn’t date a meat eater, but there are likely vegetarian anti theists.\\n\\n \\nDefinition of an anti theist: Actively opposes a belief in gods of any sort and to institutions built around belief in a deity. They believe that religion is harmful to individuals and society and that it impedes scientific progress and encourages immoral acts.\\n\\nCMV that I could date an anti theist, because my professor says it’s highly unlikely we would get on and I want to understand why he thinks that. A lot of my friends think that too.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-30\",\n \"id\": \"133lld1\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I Think I Could Hypothetically Date An Anti-Theist\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/133lld1/cmv_i_think_i_could_hypothetically_date_an/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"figsbar\",\n \"body\": \"You haven't given any reasons you think you would get along\\n\\nCould you describe how you believe you would interact in this hypothetical relationship?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-30\",\n \"id\": \"jiahvzh\",\n \"parent_id\": \"133lld1\",\n \"score\": 5,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"AbiLovesTheology\",\n \"body\": \"Well, if we had kids we would raise then secularly, go to anti theist conferences, go to debates etc. We would not discuss anything pro Hindu.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-30\",\n \"id\": \"jiai1cu\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jiahvzh\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"AbiLovesTheology\",\n \"body\": \"in my religion class, one of my modules is about interfaith dialogue, where we think about topics from the perspective of people from different religions as well as atheists.\\n\\nOne of the subtopics is interfaith relationships, and I casually brought up the topic of me hypothetically dating an antitheist. I say hypothetically because I am asexual and aromantic.\\n\\nMy professor was quite surprised about me bringing this up, and he mentioned there could be a clash of values that could cause conflict within the relationship. I’m Hindu.\\n\\nThis confused me. I looked up a list of values after class and identified mine. I thought about my values a bit more. I’m not entirely comfortable dating a meat eater. I value calm people and positive people. I value people who tell the truth etc. I wouldn’t date a meat eater, but there are likely vegetarian anti theists.\\n\\n \\nDefinition of an anti theist: Actively opposes a belief in gods of any sort and to institutions built around belief in a deity. They believe that religion is harmful to individuals and society and that it impedes scientific progress and encourages immoral acts.\\n\\nCMV that I could date an anti theist, because my professor says it’s highly unlikely we would get on and I want to understand why he thinks that. A lot of my friends think that too.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-30\",\n \"id\": \"133lld1\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I Think I Could Hypothetically Date An Anti-Theist\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/133lld1/cmv_i_think_i_could_hypothetically_date_an/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"NegativeOptimism\",\n \"body\": \"I think it depends on two things:\\n\\nPriorities: Are your religious values more important than your relationship? I think that unless you are in a relationship with your soulmate, the love of your life, it would be difficult to over-come constant conflict on important issues, especially when they pertain to big decisions like marriage and children. However, being able to have these discussions, overcome them and still love each other completely is proof of an extremely strong relationship.\\n\\nCompartmentalisation: Are you both able to isolate your religious life from your relationship? If you can both express your own faiths separately, then come back together and leave religious issues at the door, then a relationship can work. It's similar to how people separate their work and family lives, it's often the healthiest thing to do. If your religion needs to be a part of everything you do, then that separation might be impossible.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-30\",\n \"id\": \"jiain10\",\n \"parent_id\": \"133lld1\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"AbiLovesTheology\",\n \"body\": \"I think our values would be the same. And I am great and compartmentalisation. Do it all the time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-30\",\n \"id\": \"jiaizq3\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jiain10\",\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"AbiLovesTheology\",\n \"body\": \"in my religion class, one of my modules is about interfaith dialogue, where we think about topics from the perspective of people from different religions as well as atheists.\\n\\nOne of the subtopics is interfaith relationships, and I casually brought up the topic of me hypothetically dating an antitheist. I say hypothetically because I am asexual and aromantic.\\n\\nMy professor was quite surprised about me bringing this up, and he mentioned there could be a clash of values that could cause conflict within the relationship. I’m Hindu.\\n\\nThis confused me. I looked up a list of values after class and identified mine. I thought about my values a bit more. I’m not entirely comfortable dating a meat eater. I value calm people and positive people. I value people who tell the truth etc. I wouldn’t date a meat eater, but there are likely vegetarian anti theists.\\n\\n \\nDefinition of an anti theist: Actively opposes a belief in gods of any sort and to institutions built around belief in a deity. They believe that religion is harmful to individuals and society and that it impedes scientific progress and encourages immoral acts.\\n\\nCMV that I could date an anti theist, because my professor says it’s highly unlikely we would get on and I want to understand why he thinks that. A lot of my friends think that too.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-30\",\n \"id\": \"133lld1\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I Think I Could Hypothetically Date An Anti-Theist\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/133lld1/cmv_i_think_i_could_hypothetically_date_an/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"jumpup\",\n \"body\": \"the bigger issue is are you attractive enough to have the choice to date an anti theist, dating someone with incompatible beliefs isn't that odd, but there needs to be a reason why an anti theist would put up with you, and since you are still in school its unlikely going to to be a high salary\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-30\",\n \"id\": \"jiaivyf\",\n \"parent_id\": \"133lld1\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"AbiLovesTheology\",\n \"body\": \"Well, because we have compatible personalities and we both might love anime and travelling?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-30\",\n \"id\": \"jiajhsq\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jiaivyf\",\n \"score\": 3,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"AbiLovesTheology\",\n \"body\": \"in my religion class, one of my modules is about interfaith dialogue, where we think about topics from the perspective of people from different religions as well as atheists.\\n\\nOne of the subtopics is interfaith relationships, and I casually brought up the topic of me hypothetically dating an antitheist. I say hypothetically because I am asexual and aromantic.\\n\\nMy professor was quite surprised about me bringing this up, and he mentioned there could be a clash of values that could cause conflict within the relationship. I’m Hindu.\\n\\nThis confused me. I looked up a list of values after class and identified mine. I thought about my values a bit more. I’m not entirely comfortable dating a meat eater. I value calm people and positive people. I value people who tell the truth etc. I wouldn’t date a meat eater, but there are likely vegetarian anti theists.\\n\\n \\nDefinition of an anti theist: Actively opposes a belief in gods of any sort and to institutions built around belief in a deity. They believe that religion is harmful to individuals and society and that it impedes scientific progress and encourages immoral acts.\\n\\nCMV that I could date an anti theist, because my professor says it’s highly unlikely we would get on and I want to understand why he thinks that. A lot of my friends think that too.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-30\",\n \"id\": \"133lld1\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I Think I Could Hypothetically Date An Anti-Theist\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/133lld1/cmv_i_think_i_could_hypothetically_date_an/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CeilingFanUpThere\",\n \"body\": \"A person's belief system does not tell you about how respectful or mature they are. For a relationship, it's about the individual and how respectful and trustworthy and caring they are.\\n\\nI think that if you yourself think a relationship and raising kids with a particular anti-theist could work, it likely would. I understand that it's actually hypothetical for you, though.\\n\\nThis also applies to relationships between people who eat different diets.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-30\",\n \"id\": \"jiaksut\",\n \"parent_id\": \"133lld1\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"AbiLovesTheology\",\n \"body\": \"in my religion class, one of my modules is about interfaith dialogue, where we think about topics from the perspective of people from different religions as well as atheists.\\n\\nOne of the subtopics is interfaith relationships, and I casually brought up the topic of me hypothetically dating an antitheist. I say hypothetically because I am asexual and aromantic.\\n\\nMy professor was quite surprised about me bringing this up, and he mentioned there could be a clash of values that could cause conflict within the relationship. I’m Hindu.\\n\\nThis confused me. I looked up a list of values after class and identified mine. I thought about my values a bit more. I’m not entirely comfortable dating a meat eater. I value calm people and positive people. I value people who tell the truth etc. I wouldn’t date a meat eater, but there are likely vegetarian anti theists.\\n\\n \\nDefinition of an anti theist: Actively opposes a belief in gods of any sort and to institutions built around belief in a deity. They believe that religion is harmful to individuals and society and that it impedes scientific progress and encourages immoral acts.\\n\\nCMV that I could date an anti theist, because my professor says it’s highly unlikely we would get on and I want to understand why he thinks that. A lot of my friends think that too.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-30\",\n \"id\": \"133lld1\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I Think I Could Hypothetically Date An Anti-Theist\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/133lld1/cmv_i_think_i_could_hypothetically_date_an/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Sufficient-Jicama936\",\n \"body\": \"Hm I don't know\\n\\nI'm sort of an anti theist myself. I don't know much about Hinduism, but I know that I would never date a Catholic because the blood drinking thing feels evil to me and I don't want to be around people in a creepy cult. \\n\\nI assume you're not drinking anyone's blood in Hinduism but I also know a lot of religions sprinkle in little bits of poison here and there into their philosophies that I do find really concerning. I think I'd be afraid of someone who follows blindly a predetermined notion about the world like that. \\n\\nHm we could probably still get along, but I'd still be a little scared of u\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-30\",\n \"id\": \"jiamuiy\",\n \"parent_id\": \"133lld1\",\n \"score\": 3,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"AbiLovesTheology\",\n \"body\": \"in my religion class, one of my modules is about interfaith dialogue, where we think about topics from the perspective of people from different religions as well as atheists.\\n\\nOne of the subtopics is interfaith relationships, and I casually brought up the topic of me hypothetically dating an antitheist. I say hypothetically because I am asexual and aromantic.\\n\\nMy professor was quite surprised about me bringing this up, and he mentioned there could be a clash of values that could cause conflict within the relationship. I’m Hindu.\\n\\nThis confused me. I looked up a list of values after class and identified mine. I thought about my values a bit more. I’m not entirely comfortable dating a meat eater. I value calm people and positive people. I value people who tell the truth etc. I wouldn’t date a meat eater, but there are likely vegetarian anti theists.\\n\\n \\nDefinition of an anti theist: Actively opposes a belief in gods of any sort and to institutions built around belief in a deity. They believe that religion is harmful to individuals and society and that it impedes scientific progress and encourages immoral acts.\\n\\nCMV that I could date an anti theist, because my professor says it’s highly unlikely we would get on and I want to understand why he thinks that. A lot of my friends think that too.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-30\",\n \"id\": \"133lld1\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I Think I Could Hypothetically Date An Anti-Theist\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/133lld1/cmv_i_think_i_could_hypothetically_date_an/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"physioworld\",\n \"body\": \"If he thinks it would be impossible to date an anti theist, he probably has a lot of incorrect assumptions about anti theists, like perhaps he’s one of those people who thinks you can’t be a moral person without religion.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-30\",\n \"id\": \"jian8fn\",\n \"parent_id\": \"133lld1\",\n \"score\": 3,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"AbiLovesTheology\",\n \"body\": \"in my religion class, one of my modules is about interfaith dialogue, where we think about topics from the perspective of people from different religions as well as atheists.\\n\\nOne of the subtopics is interfaith relationships, and I casually brought up the topic of me hypothetically dating an antitheist. I say hypothetically because I am asexual and aromantic.\\n\\nMy professor was quite surprised about me bringing this up, and he mentioned there could be a clash of values that could cause conflict within the relationship. I’m Hindu.\\n\\nThis confused me. I looked up a list of values after class and identified mine. I thought about my values a bit more. I’m not entirely comfortable dating a meat eater. I value calm people and positive people. I value people who tell the truth etc. I wouldn’t date a meat eater, but there are likely vegetarian anti theists.\\n\\n \\nDefinition of an anti theist: Actively opposes a belief in gods of any sort and to institutions built around belief in a deity. They believe that religion is harmful to individuals and society and that it impedes scientific progress and encourages immoral acts.\\n\\nCMV that I could date an anti theist, because my professor says it’s highly unlikely we would get on and I want to understand why he thinks that. A lot of my friends think that too.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-30\",\n \"id\": \"133lld1\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I Think I Could Hypothetically Date An Anti-Theist\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/133lld1/cmv_i_think_i_could_hypothetically_date_an/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CoriolisInSoup\",\n \"body\": \"Too many people conflate their beliefs with their identity. Instead of saying \\\"I don't believe in a god\\\" they would say \\\"I AM an atheist\\\". \\n\\nIf your identity is anti-theist, then why would you date a theist? It's like a jihadist dating a north american (crusader). \\n\\nThat said, I tend to oppose religion in most of its forms and deny the existence of a god, and my wife believes in god, spirits and prayer, so it depends on how much you consider your beliefs your identity.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-30\",\n \"id\": \"jibowra\",\n \"parent_id\": \"133lld1\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"AbiLovesTheology\",\n \"body\": \"in my religion class, one of my modules is about interfaith dialogue, where we think about topics from the perspective of people from different religions as well as atheists.\\n\\nOne of the subtopics is interfaith relationships, and I casually brought up the topic of me hypothetically dating an antitheist. I say hypothetically because I am asexual and aromantic.\\n\\nMy professor was quite surprised about me bringing this up, and he mentioned there could be a clash of values that could cause conflict within the relationship. I’m Hindu.\\n\\nThis confused me. I looked up a list of values after class and identified mine. I thought about my values a bit more. I’m not entirely comfortable dating a meat eater. I value calm people and positive people. I value people who tell the truth etc. I wouldn’t date a meat eater, but there are likely vegetarian anti theists.\\n\\n \\nDefinition of an anti theist: Actively opposes a belief in gods of any sort and to institutions built around belief in a deity. They believe that religion is harmful to individuals and society and that it impedes scientific progress and encourages immoral acts.\\n\\nCMV that I could date an anti theist, because my professor says it’s highly unlikely we would get on and I want to understand why he thinks that. A lot of my friends think that too.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-30\",\n \"id\": \"133lld1\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I Think I Could Hypothetically Date An Anti-Theist\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/133lld1/cmv_i_think_i_could_hypothetically_date_an/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"mourningWank\",\n \"body\": \"I am an anti-thiest and I wouldn't be with a religious person because I would potentially be making religious children(adding to the problem), and I struggle with the idea of spending the rest of my life with someone who believes early human fantasy literature is the way to live your life. \\n\\nI believe in religious freedoms because I believe it takes time for humanity to reach a point where they don't need early human fantasy literature to make sense of the world, BUT what I tolerate in the world at large is drastically different from what I would tolerate in my family unit\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-30\",\n \"id\": \"jic6ko0\",\n \"parent_id\": \"133lld1\",\n \"score\": 3,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"AbiLovesTheology\",\n \"body\": \"What if the person interpreted a lot of the stories as metaphors (not literally true) and didn't wan't children/couldn't have them?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-30\",\n \"id\": \"jicfvkj\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jic6ko0\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"AbiLovesTheology\",\n \"body\": \"in my religion class, one of my modules is about interfaith dialogue, where we think about topics from the perspective of people from different religions as well as atheists.\\n\\nOne of the subtopics is interfaith relationships, and I casually brought up the topic of me hypothetically dating an antitheist. I say hypothetically because I am asexual and aromantic.\\n\\nMy professor was quite surprised about me bringing this up, and he mentioned there could be a clash of values that could cause conflict within the relationship. I’m Hindu.\\n\\nThis confused me. I looked up a list of values after class and identified mine. I thought about my values a bit more. I’m not entirely comfortable dating a meat eater. I value calm people and positive people. I value people who tell the truth etc. I wouldn’t date a meat eater, but there are likely vegetarian anti theists.\\n\\n \\nDefinition of an anti theist: Actively opposes a belief in gods of any sort and to institutions built around belief in a deity. They believe that religion is harmful to individuals and society and that it impedes scientific progress and encourages immoral acts.\\n\\nCMV that I could date an anti theist, because my professor says it’s highly unlikely we would get on and I want to understand why he thinks that. A lot of my friends think that too.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-04-30\",\n \"id\": \"133lld1\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I Think I Could Hypothetically Date An Anti-Theist\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/133lld1/cmv_i_think_i_could_hypothetically_date_an/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"George_Askeladd\",\n \"body\": \"Sorry but anti-theists usually won't date religious people. It clashes with our beliefs and it's really hard to date someone who believes in something as silly as the easter bunny. And there's also always the fear that their religiousness will get stronger, that they'll try to convert us or indoctrinate our kids. And the parents are also an issue because I really don't want strongly religious parents going after me because I'm not religious. Especially in muslim families, the parents are often very rude to their child's partner if said partner isn't religious. \\nI just like to stay as far away from religion as possible.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-14\",\n \"id\": \"jk3y1rw\",\n \"parent_id\": \"133lld1\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"AbiLovesTheology\",\n \"body\": \"My parents aren't religious at all. Why is it hard to date people who believe in silly things? I would never try to convert anyone.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-14\",\n \"id\": \"jk4594b\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jk3y1rw\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ]\n]","isConversational":false},"2":{"kind":"string","value":"challenge"}}},{"rowIdx":42,"cells":{"0":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"author":"stilltilting","body":"I've been thinking about this for awhile. First off, I don't like being asked for my pronouns. For that matter, I don't like being asked for any identifiers. Age. Ethnicity. Religion. Gender. Address. I don't even like giving out my name. I don't particularly like being called by my name. And I really hate any honorifics like Mr, Mrs, Ms, Dr, Professor, etc. There are probably lots of reasons for this, but mostly I don't like being put in a \"box.\" I don't like people knowing much if anything about me or having a lot of preconceived notions/biases about me before we even speak to one another. I want them to come to the encounter as free of those as possible and I try to go into each new encounter the same way.\n\nSo lots of forms ask you for these things. Some workplaces now make you put pronouns in your email signature. And whenever I get asked that question in some stupid ice breaker thing or via a form my GUT tells wants to blurt out \"who/whom\" pretty much every time. It just feels right.\n\nWhy does it feel right? Maybe because no identifiers feel right to me so leaving them open, vague, or as basically an open question feels right. If anything I think the Buddhist idea of anatman, having no permanent, abiding essence is as close to a dogma of self as I'd be willing to embrace. I'm very creative and love acting and writing and can play and write from the points of view of characters who are very different from how most others would identify me just on sight. And I feel like every character I play or write is in many ways \"truly me\". And yet not.\n\nI also tend to find most of our human existence and human categories a tad absurd. And what would be more absurd than being able to make other people refer to me with the indefinite/interrogative pronouns? Who is taking the lead on the project? Yes. Whose pencil is this? No, not whose, it's hers. What? I just love the chaos and laughter that would be caused by it.\n\nAnd yet, I want this view changed because I think if I actually start doing it, it will just get me in trouble. I think people who really care about the pronoun thing are going to think I'm making fun of them or their concerns or somehow not taking it seriously. I think those who are irrationally angry about being asked for pronouns are either going to mistakenly think I'm on their side trying to expose how ridiculous it is or just ignore my request cause I couldn't seriously expect them to use THOSE pronouns. And obviously it makes communication harder, not easier because 3rd person pronouns are really for OTHER people to identify me to other other people so shouldn't they just use whatever pronouns work best to do that?\n\nI want this view changed cause I think if I actually put this on a job application or an email signature or an audition form even that it would just be a personal detriment and serve no real purpose other than to get me ostracized by both \"sides\" of the great pronoun war and everyone who else who is sick of it at the same time.\n\nAnd yet--it's the only set of pronouns that feels right to me. Has nothing to do with gender, really. And maybe I want to expand the challenge to identity even further. Maybe the point is we need to find that which is universally human if we are to reconnect one with another and stop being so lonely and at each other's throats. So ummm...yeah.\n\nCMV: I should start saying/writing that my pronouns are who/whom/whose whenever I am given that choice to make.\n\n**EDIT: Thanks to** u/sirlafemme **and others for a clarifying conversation below. After those conversations, want to add this edit:**\n\nI will say that the whole thing probably makes me uncomfortable because while I'm not usually uncomfortable with gender identity per se, I have a whole lot of issues around identity more generally. My issue is mainly I don't like being asked to \"pick\" because I want to be open in some ways to becoming whatever is needed at the moment. I really do like to find out about who I am speaking with first and then I will emphasize whatever parts of my own identity I think they will feel most comfortable with. And I guess that's part people pleasing and part fear of rejection.\n\nWhich is weird because I'm not usually afraid to stand up for something. Even an unpopular something. But I'm much more comfortable with standing up for an IDEA than for my SELF. And maybe the pronoun thing makes me profoundly uncomfortable because I feel like it's throwing a question onto me about my SELF, publicly in a way I have a choice and in a way that could say something about how I view that SELF. And I'm not ready for that kind of SELF-disclosure right up front when these kinds of questions are usually asked.\n\nOther questions bother me a little less because they could be seen as \"facts\". Like if the ice breaker is \"where were you born\" or \"where are you from/where do you live\" I'm not making a choice or saying I identify with or don't identify with the place I was born.\n\nAnd lastly, when I am uncomfortable with something and don't like showing I'm uncomfortable with something my first and only remotely healthy coping mechanism is humor. Trying to be funny/absurd or trying to brush it off with an out of the box and kind of ridiculous answer is my way of deflecting and getting out of the box. But I don't want to use that if it's going to make someone else potentially feel made fun OF.","date":"2023-05-21","id":"13oe4fz","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: If I Can Choose My Pronouns I'm Going to Go With Who/Whom/Whose","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13oe4fz/cmv_if_i_can_choose_my_pronouns_im_going_to_go/"},{"author":"Upset-Photo","body":"First, you aren't alone in not liking the three common options of he/him, she/her, and they/them. Many people have struggled with this, which is why some people now started the use a new pronoun Ze/Hir, or exclusively ask for the name to be used and avoid pronouns in general.\n\n​\n\nThe issue with using Who/Whom is that it's an existing pronoun that is used in a different way. It would be way to confusing and create sentences that don't make sense. Just as you aren't changing I to Who, we can not change he/she/it/they to who.","date":"2023-05-21","id":"jl429qq","parent_id":"13oe4fz","score":12,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"stilltilting","body":"I actually think that in English, anyway, which doesn't have gender as a necessary component of EVERY word in the language, just adopting one universal pronoun that everyone uses regardless of...well, anything...would be the most inclusive way to go. For awhile everyone would have to learn a single new word and then after that problem gone forever.\n\nSo !delta for suggesting as much and reminding me that would be an overall option. But if and until it is adopted, those of us who aren't comfortable with those three options still have to fill out those boxes with something. What do you suggest for that?","date":"2023-05-21","id":"jl44sao","parent_id":"jl429qq","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"DeltaBot","body":"Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/Upset-Photo ([17∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/Upset-Photo)).\n\n^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)","date":"2023-05-21","id":"jl44utt","parent_id":"jl44sao","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],"string":"[\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"I've been thinking about this for awhile. First off, I don't like being asked for my pronouns. For that matter, I don't like being asked for any identifiers. Age. Ethnicity. Religion. Gender. Address. I don't even like giving out my name. I don't particularly like being called by my name. And I really hate any honorifics like Mr, Mrs, Ms, Dr, Professor, etc. There are probably lots of reasons for this, but mostly I don't like being put in a \\\"box.\\\" I don't like people knowing much if anything about me or having a lot of preconceived notions/biases about me before we even speak to one another. I want them to come to the encounter as free of those as possible and I try to go into each new encounter the same way.\\n\\nSo lots of forms ask you for these things. Some workplaces now make you put pronouns in your email signature. And whenever I get asked that question in some stupid ice breaker thing or via a form my GUT tells wants to blurt out \\\"who/whom\\\" pretty much every time. It just feels right.\\n\\nWhy does it feel right? Maybe because no identifiers feel right to me so leaving them open, vague, or as basically an open question feels right. If anything I think the Buddhist idea of anatman, having no permanent, abiding essence is as close to a dogma of self as I'd be willing to embrace. I'm very creative and love acting and writing and can play and write from the points of view of characters who are very different from how most others would identify me just on sight. And I feel like every character I play or write is in many ways \\\"truly me\\\". And yet not.\\n\\nI also tend to find most of our human existence and human categories a tad absurd. And what would be more absurd than being able to make other people refer to me with the indefinite/interrogative pronouns? Who is taking the lead on the project? Yes. Whose pencil is this? No, not whose, it's hers. What? I just love the chaos and laughter that would be caused by it.\\n\\nAnd yet, I want this view changed because I think if I actually start doing it, it will just get me in trouble. I think people who really care about the pronoun thing are going to think I'm making fun of them or their concerns or somehow not taking it seriously. I think those who are irrationally angry about being asked for pronouns are either going to mistakenly think I'm on their side trying to expose how ridiculous it is or just ignore my request cause I couldn't seriously expect them to use THOSE pronouns. And obviously it makes communication harder, not easier because 3rd person pronouns are really for OTHER people to identify me to other other people so shouldn't they just use whatever pronouns work best to do that?\\n\\nI want this view changed cause I think if I actually put this on a job application or an email signature or an audition form even that it would just be a personal detriment and serve no real purpose other than to get me ostracized by both \\\"sides\\\" of the great pronoun war and everyone who else who is sick of it at the same time.\\n\\nAnd yet--it's the only set of pronouns that feels right to me. Has nothing to do with gender, really. And maybe I want to expand the challenge to identity even further. Maybe the point is we need to find that which is universally human if we are to reconnect one with another and stop being so lonely and at each other's throats. So ummm...yeah.\\n\\nCMV: I should start saying/writing that my pronouns are who/whom/whose whenever I am given that choice to make.\\n\\n**EDIT: Thanks to** u/sirlafemme **and others for a clarifying conversation below. After those conversations, want to add this edit:**\\n\\nI will say that the whole thing probably makes me uncomfortable because while I'm not usually uncomfortable with gender identity per se, I have a whole lot of issues around identity more generally. My issue is mainly I don't like being asked to \\\"pick\\\" because I want to be open in some ways to becoming whatever is needed at the moment. I really do like to find out about who I am speaking with first and then I will emphasize whatever parts of my own identity I think they will feel most comfortable with. And I guess that's part people pleasing and part fear of rejection.\\n\\nWhich is weird because I'm not usually afraid to stand up for something. Even an unpopular something. But I'm much more comfortable with standing up for an IDEA than for my SELF. And maybe the pronoun thing makes me profoundly uncomfortable because I feel like it's throwing a question onto me about my SELF, publicly in a way I have a choice and in a way that could say something about how I view that SELF. And I'm not ready for that kind of SELF-disclosure right up front when these kinds of questions are usually asked.\\n\\nOther questions bother me a little less because they could be seen as \\\"facts\\\". Like if the ice breaker is \\\"where were you born\\\" or \\\"where are you from/where do you live\\\" I'm not making a choice or saying I identify with or don't identify with the place I was born.\\n\\nAnd lastly, when I am uncomfortable with something and don't like showing I'm uncomfortable with something my first and only remotely healthy coping mechanism is humor. Trying to be funny/absurd or trying to brush it off with an out of the box and kind of ridiculous answer is my way of deflecting and getting out of the box. But I don't want to use that if it's going to make someone else potentially feel made fun OF.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-21\",\n \"id\": \"13oe4fz\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: If I Can Choose My Pronouns I'm Going to Go With Who/Whom/Whose\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13oe4fz/cmv_if_i_can_choose_my_pronouns_im_going_to_go/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Upset-Photo\",\n \"body\": \"First, you aren't alone in not liking the three common options of he/him, she/her, and they/them. Many people have struggled with this, which is why some people now started the use a new pronoun Ze/Hir, or exclusively ask for the name to be used and avoid pronouns in general.\\n\\n​\\n\\nThe issue with using Who/Whom is that it's an existing pronoun that is used in a different way. It would be way to confusing and create sentences that don't make sense. Just as you aren't changing I to Who, we can not change he/she/it/they to who.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-21\",\n \"id\": \"jl429qq\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13oe4fz\",\n \"score\": 12,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"I actually think that in English, anyway, which doesn't have gender as a necessary component of EVERY word in the language, just adopting one universal pronoun that everyone uses regardless of...well, anything...would be the most inclusive way to go. For awhile everyone would have to learn a single new word and then after that problem gone forever.\\n\\nSo !delta for suggesting as much and reminding me that would be an overall option. But if and until it is adopted, those of us who aren't comfortable with those three options still have to fill out those boxes with something. What do you suggest for that?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-21\",\n \"id\": \"jl44sao\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jl429qq\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"DeltaBot\",\n \"body\": \"Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/Upset-Photo ([17∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/Upset-Photo)).\\n\\n^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-21\",\n \"id\": \"jl44utt\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jl44sao\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n]","isConversational":false},"1":{"kind":"list like","value":[[{"author":"stilltilting","body":"I've been thinking about this for awhile. First off, I don't like being asked for my pronouns. For that matter, I don't like being asked for any identifiers. Age. Ethnicity. Religion. Gender. Address. I don't even like giving out my name. I don't particularly like being called by my name. And I really hate any honorifics like Mr, Mrs, Ms, Dr, Professor, etc. There are probably lots of reasons for this, but mostly I don't like being put in a \"box.\" I don't like people knowing much if anything about me or having a lot of preconceived notions/biases about me before we even speak to one another. I want them to come to the encounter as free of those as possible and I try to go into each new encounter the same way.\n\nSo lots of forms ask you for these things. Some workplaces now make you put pronouns in your email signature. And whenever I get asked that question in some stupid ice breaker thing or via a form my GUT tells wants to blurt out \"who/whom\" pretty much every time. It just feels right.\n\nWhy does it feel right? Maybe because no identifiers feel right to me so leaving them open, vague, or as basically an open question feels right. If anything I think the Buddhist idea of anatman, having no permanent, abiding essence is as close to a dogma of self as I'd be willing to embrace. I'm very creative and love acting and writing and can play and write from the points of view of characters who are very different from how most others would identify me just on sight. And I feel like every character I play or write is in many ways \"truly me\". And yet not.\n\nI also tend to find most of our human existence and human categories a tad absurd. And what would be more absurd than being able to make other people refer to me with the indefinite/interrogative pronouns? Who is taking the lead on the project? Yes. Whose pencil is this? No, not whose, it's hers. What? I just love the chaos and laughter that would be caused by it.\n\nAnd yet, I want this view changed because I think if I actually start doing it, it will just get me in trouble. I think people who really care about the pronoun thing are going to think I'm making fun of them or their concerns or somehow not taking it seriously. I think those who are irrationally angry about being asked for pronouns are either going to mistakenly think I'm on their side trying to expose how ridiculous it is or just ignore my request cause I couldn't seriously expect them to use THOSE pronouns. And obviously it makes communication harder, not easier because 3rd person pronouns are really for OTHER people to identify me to other other people so shouldn't they just use whatever pronouns work best to do that?\n\nI want this view changed cause I think if I actually put this on a job application or an email signature or an audition form even that it would just be a personal detriment and serve no real purpose other than to get me ostracized by both \"sides\" of the great pronoun war and everyone who else who is sick of it at the same time.\n\nAnd yet--it's the only set of pronouns that feels right to me. Has nothing to do with gender, really. And maybe I want to expand the challenge to identity even further. Maybe the point is we need to find that which is universally human if we are to reconnect one with another and stop being so lonely and at each other's throats. So ummm...yeah.\n\nCMV: I should start saying/writing that my pronouns are who/whom/whose whenever I am given that choice to make.\n\n**EDIT: Thanks to** u/sirlafemme **and others for a clarifying conversation below. After those conversations, want to add this edit:**\n\nI will say that the whole thing probably makes me uncomfortable because while I'm not usually uncomfortable with gender identity per se, I have a whole lot of issues around identity more generally. My issue is mainly I don't like being asked to \"pick\" because I want to be open in some ways to becoming whatever is needed at the moment. I really do like to find out about who I am speaking with first and then I will emphasize whatever parts of my own identity I think they will feel most comfortable with. And I guess that's part people pleasing and part fear of rejection.\n\nWhich is weird because I'm not usually afraid to stand up for something. Even an unpopular something. But I'm much more comfortable with standing up for an IDEA than for my SELF. And maybe the pronoun thing makes me profoundly uncomfortable because I feel like it's throwing a question onto me about my SELF, publicly in a way I have a choice and in a way that could say something about how I view that SELF. And I'm not ready for that kind of SELF-disclosure right up front when these kinds of questions are usually asked.\n\nOther questions bother me a little less because they could be seen as \"facts\". Like if the ice breaker is \"where were you born\" or \"where are you from/where do you live\" I'm not making a choice or saying I identify with or don't identify with the place I was born.\n\nAnd lastly, when I am uncomfortable with something and don't like showing I'm uncomfortable with something my first and only remotely healthy coping mechanism is humor. Trying to be funny/absurd or trying to brush it off with an out of the box and kind of ridiculous answer is my way of deflecting and getting out of the box. But I don't want to use that if it's going to make someone else potentially feel made fun OF.","date":"2023-05-21","id":"13oe4fz","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: If I Can Choose My Pronouns I'm Going to Go With Who/Whom/Whose","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13oe4fz/cmv_if_i_can_choose_my_pronouns_im_going_to_go/"},{"author":"anewleaf1234","body":"Using who will simply cause lots of complications. This is almost going to be like the Abbott and Costello bit. \n\nIf you are going to a presentation and someone asks about when you are going I will have to respond \"Who is going next.\" Which sounds like a question. Even though you want me to say it as a statement.","date":"2023-05-21","id":"jl3yjan","parent_id":"13oe4fz","score":4,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"stilltilting","body":"I think asking people to use a pronoun that isn't the first thing that comes into their mind already slows down communication and makes it more complicated. \n\nAnd every time someone replaces my name with my preferred pronouns, getting an Abbott and Costello routine sounds like a huge plus to me. That's one of my favorite comedy bits ever.","date":"2023-05-21","id":"jl3z0xe","parent_id":"jl3yjan","score":-4,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"stilltilting","body":"I've been thinking about this for awhile. First off, I don't like being asked for my pronouns. For that matter, I don't like being asked for any identifiers. Age. Ethnicity. Religion. Gender. Address. I don't even like giving out my name. I don't particularly like being called by my name. And I really hate any honorifics like Mr, Mrs, Ms, Dr, Professor, etc. There are probably lots of reasons for this, but mostly I don't like being put in a \"box.\" I don't like people knowing much if anything about me or having a lot of preconceived notions/biases about me before we even speak to one another. I want them to come to the encounter as free of those as possible and I try to go into each new encounter the same way.\n\nSo lots of forms ask you for these things. Some workplaces now make you put pronouns in your email signature. And whenever I get asked that question in some stupid ice breaker thing or via a form my GUT tells wants to blurt out \"who/whom\" pretty much every time. It just feels right.\n\nWhy does it feel right? Maybe because no identifiers feel right to me so leaving them open, vague, or as basically an open question feels right. If anything I think the Buddhist idea of anatman, having no permanent, abiding essence is as close to a dogma of self as I'd be willing to embrace. I'm very creative and love acting and writing and can play and write from the points of view of characters who are very different from how most others would identify me just on sight. And I feel like every character I play or write is in many ways \"truly me\". And yet not.\n\nI also tend to find most of our human existence and human categories a tad absurd. And what would be more absurd than being able to make other people refer to me with the indefinite/interrogative pronouns? Who is taking the lead on the project? Yes. Whose pencil is this? No, not whose, it's hers. What? I just love the chaos and laughter that would be caused by it.\n\nAnd yet, I want this view changed because I think if I actually start doing it, it will just get me in trouble. I think people who really care about the pronoun thing are going to think I'm making fun of them or their concerns or somehow not taking it seriously. I think those who are irrationally angry about being asked for pronouns are either going to mistakenly think I'm on their side trying to expose how ridiculous it is or just ignore my request cause I couldn't seriously expect them to use THOSE pronouns. And obviously it makes communication harder, not easier because 3rd person pronouns are really for OTHER people to identify me to other other people so shouldn't they just use whatever pronouns work best to do that?\n\nI want this view changed cause I think if I actually put this on a job application or an email signature or an audition form even that it would just be a personal detriment and serve no real purpose other than to get me ostracized by both \"sides\" of the great pronoun war and everyone who else who is sick of it at the same time.\n\nAnd yet--it's the only set of pronouns that feels right to me. Has nothing to do with gender, really. And maybe I want to expand the challenge to identity even further. Maybe the point is we need to find that which is universally human if we are to reconnect one with another and stop being so lonely and at each other's throats. So ummm...yeah.\n\nCMV: I should start saying/writing that my pronouns are who/whom/whose whenever I am given that choice to make.\n\n**EDIT: Thanks to** u/sirlafemme **and others for a clarifying conversation below. After those conversations, want to add this edit:**\n\nI will say that the whole thing probably makes me uncomfortable because while I'm not usually uncomfortable with gender identity per se, I have a whole lot of issues around identity more generally. My issue is mainly I don't like being asked to \"pick\" because I want to be open in some ways to becoming whatever is needed at the moment. I really do like to find out about who I am speaking with first and then I will emphasize whatever parts of my own identity I think they will feel most comfortable with. And I guess that's part people pleasing and part fear of rejection.\n\nWhich is weird because I'm not usually afraid to stand up for something. Even an unpopular something. But I'm much more comfortable with standing up for an IDEA than for my SELF. And maybe the pronoun thing makes me profoundly uncomfortable because I feel like it's throwing a question onto me about my SELF, publicly in a way I have a choice and in a way that could say something about how I view that SELF. And I'm not ready for that kind of SELF-disclosure right up front when these kinds of questions are usually asked.\n\nOther questions bother me a little less because they could be seen as \"facts\". Like if the ice breaker is \"where were you born\" or \"where are you from/where do you live\" I'm not making a choice or saying I identify with or don't identify with the place I was born.\n\nAnd lastly, when I am uncomfortable with something and don't like showing I'm uncomfortable with something my first and only remotely healthy coping mechanism is humor. Trying to be funny/absurd or trying to brush it off with an out of the box and kind of ridiculous answer is my way of deflecting and getting out of the box. But I don't want to use that if it's going to make someone else potentially feel made fun OF.","date":"2023-05-21","id":"13oe4fz","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: If I Can Choose My Pronouns I'm Going to Go With Who/Whom/Whose","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13oe4fz/cmv_if_i_can_choose_my_pronouns_im_going_to_go/"},{"author":"WaterboysWaterboy","body":"It would be to confusing. “ who went to the store”….” Who rote that paper”… it always sounds like a question. People will just end up always using your name when addressing you.","date":"2023-05-21","id":"jl3z8cv","parent_id":"13oe4fz","score":0,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"stilltilting","body":"I mean that would be fine with me. Except I don't like being called by name directly.","date":"2023-05-21","id":"jl3zm69","parent_id":"jl3z8cv","score":-1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"stilltilting","body":"I've been thinking about this for awhile. First off, I don't like being asked for my pronouns. For that matter, I don't like being asked for any identifiers. Age. Ethnicity. Religion. Gender. Address. I don't even like giving out my name. I don't particularly like being called by my name. And I really hate any honorifics like Mr, Mrs, Ms, Dr, Professor, etc. There are probably lots of reasons for this, but mostly I don't like being put in a \"box.\" I don't like people knowing much if anything about me or having a lot of preconceived notions/biases about me before we even speak to one another. I want them to come to the encounter as free of those as possible and I try to go into each new encounter the same way.\n\nSo lots of forms ask you for these things. Some workplaces now make you put pronouns in your email signature. And whenever I get asked that question in some stupid ice breaker thing or via a form my GUT tells wants to blurt out \"who/whom\" pretty much every time. It just feels right.\n\nWhy does it feel right? Maybe because no identifiers feel right to me so leaving them open, vague, or as basically an open question feels right. If anything I think the Buddhist idea of anatman, having no permanent, abiding essence is as close to a dogma of self as I'd be willing to embrace. I'm very creative and love acting and writing and can play and write from the points of view of characters who are very different from how most others would identify me just on sight. And I feel like every character I play or write is in many ways \"truly me\". And yet not.\n\nI also tend to find most of our human existence and human categories a tad absurd. And what would be more absurd than being able to make other people refer to me with the indefinite/interrogative pronouns? Who is taking the lead on the project? Yes. Whose pencil is this? No, not whose, it's hers. What? I just love the chaos and laughter that would be caused by it.\n\nAnd yet, I want this view changed because I think if I actually start doing it, it will just get me in trouble. I think people who really care about the pronoun thing are going to think I'm making fun of them or their concerns or somehow not taking it seriously. I think those who are irrationally angry about being asked for pronouns are either going to mistakenly think I'm on their side trying to expose how ridiculous it is or just ignore my request cause I couldn't seriously expect them to use THOSE pronouns. And obviously it makes communication harder, not easier because 3rd person pronouns are really for OTHER people to identify me to other other people so shouldn't they just use whatever pronouns work best to do that?\n\nI want this view changed cause I think if I actually put this on a job application or an email signature or an audition form even that it would just be a personal detriment and serve no real purpose other than to get me ostracized by both \"sides\" of the great pronoun war and everyone who else who is sick of it at the same time.\n\nAnd yet--it's the only set of pronouns that feels right to me. Has nothing to do with gender, really. And maybe I want to expand the challenge to identity even further. Maybe the point is we need to find that which is universally human if we are to reconnect one with another and stop being so lonely and at each other's throats. So ummm...yeah.\n\nCMV: I should start saying/writing that my pronouns are who/whom/whose whenever I am given that choice to make.\n\n**EDIT: Thanks to** u/sirlafemme **and others for a clarifying conversation below. After those conversations, want to add this edit:**\n\nI will say that the whole thing probably makes me uncomfortable because while I'm not usually uncomfortable with gender identity per se, I have a whole lot of issues around identity more generally. My issue is mainly I don't like being asked to \"pick\" because I want to be open in some ways to becoming whatever is needed at the moment. I really do like to find out about who I am speaking with first and then I will emphasize whatever parts of my own identity I think they will feel most comfortable with. And I guess that's part people pleasing and part fear of rejection.\n\nWhich is weird because I'm not usually afraid to stand up for something. Even an unpopular something. But I'm much more comfortable with standing up for an IDEA than for my SELF. And maybe the pronoun thing makes me profoundly uncomfortable because I feel like it's throwing a question onto me about my SELF, publicly in a way I have a choice and in a way that could say something about how I view that SELF. And I'm not ready for that kind of SELF-disclosure right up front when these kinds of questions are usually asked.\n\nOther questions bother me a little less because they could be seen as \"facts\". Like if the ice breaker is \"where were you born\" or \"where are you from/where do you live\" I'm not making a choice or saying I identify with or don't identify with the place I was born.\n\nAnd lastly, when I am uncomfortable with something and don't like showing I'm uncomfortable with something my first and only remotely healthy coping mechanism is humor. Trying to be funny/absurd or trying to brush it off with an out of the box and kind of ridiculous answer is my way of deflecting and getting out of the box. But I don't want to use that if it's going to make someone else potentially feel made fun OF.","date":"2023-05-21","id":"13oe4fz","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: If I Can Choose My Pronouns I'm Going to Go With Who/Whom/Whose","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13oe4fz/cmv_if_i_can_choose_my_pronouns_im_going_to_go/"},{"author":"mortusowo","body":">I also tend to find most of our human existence and human categories a tad absurd. And what would be more absurd than being able to make other people refer to me with the indefinite/interrogative pronouns? \n\nI think making a mockery of pronouns like this just for fun runs against what you say you want later in this post. Yes categories are absurd sometimes but they are just kinda part of our culture at this point. You're less likely to make a statement and more likely to have people think you're weird. \n\n>And yet, I want this view changed because I think if I actually start doing it, it will just get me in trouble. I think people who really care about the pronoun thing are going to think I'm making fun of them or their concerns or somehow not taking it seriously. I think those who are irrationally angry about being asked for pronouns are either going to mistakenly think I'm on their side trying to expose how ridiculous it is or just ignore my request cause I couldn't seriously expect them to use THOSE pronouns. And obviously it makes communication harder, not easier because 3rd person pronouns are really for OTHER people to identify me to other other people so shouldn't they just use whatever pronouns work best to do that?\n\n\nHonestly it's not only going to be confusing but I forsee most people just ignoring it. They rarely get typical pronouns right for trans people. Anything outside of he and she is unlikely to get adopted easily. You won't achieve even the chaos you describe wanting. Itll be nothing","date":"2023-05-21","id":"jl3zt7u","parent_id":"13oe4fz","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"stilltilting","body":"People probably think I'm weird already. I tend to prefer \"unique.\" Which is sort of the point here. I think individual people are unique. I think people can be called whatever they want to be called. And I think people can call me whatever I want. \n\nBut the issue is there are questions that put ME on the spot to define myself in a way that I really don't care to or want to or feel comfortable with. I honestly don't feel comfortable responding \"you must call me she/her or he/him or they/them.\" I don't like any of those choices. So do I just...pass? I think that gets taken the wrong way, too. As does saying \"call me whatever you want, I find it interesting to see what you think I am.\" Cause I sure as hell don't know the answer to that question and think that when you really self-reflect there isn't a great deal of certainty about human identity at all. We have modular brains made up of different parts that evolved at different times for different reasons and those minds are constantly evolving even in the same lifetime.","date":"2023-05-21","id":"jl40knn","parent_id":"jl3zt7u","score":0,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"stilltilting","body":"I've been thinking about this for awhile. First off, I don't like being asked for my pronouns. For that matter, I don't like being asked for any identifiers. Age. Ethnicity. Religion. Gender. Address. I don't even like giving out my name. I don't particularly like being called by my name. And I really hate any honorifics like Mr, Mrs, Ms, Dr, Professor, etc. There are probably lots of reasons for this, but mostly I don't like being put in a \"box.\" I don't like people knowing much if anything about me or having a lot of preconceived notions/biases about me before we even speak to one another. I want them to come to the encounter as free of those as possible and I try to go into each new encounter the same way.\n\nSo lots of forms ask you for these things. Some workplaces now make you put pronouns in your email signature. And whenever I get asked that question in some stupid ice breaker thing or via a form my GUT tells wants to blurt out \"who/whom\" pretty much every time. It just feels right.\n\nWhy does it feel right? Maybe because no identifiers feel right to me so leaving them open, vague, or as basically an open question feels right. If anything I think the Buddhist idea of anatman, having no permanent, abiding essence is as close to a dogma of self as I'd be willing to embrace. I'm very creative and love acting and writing and can play and write from the points of view of characters who are very different from how most others would identify me just on sight. And I feel like every character I play or write is in many ways \"truly me\". And yet not.\n\nI also tend to find most of our human existence and human categories a tad absurd. And what would be more absurd than being able to make other people refer to me with the indefinite/interrogative pronouns? Who is taking the lead on the project? Yes. Whose pencil is this? No, not whose, it's hers. What? I just love the chaos and laughter that would be caused by it.\n\nAnd yet, I want this view changed because I think if I actually start doing it, it will just get me in trouble. I think people who really care about the pronoun thing are going to think I'm making fun of them or their concerns or somehow not taking it seriously. I think those who are irrationally angry about being asked for pronouns are either going to mistakenly think I'm on their side trying to expose how ridiculous it is or just ignore my request cause I couldn't seriously expect them to use THOSE pronouns. And obviously it makes communication harder, not easier because 3rd person pronouns are really for OTHER people to identify me to other other people so shouldn't they just use whatever pronouns work best to do that?\n\nI want this view changed cause I think if I actually put this on a job application or an email signature or an audition form even that it would just be a personal detriment and serve no real purpose other than to get me ostracized by both \"sides\" of the great pronoun war and everyone who else who is sick of it at the same time.\n\nAnd yet--it's the only set of pronouns that feels right to me. Has nothing to do with gender, really. And maybe I want to expand the challenge to identity even further. Maybe the point is we need to find that which is universally human if we are to reconnect one with another and stop being so lonely and at each other's throats. So ummm...yeah.\n\nCMV: I should start saying/writing that my pronouns are who/whom/whose whenever I am given that choice to make.\n\n**EDIT: Thanks to** u/sirlafemme **and others for a clarifying conversation below. After those conversations, want to add this edit:**\n\nI will say that the whole thing probably makes me uncomfortable because while I'm not usually uncomfortable with gender identity per se, I have a whole lot of issues around identity more generally. My issue is mainly I don't like being asked to \"pick\" because I want to be open in some ways to becoming whatever is needed at the moment. I really do like to find out about who I am speaking with first and then I will emphasize whatever parts of my own identity I think they will feel most comfortable with. And I guess that's part people pleasing and part fear of rejection.\n\nWhich is weird because I'm not usually afraid to stand up for something. Even an unpopular something. But I'm much more comfortable with standing up for an IDEA than for my SELF. And maybe the pronoun thing makes me profoundly uncomfortable because I feel like it's throwing a question onto me about my SELF, publicly in a way I have a choice and in a way that could say something about how I view that SELF. And I'm not ready for that kind of SELF-disclosure right up front when these kinds of questions are usually asked.\n\nOther questions bother me a little less because they could be seen as \"facts\". Like if the ice breaker is \"where were you born\" or \"where are you from/where do you live\" I'm not making a choice or saying I identify with or don't identify with the place I was born.\n\nAnd lastly, when I am uncomfortable with something and don't like showing I'm uncomfortable with something my first and only remotely healthy coping mechanism is humor. Trying to be funny/absurd or trying to brush it off with an out of the box and kind of ridiculous answer is my way of deflecting and getting out of the box. But I don't want to use that if it's going to make someone else potentially feel made fun OF.","date":"2023-05-21","id":"13oe4fz","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: If I Can Choose My Pronouns I'm Going to Go With Who/Whom/Whose","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13oe4fz/cmv_if_i_can_choose_my_pronouns_im_going_to_go/"},{"author":"johnmeeks1974","body":"If you are making a statement against people using pronouns to be engaging in performative activism, why do you feel the need to fight fire with fire? My issue is not specifically with you but how our society confuses agitprop and stunts for actual dialogue and debate. The whole who/whom/whose thing sounds ready made for a TikTok or YouTube in which some unsuspecting person is roped into the social statement of the day. It goes viral and disappears like Roxie at the end of Chicago. I hear your frustration but you have the power to take a higher road than those you criticize","date":"2023-05-21","id":"jl402jo","parent_id":"13oe4fz","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"stilltilting","body":"Well that's just the thing. It's not performative activism at all. I honestly do feel most comfortable with that answer when asked the question. And isn't that the answer I am supposed to give?\n\nI'm not against, per se, asking people for their pronouns but I am against basically giving them only two choices. Three if you count the plural. I'm not trying to be sensational or an smart ass.","date":"2023-05-21","id":"jl40v1r","parent_id":"jl402jo","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"stilltilting","body":"I've been thinking about this for awhile. First off, I don't like being asked for my pronouns. For that matter, I don't like being asked for any identifiers. Age. Ethnicity. Religion. Gender. Address. I don't even like giving out my name. I don't particularly like being called by my name. And I really hate any honorifics like Mr, Mrs, Ms, Dr, Professor, etc. There are probably lots of reasons for this, but mostly I don't like being put in a \"box.\" I don't like people knowing much if anything about me or having a lot of preconceived notions/biases about me before we even speak to one another. I want them to come to the encounter as free of those as possible and I try to go into each new encounter the same way.\n\nSo lots of forms ask you for these things. Some workplaces now make you put pronouns in your email signature. And whenever I get asked that question in some stupid ice breaker thing or via a form my GUT tells wants to blurt out \"who/whom\" pretty much every time. It just feels right.\n\nWhy does it feel right? Maybe because no identifiers feel right to me so leaving them open, vague, or as basically an open question feels right. If anything I think the Buddhist idea of anatman, having no permanent, abiding essence is as close to a dogma of self as I'd be willing to embrace. I'm very creative and love acting and writing and can play and write from the points of view of characters who are very different from how most others would identify me just on sight. And I feel like every character I play or write is in many ways \"truly me\". And yet not.\n\nI also tend to find most of our human existence and human categories a tad absurd. And what would be more absurd than being able to make other people refer to me with the indefinite/interrogative pronouns? Who is taking the lead on the project? Yes. Whose pencil is this? No, not whose, it's hers. What? I just love the chaos and laughter that would be caused by it.\n\nAnd yet, I want this view changed because I think if I actually start doing it, it will just get me in trouble. I think people who really care about the pronoun thing are going to think I'm making fun of them or their concerns or somehow not taking it seriously. I think those who are irrationally angry about being asked for pronouns are either going to mistakenly think I'm on their side trying to expose how ridiculous it is or just ignore my request cause I couldn't seriously expect them to use THOSE pronouns. And obviously it makes communication harder, not easier because 3rd person pronouns are really for OTHER people to identify me to other other people so shouldn't they just use whatever pronouns work best to do that?\n\nI want this view changed cause I think if I actually put this on a job application or an email signature or an audition form even that it would just be a personal detriment and serve no real purpose other than to get me ostracized by both \"sides\" of the great pronoun war and everyone who else who is sick of it at the same time.\n\nAnd yet--it's the only set of pronouns that feels right to me. Has nothing to do with gender, really. And maybe I want to expand the challenge to identity even further. Maybe the point is we need to find that which is universally human if we are to reconnect one with another and stop being so lonely and at each other's throats. So ummm...yeah.\n\nCMV: I should start saying/writing that my pronouns are who/whom/whose whenever I am given that choice to make.\n\n**EDIT: Thanks to** u/sirlafemme **and others for a clarifying conversation below. After those conversations, want to add this edit:**\n\nI will say that the whole thing probably makes me uncomfortable because while I'm not usually uncomfortable with gender identity per se, I have a whole lot of issues around identity more generally. My issue is mainly I don't like being asked to \"pick\" because I want to be open in some ways to becoming whatever is needed at the moment. I really do like to find out about who I am speaking with first and then I will emphasize whatever parts of my own identity I think they will feel most comfortable with. And I guess that's part people pleasing and part fear of rejection.\n\nWhich is weird because I'm not usually afraid to stand up for something. Even an unpopular something. But I'm much more comfortable with standing up for an IDEA than for my SELF. And maybe the pronoun thing makes me profoundly uncomfortable because I feel like it's throwing a question onto me about my SELF, publicly in a way I have a choice and in a way that could say something about how I view that SELF. And I'm not ready for that kind of SELF-disclosure right up front when these kinds of questions are usually asked.\n\nOther questions bother me a little less because they could be seen as \"facts\". Like if the ice breaker is \"where were you born\" or \"where are you from/where do you live\" I'm not making a choice or saying I identify with or don't identify with the place I was born.\n\nAnd lastly, when I am uncomfortable with something and don't like showing I'm uncomfortable with something my first and only remotely healthy coping mechanism is humor. Trying to be funny/absurd or trying to brush it off with an out of the box and kind of ridiculous answer is my way of deflecting and getting out of the box. But I don't want to use that if it's going to make someone else potentially feel made fun OF.","date":"2023-05-21","id":"13oe4fz","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: If I Can Choose My Pronouns I'm Going to Go With Who/Whom/Whose","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13oe4fz/cmv_if_i_can_choose_my_pronouns_im_going_to_go/"},{"author":"Love_Shaq_Baby","body":"If you don't want to be categorized, why not just use they? Or he, she and they?\n\nThe issue with who/whom/whose is that these don't function as replacements for he/she they. If I say, for example, Who is over there, I can't phrase that in a way that doesn't sound like a question.\n\nAs you already acknowledged, its extremely confusing, to the point that practically no one will ever use \"who\" to refer to you. People will just use they.","date":"2023-05-21","id":"jl40dpl","parent_id":"13oe4fz","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"stilltilting","body":"Thank you for what feels like a more genuine response that takes the prompt in good faith. And it's made in good faith.\n\nThey/them maybe doesn't feel quite right because I at least have the initial reaction that it is typically used by people who have a certain kind of nonbinary conception of gender or something like that (that's a really bad description, just trying to grapple with the \"sense\" of how I feel its used) that doesn't really fit me. As in if I said my pronouns are they/them then people would just think I was trying to express a gender non-binary identity that maybe does or doesn't fit me? I'd like to follow this thread some more because my inability to fully answer your question from a \"gut level\" probably means we are onto something.\n\nJust not sure exactly what.","date":"2023-05-21","id":"jl41b51","parent_id":"jl40dpl","score":0,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"stilltilting","body":"I've been thinking about this for awhile. First off, I don't like being asked for my pronouns. For that matter, I don't like being asked for any identifiers. Age. Ethnicity. Religion. Gender. Address. I don't even like giving out my name. I don't particularly like being called by my name. And I really hate any honorifics like Mr, Mrs, Ms, Dr, Professor, etc. There are probably lots of reasons for this, but mostly I don't like being put in a \"box.\" I don't like people knowing much if anything about me or having a lot of preconceived notions/biases about me before we even speak to one another. I want them to come to the encounter as free of those as possible and I try to go into each new encounter the same way.\n\nSo lots of forms ask you for these things. Some workplaces now make you put pronouns in your email signature. And whenever I get asked that question in some stupid ice breaker thing or via a form my GUT tells wants to blurt out \"who/whom\" pretty much every time. It just feels right.\n\nWhy does it feel right? Maybe because no identifiers feel right to me so leaving them open, vague, or as basically an open question feels right. If anything I think the Buddhist idea of anatman, having no permanent, abiding essence is as close to a dogma of self as I'd be willing to embrace. I'm very creative and love acting and writing and can play and write from the points of view of characters who are very different from how most others would identify me just on sight. And I feel like every character I play or write is in many ways \"truly me\". And yet not.\n\nI also tend to find most of our human existence and human categories a tad absurd. And what would be more absurd than being able to make other people refer to me with the indefinite/interrogative pronouns? Who is taking the lead on the project? Yes. Whose pencil is this? No, not whose, it's hers. What? I just love the chaos and laughter that would be caused by it.\n\nAnd yet, I want this view changed because I think if I actually start doing it, it will just get me in trouble. I think people who really care about the pronoun thing are going to think I'm making fun of them or their concerns or somehow not taking it seriously. I think those who are irrationally angry about being asked for pronouns are either going to mistakenly think I'm on their side trying to expose how ridiculous it is or just ignore my request cause I couldn't seriously expect them to use THOSE pronouns. And obviously it makes communication harder, not easier because 3rd person pronouns are really for OTHER people to identify me to other other people so shouldn't they just use whatever pronouns work best to do that?\n\nI want this view changed cause I think if I actually put this on a job application or an email signature or an audition form even that it would just be a personal detriment and serve no real purpose other than to get me ostracized by both \"sides\" of the great pronoun war and everyone who else who is sick of it at the same time.\n\nAnd yet--it's the only set of pronouns that feels right to me. Has nothing to do with gender, really. And maybe I want to expand the challenge to identity even further. Maybe the point is we need to find that which is universally human if we are to reconnect one with another and stop being so lonely and at each other's throats. So ummm...yeah.\n\nCMV: I should start saying/writing that my pronouns are who/whom/whose whenever I am given that choice to make.\n\n**EDIT: Thanks to** u/sirlafemme **and others for a clarifying conversation below. After those conversations, want to add this edit:**\n\nI will say that the whole thing probably makes me uncomfortable because while I'm not usually uncomfortable with gender identity per se, I have a whole lot of issues around identity more generally. My issue is mainly I don't like being asked to \"pick\" because I want to be open in some ways to becoming whatever is needed at the moment. I really do like to find out about who I am speaking with first and then I will emphasize whatever parts of my own identity I think they will feel most comfortable with. And I guess that's part people pleasing and part fear of rejection.\n\nWhich is weird because I'm not usually afraid to stand up for something. Even an unpopular something. But I'm much more comfortable with standing up for an IDEA than for my SELF. And maybe the pronoun thing makes me profoundly uncomfortable because I feel like it's throwing a question onto me about my SELF, publicly in a way I have a choice and in a way that could say something about how I view that SELF. And I'm not ready for that kind of SELF-disclosure right up front when these kinds of questions are usually asked.\n\nOther questions bother me a little less because they could be seen as \"facts\". Like if the ice breaker is \"where were you born\" or \"where are you from/where do you live\" I'm not making a choice or saying I identify with or don't identify with the place I was born.\n\nAnd lastly, when I am uncomfortable with something and don't like showing I'm uncomfortable with something my first and only remotely healthy coping mechanism is humor. Trying to be funny/absurd or trying to brush it off with an out of the box and kind of ridiculous answer is my way of deflecting and getting out of the box. But I don't want to use that if it's going to make someone else potentially feel made fun OF.","date":"2023-05-21","id":"13oe4fz","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: If I Can Choose My Pronouns I'm Going to Go With Who/Whom/Whose","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13oe4fz/cmv_if_i_can_choose_my_pronouns_im_going_to_go/"},{"author":"RIP_Greedo","body":"How often are you actually being asked about your pronouns that you’ve spent the time concocting this sly response?","date":"2023-05-21","id":"jl41tcb","parent_id":"13oe4fz","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"stilltilting","body":"Well in the past month alone I've filled out a number of job applications, audition forms, program/class enrollments and two new email signatures for organizational accounts and I would say about 80% of them had this line in it. \"Preferred pronouns: \\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\" and few had the option to leave it blank. So it has been on my mind a lot actually. \n\nAnd when I see it phrased in that way, as in \"What are your preferred pronouns?\" the answer that has been percolating deep within my psyche to the point that my fingers are ready to type it out every time now is \"who/whom/whose\" if I have to fill it out.","date":"2023-05-21","id":"jl44fc9","parent_id":"jl41tcb","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"stilltilting","body":"I've been thinking about this for awhile. First off, I don't like being asked for my pronouns. For that matter, I don't like being asked for any identifiers. Age. Ethnicity. Religion. Gender. Address. I don't even like giving out my name. I don't particularly like being called by my name. And I really hate any honorifics like Mr, Mrs, Ms, Dr, Professor, etc. There are probably lots of reasons for this, but mostly I don't like being put in a \"box.\" I don't like people knowing much if anything about me or having a lot of preconceived notions/biases about me before we even speak to one another. I want them to come to the encounter as free of those as possible and I try to go into each new encounter the same way.\n\nSo lots of forms ask you for these things. Some workplaces now make you put pronouns in your email signature. And whenever I get asked that question in some stupid ice breaker thing or via a form my GUT tells wants to blurt out \"who/whom\" pretty much every time. It just feels right.\n\nWhy does it feel right? Maybe because no identifiers feel right to me so leaving them open, vague, or as basically an open question feels right. If anything I think the Buddhist idea of anatman, having no permanent, abiding essence is as close to a dogma of self as I'd be willing to embrace. I'm very creative and love acting and writing and can play and write from the points of view of characters who are very different from how most others would identify me just on sight. And I feel like every character I play or write is in many ways \"truly me\". And yet not.\n\nI also tend to find most of our human existence and human categories a tad absurd. And what would be more absurd than being able to make other people refer to me with the indefinite/interrogative pronouns? Who is taking the lead on the project? Yes. Whose pencil is this? No, not whose, it's hers. What? I just love the chaos and laughter that would be caused by it.\n\nAnd yet, I want this view changed because I think if I actually start doing it, it will just get me in trouble. I think people who really care about the pronoun thing are going to think I'm making fun of them or their concerns or somehow not taking it seriously. I think those who are irrationally angry about being asked for pronouns are either going to mistakenly think I'm on their side trying to expose how ridiculous it is or just ignore my request cause I couldn't seriously expect them to use THOSE pronouns. And obviously it makes communication harder, not easier because 3rd person pronouns are really for OTHER people to identify me to other other people so shouldn't they just use whatever pronouns work best to do that?\n\nI want this view changed cause I think if I actually put this on a job application or an email signature or an audition form even that it would just be a personal detriment and serve no real purpose other than to get me ostracized by both \"sides\" of the great pronoun war and everyone who else who is sick of it at the same time.\n\nAnd yet--it's the only set of pronouns that feels right to me. Has nothing to do with gender, really. And maybe I want to expand the challenge to identity even further. Maybe the point is we need to find that which is universally human if we are to reconnect one with another and stop being so lonely and at each other's throats. So ummm...yeah.\n\nCMV: I should start saying/writing that my pronouns are who/whom/whose whenever I am given that choice to make.\n\n**EDIT: Thanks to** u/sirlafemme **and others for a clarifying conversation below. After those conversations, want to add this edit:**\n\nI will say that the whole thing probably makes me uncomfortable because while I'm not usually uncomfortable with gender identity per se, I have a whole lot of issues around identity more generally. My issue is mainly I don't like being asked to \"pick\" because I want to be open in some ways to becoming whatever is needed at the moment. I really do like to find out about who I am speaking with first and then I will emphasize whatever parts of my own identity I think they will feel most comfortable with. And I guess that's part people pleasing and part fear of rejection.\n\nWhich is weird because I'm not usually afraid to stand up for something. Even an unpopular something. But I'm much more comfortable with standing up for an IDEA than for my SELF. And maybe the pronoun thing makes me profoundly uncomfortable because I feel like it's throwing a question onto me about my SELF, publicly in a way I have a choice and in a way that could say something about how I view that SELF. And I'm not ready for that kind of SELF-disclosure right up front when these kinds of questions are usually asked.\n\nOther questions bother me a little less because they could be seen as \"facts\". Like if the ice breaker is \"where were you born\" or \"where are you from/where do you live\" I'm not making a choice or saying I identify with or don't identify with the place I was born.\n\nAnd lastly, when I am uncomfortable with something and don't like showing I'm uncomfortable with something my first and only remotely healthy coping mechanism is humor. Trying to be funny/absurd or trying to brush it off with an out of the box and kind of ridiculous answer is my way of deflecting and getting out of the box. But I don't want to use that if it's going to make someone else potentially feel made fun OF.","date":"2023-05-21","id":"13oe4fz","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: If I Can Choose My Pronouns I'm Going to Go With Who/Whom/Whose","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13oe4fz/cmv_if_i_can_choose_my_pronouns_im_going_to_go/"},{"author":"tidalbeing","body":"Using who, whose, whom would be extremly confusing, even more confusing for using pronouns that could mean a group of people, a group of things, or a single person.\n\nThe point of language including pronouns is clarity. I've been giving the problem a lot of thought. I agree with you that gender/sex should be private. But also who or what is being spoken to or about should be clear. \n\nThe best solutions I've found are to repeat the antecedent or to pluralize the antecedent. The antecedent is the noun that the pronoun replaces. Instead of \"everyone\" use \"all those present\" Instead of referring an unknown party(you don't know gender or number) as a single individual, refer to them as a \"party.\"\n\nAs for name tags, I'm considering writing \"repeat the antecedent.\" I want to keep my gender/ sex private but don't like being referred to in plural. Repeating the antecedent when number and gender are unknown beats having to repeat antecedents for groups of objects and groups of people, which must be done for clarity when \"They\" might be singular.","date":"2023-05-21","id":"jl42biz","parent_id":"13oe4fz","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"stilltilting","body":"I've been thinking about this for awhile. First off, I don't like being asked for my pronouns. For that matter, I don't like being asked for any identifiers. Age. Ethnicity. Religion. Gender. Address. I don't even like giving out my name. I don't particularly like being called by my name. And I really hate any honorifics like Mr, Mrs, Ms, Dr, Professor, etc. There are probably lots of reasons for this, but mostly I don't like being put in a \"box.\" I don't like people knowing much if anything about me or having a lot of preconceived notions/biases about me before we even speak to one another. I want them to come to the encounter as free of those as possible and I try to go into each new encounter the same way.\n\nSo lots of forms ask you for these things. Some workplaces now make you put pronouns in your email signature. And whenever I get asked that question in some stupid ice breaker thing or via a form my GUT tells wants to blurt out \"who/whom\" pretty much every time. It just feels right.\n\nWhy does it feel right? Maybe because no identifiers feel right to me so leaving them open, vague, or as basically an open question feels right. If anything I think the Buddhist idea of anatman, having no permanent, abiding essence is as close to a dogma of self as I'd be willing to embrace. I'm very creative and love acting and writing and can play and write from the points of view of characters who are very different from how most others would identify me just on sight. And I feel like every character I play or write is in many ways \"truly me\". And yet not.\n\nI also tend to find most of our human existence and human categories a tad absurd. And what would be more absurd than being able to make other people refer to me with the indefinite/interrogative pronouns? Who is taking the lead on the project? Yes. Whose pencil is this? No, not whose, it's hers. What? I just love the chaos and laughter that would be caused by it.\n\nAnd yet, I want this view changed because I think if I actually start doing it, it will just get me in trouble. I think people who really care about the pronoun thing are going to think I'm making fun of them or their concerns or somehow not taking it seriously. I think those who are irrationally angry about being asked for pronouns are either going to mistakenly think I'm on their side trying to expose how ridiculous it is or just ignore my request cause I couldn't seriously expect them to use THOSE pronouns. And obviously it makes communication harder, not easier because 3rd person pronouns are really for OTHER people to identify me to other other people so shouldn't they just use whatever pronouns work best to do that?\n\nI want this view changed cause I think if I actually put this on a job application or an email signature or an audition form even that it would just be a personal detriment and serve no real purpose other than to get me ostracized by both \"sides\" of the great pronoun war and everyone who else who is sick of it at the same time.\n\nAnd yet--it's the only set of pronouns that feels right to me. Has nothing to do with gender, really. And maybe I want to expand the challenge to identity even further. Maybe the point is we need to find that which is universally human if we are to reconnect one with another and stop being so lonely and at each other's throats. So ummm...yeah.\n\nCMV: I should start saying/writing that my pronouns are who/whom/whose whenever I am given that choice to make.\n\n**EDIT: Thanks to** u/sirlafemme **and others for a clarifying conversation below. After those conversations, want to add this edit:**\n\nI will say that the whole thing probably makes me uncomfortable because while I'm not usually uncomfortable with gender identity per se, I have a whole lot of issues around identity more generally. My issue is mainly I don't like being asked to \"pick\" because I want to be open in some ways to becoming whatever is needed at the moment. I really do like to find out about who I am speaking with first and then I will emphasize whatever parts of my own identity I think they will feel most comfortable with. And I guess that's part people pleasing and part fear of rejection.\n\nWhich is weird because I'm not usually afraid to stand up for something. Even an unpopular something. But I'm much more comfortable with standing up for an IDEA than for my SELF. And maybe the pronoun thing makes me profoundly uncomfortable because I feel like it's throwing a question onto me about my SELF, publicly in a way I have a choice and in a way that could say something about how I view that SELF. And I'm not ready for that kind of SELF-disclosure right up front when these kinds of questions are usually asked.\n\nOther questions bother me a little less because they could be seen as \"facts\". Like if the ice breaker is \"where were you born\" or \"where are you from/where do you live\" I'm not making a choice or saying I identify with or don't identify with the place I was born.\n\nAnd lastly, when I am uncomfortable with something and don't like showing I'm uncomfortable with something my first and only remotely healthy coping mechanism is humor. Trying to be funny/absurd or trying to brush it off with an out of the box and kind of ridiculous answer is my way of deflecting and getting out of the box. But I don't want to use that if it's going to make someone else potentially feel made fun OF.","date":"2023-05-21","id":"13oe4fz","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: If I Can Choose My Pronouns I'm Going to Go With Who/Whom/Whose","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13oe4fz/cmv_if_i_can_choose_my_pronouns_im_going_to_go/"},{"author":"Best-Analysis4401","body":"If you used this pronoun, people will certainly still put you in a box.\n\nIn fact, by focusing so much on yourself and your pronouns, you end up boxing yourself to yourself. That is, you are saying, \"I think I am this kind of person\", \"I don't want to really have a permanent identity\", so then that is your identity of you.\n\nIf you instead forget yourself, then you will be much less \"boxed\" because you won't care.","date":"2023-05-21","id":"jl43zxv","parent_id":"13oe4fz","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"stilltilting","body":"I've been thinking about this for awhile. First off, I don't like being asked for my pronouns. For that matter, I don't like being asked for any identifiers. Age. Ethnicity. Religion. Gender. Address. I don't even like giving out my name. I don't particularly like being called by my name. And I really hate any honorifics like Mr, Mrs, Ms, Dr, Professor, etc. There are probably lots of reasons for this, but mostly I don't like being put in a \"box.\" I don't like people knowing much if anything about me or having a lot of preconceived notions/biases about me before we even speak to one another. I want them to come to the encounter as free of those as possible and I try to go into each new encounter the same way.\n\nSo lots of forms ask you for these things. Some workplaces now make you put pronouns in your email signature. And whenever I get asked that question in some stupid ice breaker thing or via a form my GUT tells wants to blurt out \"who/whom\" pretty much every time. It just feels right.\n\nWhy does it feel right? Maybe because no identifiers feel right to me so leaving them open, vague, or as basically an open question feels right. If anything I think the Buddhist idea of anatman, having no permanent, abiding essence is as close to a dogma of self as I'd be willing to embrace. I'm very creative and love acting and writing and can play and write from the points of view of characters who are very different from how most others would identify me just on sight. And I feel like every character I play or write is in many ways \"truly me\". And yet not.\n\nI also tend to find most of our human existence and human categories a tad absurd. And what would be more absurd than being able to make other people refer to me with the indefinite/interrogative pronouns? Who is taking the lead on the project? Yes. Whose pencil is this? No, not whose, it's hers. What? I just love the chaos and laughter that would be caused by it.\n\nAnd yet, I want this view changed because I think if I actually start doing it, it will just get me in trouble. I think people who really care about the pronoun thing are going to think I'm making fun of them or their concerns or somehow not taking it seriously. I think those who are irrationally angry about being asked for pronouns are either going to mistakenly think I'm on their side trying to expose how ridiculous it is or just ignore my request cause I couldn't seriously expect them to use THOSE pronouns. And obviously it makes communication harder, not easier because 3rd person pronouns are really for OTHER people to identify me to other other people so shouldn't they just use whatever pronouns work best to do that?\n\nI want this view changed cause I think if I actually put this on a job application or an email signature or an audition form even that it would just be a personal detriment and serve no real purpose other than to get me ostracized by both \"sides\" of the great pronoun war and everyone who else who is sick of it at the same time.\n\nAnd yet--it's the only set of pronouns that feels right to me. Has nothing to do with gender, really. And maybe I want to expand the challenge to identity even further. Maybe the point is we need to find that which is universally human if we are to reconnect one with another and stop being so lonely and at each other's throats. So ummm...yeah.\n\nCMV: I should start saying/writing that my pronouns are who/whom/whose whenever I am given that choice to make.\n\n**EDIT: Thanks to** u/sirlafemme **and others for a clarifying conversation below. After those conversations, want to add this edit:**\n\nI will say that the whole thing probably makes me uncomfortable because while I'm not usually uncomfortable with gender identity per se, I have a whole lot of issues around identity more generally. My issue is mainly I don't like being asked to \"pick\" because I want to be open in some ways to becoming whatever is needed at the moment. I really do like to find out about who I am speaking with first and then I will emphasize whatever parts of my own identity I think they will feel most comfortable with. And I guess that's part people pleasing and part fear of rejection.\n\nWhich is weird because I'm not usually afraid to stand up for something. Even an unpopular something. But I'm much more comfortable with standing up for an IDEA than for my SELF. And maybe the pronoun thing makes me profoundly uncomfortable because I feel like it's throwing a question onto me about my SELF, publicly in a way I have a choice and in a way that could say something about how I view that SELF. And I'm not ready for that kind of SELF-disclosure right up front when these kinds of questions are usually asked.\n\nOther questions bother me a little less because they could be seen as \"facts\". Like if the ice breaker is \"where were you born\" or \"where are you from/where do you live\" I'm not making a choice or saying I identify with or don't identify with the place I was born.\n\nAnd lastly, when I am uncomfortable with something and don't like showing I'm uncomfortable with something my first and only remotely healthy coping mechanism is humor. Trying to be funny/absurd or trying to brush it off with an out of the box and kind of ridiculous answer is my way of deflecting and getting out of the box. But I don't want to use that if it's going to make someone else potentially feel made fun OF.","date":"2023-05-21","id":"13oe4fz","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: If I Can Choose My Pronouns I'm Going to Go With Who/Whom/Whose","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13oe4fz/cmv_if_i_can_choose_my_pronouns_im_going_to_go/"},{"author":"political_bot","body":"If you're already going for the bit, why not commit all the way? https://youtu.be/sYOUFGfK4bU . Who/What . Better than an attack helicopter joke at least.","date":"2023-05-21","id":"jl46i5q","parent_id":"13oe4fz","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"stilltilting","body":"I've been thinking about this for awhile. First off, I don't like being asked for my pronouns. For that matter, I don't like being asked for any identifiers. Age. Ethnicity. Religion. Gender. Address. I don't even like giving out my name. I don't particularly like being called by my name. And I really hate any honorifics like Mr, Mrs, Ms, Dr, Professor, etc. There are probably lots of reasons for this, but mostly I don't like being put in a \"box.\" I don't like people knowing much if anything about me or having a lot of preconceived notions/biases about me before we even speak to one another. I want them to come to the encounter as free of those as possible and I try to go into each new encounter the same way.\n\nSo lots of forms ask you for these things. Some workplaces now make you put pronouns in your email signature. And whenever I get asked that question in some stupid ice breaker thing or via a form my GUT tells wants to blurt out \"who/whom\" pretty much every time. It just feels right.\n\nWhy does it feel right? Maybe because no identifiers feel right to me so leaving them open, vague, or as basically an open question feels right. If anything I think the Buddhist idea of anatman, having no permanent, abiding essence is as close to a dogma of self as I'd be willing to embrace. I'm very creative and love acting and writing and can play and write from the points of view of characters who are very different from how most others would identify me just on sight. And I feel like every character I play or write is in many ways \"truly me\". And yet not.\n\nI also tend to find most of our human existence and human categories a tad absurd. And what would be more absurd than being able to make other people refer to me with the indefinite/interrogative pronouns? Who is taking the lead on the project? Yes. Whose pencil is this? No, not whose, it's hers. What? I just love the chaos and laughter that would be caused by it.\n\nAnd yet, I want this view changed because I think if I actually start doing it, it will just get me in trouble. I think people who really care about the pronoun thing are going to think I'm making fun of them or their concerns or somehow not taking it seriously. I think those who are irrationally angry about being asked for pronouns are either going to mistakenly think I'm on their side trying to expose how ridiculous it is or just ignore my request cause I couldn't seriously expect them to use THOSE pronouns. And obviously it makes communication harder, not easier because 3rd person pronouns are really for OTHER people to identify me to other other people so shouldn't they just use whatever pronouns work best to do that?\n\nI want this view changed cause I think if I actually put this on a job application or an email signature or an audition form even that it would just be a personal detriment and serve no real purpose other than to get me ostracized by both \"sides\" of the great pronoun war and everyone who else who is sick of it at the same time.\n\nAnd yet--it's the only set of pronouns that feels right to me. Has nothing to do with gender, really. And maybe I want to expand the challenge to identity even further. Maybe the point is we need to find that which is universally human if we are to reconnect one with another and stop being so lonely and at each other's throats. So ummm...yeah.\n\nCMV: I should start saying/writing that my pronouns are who/whom/whose whenever I am given that choice to make.\n\n**EDIT: Thanks to** u/sirlafemme **and others for a clarifying conversation below. After those conversations, want to add this edit:**\n\nI will say that the whole thing probably makes me uncomfortable because while I'm not usually uncomfortable with gender identity per se, I have a whole lot of issues around identity more generally. My issue is mainly I don't like being asked to \"pick\" because I want to be open in some ways to becoming whatever is needed at the moment. I really do like to find out about who I am speaking with first and then I will emphasize whatever parts of my own identity I think they will feel most comfortable with. And I guess that's part people pleasing and part fear of rejection.\n\nWhich is weird because I'm not usually afraid to stand up for something. Even an unpopular something. But I'm much more comfortable with standing up for an IDEA than for my SELF. And maybe the pronoun thing makes me profoundly uncomfortable because I feel like it's throwing a question onto me about my SELF, publicly in a way I have a choice and in a way that could say something about how I view that SELF. And I'm not ready for that kind of SELF-disclosure right up front when these kinds of questions are usually asked.\n\nOther questions bother me a little less because they could be seen as \"facts\". Like if the ice breaker is \"where were you born\" or \"where are you from/where do you live\" I'm not making a choice or saying I identify with or don't identify with the place I was born.\n\nAnd lastly, when I am uncomfortable with something and don't like showing I'm uncomfortable with something my first and only remotely healthy coping mechanism is humor. Trying to be funny/absurd or trying to brush it off with an out of the box and kind of ridiculous answer is my way of deflecting and getting out of the box. But I don't want to use that if it's going to make someone else potentially feel made fun OF.","date":"2023-05-21","id":"13oe4fz","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: If I Can Choose My Pronouns I'm Going to Go With Who/Whom/Whose","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13oe4fz/cmv_if_i_can_choose_my_pronouns_im_going_to_go/"},{"author":"thicc_noods117","body":"I've read most of your arguments and comments so far. Putting yourself in a \"box\" is impossible to avoid. \n\nEven if you don't \"box\" yourself, people are going to box you. If you present male people are going to box you as male. If they actually care about how you feel they might change that box or they may not.\n\nHaving multiple pronouns which is a suggestion you liked still makes people think \"Oh they're queer.\" They still identify you as something.\n\nYou don't like giving out any personal information so it's not just a pronouns thing. You basically want to remain anonymous in real life which is just not feasible or else they'd allow babies to be nameless.\n\nI guess if you really wanted to go down this route the best way would to go by it. Like, name and all. You're just it. It are your pronouns and it is your name. That gives as little info or stigma as possible.","date":"2023-05-22","id":"jl4flc2","parent_id":"13oe4fz","score":4,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"stilltilting","body":"And if I were to change my name in that way I think your point remains that I'd still be put in a box that I don't want to be in.\n\nYes, I want anonymity. Or at least slowly revealed identity as I find out how comfortable I am with a person. Spoke more on that in the edit I made this morning.","date":"2023-05-22","id":"jl61tdw","parent_id":"jl4flc2","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"stilltilting","body":"I've been thinking about this for awhile. First off, I don't like being asked for my pronouns. For that matter, I don't like being asked for any identifiers. Age. Ethnicity. Religion. Gender. Address. I don't even like giving out my name. I don't particularly like being called by my name. And I really hate any honorifics like Mr, Mrs, Ms, Dr, Professor, etc. There are probably lots of reasons for this, but mostly I don't like being put in a \"box.\" I don't like people knowing much if anything about me or having a lot of preconceived notions/biases about me before we even speak to one another. I want them to come to the encounter as free of those as possible and I try to go into each new encounter the same way.\n\nSo lots of forms ask you for these things. Some workplaces now make you put pronouns in your email signature. And whenever I get asked that question in some stupid ice breaker thing or via a form my GUT tells wants to blurt out \"who/whom\" pretty much every time. It just feels right.\n\nWhy does it feel right? Maybe because no identifiers feel right to me so leaving them open, vague, or as basically an open question feels right. If anything I think the Buddhist idea of anatman, having no permanent, abiding essence is as close to a dogma of self as I'd be willing to embrace. I'm very creative and love acting and writing and can play and write from the points of view of characters who are very different from how most others would identify me just on sight. And I feel like every character I play or write is in many ways \"truly me\". And yet not.\n\nI also tend to find most of our human existence and human categories a tad absurd. And what would be more absurd than being able to make other people refer to me with the indefinite/interrogative pronouns? Who is taking the lead on the project? Yes. Whose pencil is this? No, not whose, it's hers. What? I just love the chaos and laughter that would be caused by it.\n\nAnd yet, I want this view changed because I think if I actually start doing it, it will just get me in trouble. I think people who really care about the pronoun thing are going to think I'm making fun of them or their concerns or somehow not taking it seriously. I think those who are irrationally angry about being asked for pronouns are either going to mistakenly think I'm on their side trying to expose how ridiculous it is or just ignore my request cause I couldn't seriously expect them to use THOSE pronouns. And obviously it makes communication harder, not easier because 3rd person pronouns are really for OTHER people to identify me to other other people so shouldn't they just use whatever pronouns work best to do that?\n\nI want this view changed cause I think if I actually put this on a job application or an email signature or an audition form even that it would just be a personal detriment and serve no real purpose other than to get me ostracized by both \"sides\" of the great pronoun war and everyone who else who is sick of it at the same time.\n\nAnd yet--it's the only set of pronouns that feels right to me. Has nothing to do with gender, really. And maybe I want to expand the challenge to identity even further. Maybe the point is we need to find that which is universally human if we are to reconnect one with another and stop being so lonely and at each other's throats. So ummm...yeah.\n\nCMV: I should start saying/writing that my pronouns are who/whom/whose whenever I am given that choice to make.\n\n**EDIT: Thanks to** u/sirlafemme **and others for a clarifying conversation below. After those conversations, want to add this edit:**\n\nI will say that the whole thing probably makes me uncomfortable because while I'm not usually uncomfortable with gender identity per se, I have a whole lot of issues around identity more generally. My issue is mainly I don't like being asked to \"pick\" because I want to be open in some ways to becoming whatever is needed at the moment. I really do like to find out about who I am speaking with first and then I will emphasize whatever parts of my own identity I think they will feel most comfortable with. And I guess that's part people pleasing and part fear of rejection.\n\nWhich is weird because I'm not usually afraid to stand up for something. Even an unpopular something. But I'm much more comfortable with standing up for an IDEA than for my SELF. And maybe the pronoun thing makes me profoundly uncomfortable because I feel like it's throwing a question onto me about my SELF, publicly in a way I have a choice and in a way that could say something about how I view that SELF. And I'm not ready for that kind of SELF-disclosure right up front when these kinds of questions are usually asked.\n\nOther questions bother me a little less because they could be seen as \"facts\". Like if the ice breaker is \"where were you born\" or \"where are you from/where do you live\" I'm not making a choice or saying I identify with or don't identify with the place I was born.\n\nAnd lastly, when I am uncomfortable with something and don't like showing I'm uncomfortable with something my first and only remotely healthy coping mechanism is humor. Trying to be funny/absurd or trying to brush it off with an out of the box and kind of ridiculous answer is my way of deflecting and getting out of the box. But I don't want to use that if it's going to make someone else potentially feel made fun OF.","date":"2023-05-21","id":"13oe4fz","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: If I Can Choose My Pronouns I'm Going to Go With Who/Whom/Whose","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13oe4fz/cmv_if_i_can_choose_my_pronouns_im_going_to_go/"},{"author":"nyxe12","body":"Ultimately if a certain set of pronouns genuinely does feel good to you, sure, you can say those are your pronouns.\n\nPractically - and I say this as a non-binary person who uses they/them - if you put this on any application or say it outside a circle of people who accept use of \"neopronouns\", you're going to get laughed at, ostracized, questioned, or likely assumed to be doing this in bad faith or as a joke. Is that fair? Not if you're doing this in good faith, and again, GENUINELY feel that these would be affirming pronouns to you - but there's also people who GENUINELY feel that neopronouns like cat/cats/catself pronouns are affirming and also more realistically only use these online or in certain friend circles because asking for this in the majority of workplaces is going to make their life harder, not more comfortable.\n\n>And what would be more absurd than being able to make other people refer to me with the indefinite/interrogative pronouns? Who is taking the lead on the project? Yes. Whose pencil is this? No, not whose, it's hers. What? I just love the chaos and laughter that would be caused by it.\n\nThis does make me question the \"genuine\" aspect of your want for these pronouns - I don't know a single person who uses pronouns other than the ones they'd be assumed to use for the \"absurdity\" or to cause chaos (other than transphobes doing a bit), even people who use extremely uncommon and difficult to use ones. Because, again, in practice? You're going to get a LOT of people who are shitheads about you using anything other than what they assume is correct to refer to you as, and this bit stops being funny as soon as someone decides to actually treat you like a trans person and doesn't like trans people, especially ones who use uncommon/atypical pronouns. Stating my pronouns, even just \"they/them\", is literally a risk to my physical and mental wellbeing, even though their use is at the same time good for my mental wellbeing. Being out about the pronouns I use requires being aware of the space I am in and the people I'm around and judging whether or not I'm opening myself up to harassment, mocking, or worse by actually saying what they are. I think I would have a hard time trusting that this was a good-faith request IRL unless I had a serious one-on-one with the person asking for this, again, as someone using they/them pronouns - because I've run into a lot of cis people who do shit like this in bad faith because they think it's funny.\n\nNone of this is to say you can't use \"different\" pronouns - but this seems motivated in part by the assumed comedy of using a set that fundamentally makes communication hard/turns statements into questions and not entirely by the need to relieve dysphoria or experience comfort with the correct pronouns being used for you. If you think you are some type of non-binary person or otherwise would be affirmed by something other than he/she/they, I think it would be worth looking at some of the non-\"they\" pronouns out there that are used (zie/hir is fairly common, but there's others) and try and ask yourself what would be affirming about being referred to as those pronouns, and if that's coming from a place of \"heh, it'd be funny to cause chaos\", maybe you should think a little longer and harder about the actual reactions you're going to get and if that risk is worth the reward of the joke that only you are in on.","date":"2023-05-22","id":"jl5cgz4","parent_id":"13oe4fz","score":7,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"stilltilting","body":"Spoke more to both of these in the edit above. Hadn't read this comment at the time but thank you for a very thoughtful response. These discussions have helped me clarify what really is the source of discomfort in being asked the question (and having to answer it before a group of strangers) and how trying to deflect to something humorous/absurd is my usual way of deflecting any discomfort.\n\nIf you have more to add after reading the \"edit\" portion would be happy to respond when I get the chance.","date":"2023-05-22","id":"jl62ehb","parent_id":"jl5cgz4","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"stilltilting","body":"I've been thinking about this for awhile. First off, I don't like being asked for my pronouns. For that matter, I don't like being asked for any identifiers. Age. Ethnicity. Religion. Gender. Address. I don't even like giving out my name. I don't particularly like being called by my name. And I really hate any honorifics like Mr, Mrs, Ms, Dr, Professor, etc. There are probably lots of reasons for this, but mostly I don't like being put in a \"box.\" I don't like people knowing much if anything about me or having a lot of preconceived notions/biases about me before we even speak to one another. I want them to come to the encounter as free of those as possible and I try to go into each new encounter the same way.\n\nSo lots of forms ask you for these things. Some workplaces now make you put pronouns in your email signature. And whenever I get asked that question in some stupid ice breaker thing or via a form my GUT tells wants to blurt out \"who/whom\" pretty much every time. It just feels right.\n\nWhy does it feel right? Maybe because no identifiers feel right to me so leaving them open, vague, or as basically an open question feels right. If anything I think the Buddhist idea of anatman, having no permanent, abiding essence is as close to a dogma of self as I'd be willing to embrace. I'm very creative and love acting and writing and can play and write from the points of view of characters who are very different from how most others would identify me just on sight. And I feel like every character I play or write is in many ways \"truly me\". And yet not.\n\nI also tend to find most of our human existence and human categories a tad absurd. And what would be more absurd than being able to make other people refer to me with the indefinite/interrogative pronouns? Who is taking the lead on the project? Yes. Whose pencil is this? No, not whose, it's hers. What? I just love the chaos and laughter that would be caused by it.\n\nAnd yet, I want this view changed because I think if I actually start doing it, it will just get me in trouble. I think people who really care about the pronoun thing are going to think I'm making fun of them or their concerns or somehow not taking it seriously. I think those who are irrationally angry about being asked for pronouns are either going to mistakenly think I'm on their side trying to expose how ridiculous it is or just ignore my request cause I couldn't seriously expect them to use THOSE pronouns. And obviously it makes communication harder, not easier because 3rd person pronouns are really for OTHER people to identify me to other other people so shouldn't they just use whatever pronouns work best to do that?\n\nI want this view changed cause I think if I actually put this on a job application or an email signature or an audition form even that it would just be a personal detriment and serve no real purpose other than to get me ostracized by both \"sides\" of the great pronoun war and everyone who else who is sick of it at the same time.\n\nAnd yet--it's the only set of pronouns that feels right to me. Has nothing to do with gender, really. And maybe I want to expand the challenge to identity even further. Maybe the point is we need to find that which is universally human if we are to reconnect one with another and stop being so lonely and at each other's throats. So ummm...yeah.\n\nCMV: I should start saying/writing that my pronouns are who/whom/whose whenever I am given that choice to make.\n\n**EDIT: Thanks to** u/sirlafemme **and others for a clarifying conversation below. After those conversations, want to add this edit:**\n\nI will say that the whole thing probably makes me uncomfortable because while I'm not usually uncomfortable with gender identity per se, I have a whole lot of issues around identity more generally. My issue is mainly I don't like being asked to \"pick\" because I want to be open in some ways to becoming whatever is needed at the moment. I really do like to find out about who I am speaking with first and then I will emphasize whatever parts of my own identity I think they will feel most comfortable with. And I guess that's part people pleasing and part fear of rejection.\n\nWhich is weird because I'm not usually afraid to stand up for something. Even an unpopular something. But I'm much more comfortable with standing up for an IDEA than for my SELF. And maybe the pronoun thing makes me profoundly uncomfortable because I feel like it's throwing a question onto me about my SELF, publicly in a way I have a choice and in a way that could say something about how I view that SELF. And I'm not ready for that kind of SELF-disclosure right up front when these kinds of questions are usually asked.\n\nOther questions bother me a little less because they could be seen as \"facts\". Like if the ice breaker is \"where were you born\" or \"where are you from/where do you live\" I'm not making a choice or saying I identify with or don't identify with the place I was born.\n\nAnd lastly, when I am uncomfortable with something and don't like showing I'm uncomfortable with something my first and only remotely healthy coping mechanism is humor. Trying to be funny/absurd or trying to brush it off with an out of the box and kind of ridiculous answer is my way of deflecting and getting out of the box. But I don't want to use that if it's going to make someone else potentially feel made fun OF.","date":"2023-05-21","id":"13oe4fz","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: If I Can Choose My Pronouns I'm Going to Go With Who/Whom/Whose","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13oe4fz/cmv_if_i_can_choose_my_pronouns_im_going_to_go/"},{"author":"Infamous-Advantage85","body":"Have you considered asking for people to use the demonstrative pronouns for you? They don't refer to gender at all, and fit much more cleanly into English grammar than who/whom. \n\n\nAsking for people to just avoid using pronouns for you is also an option that I've seen go over pretty well. The anti-preferred pronouns crowd still usually flips out, but everyone else seems ok with it. Generally these people prefer their name, a nickname, or the aforementioned demonstrative pronouns.","date":"2023-05-22","id":"jl5eae6","parent_id":"13oe4fz","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"stilltilting","body":"I've been thinking about this for awhile. First off, I don't like being asked for my pronouns. For that matter, I don't like being asked for any identifiers. Age. Ethnicity. Religion. Gender. Address. I don't even like giving out my name. I don't particularly like being called by my name. And I really hate any honorifics like Mr, Mrs, Ms, Dr, Professor, etc. There are probably lots of reasons for this, but mostly I don't like being put in a \"box.\" I don't like people knowing much if anything about me or having a lot of preconceived notions/biases about me before we even speak to one another. I want them to come to the encounter as free of those as possible and I try to go into each new encounter the same way.\n\nSo lots of forms ask you for these things. Some workplaces now make you put pronouns in your email signature. And whenever I get asked that question in some stupid ice breaker thing or via a form my GUT tells wants to blurt out \"who/whom\" pretty much every time. It just feels right.\n\nWhy does it feel right? Maybe because no identifiers feel right to me so leaving them open, vague, or as basically an open question feels right. If anything I think the Buddhist idea of anatman, having no permanent, abiding essence is as close to a dogma of self as I'd be willing to embrace. I'm very creative and love acting and writing and can play and write from the points of view of characters who are very different from how most others would identify me just on sight. And I feel like every character I play or write is in many ways \"truly me\". And yet not.\n\nI also tend to find most of our human existence and human categories a tad absurd. And what would be more absurd than being able to make other people refer to me with the indefinite/interrogative pronouns? Who is taking the lead on the project? Yes. Whose pencil is this? No, not whose, it's hers. What? I just love the chaos and laughter that would be caused by it.\n\nAnd yet, I want this view changed because I think if I actually start doing it, it will just get me in trouble. I think people who really care about the pronoun thing are going to think I'm making fun of them or their concerns or somehow not taking it seriously. I think those who are irrationally angry about being asked for pronouns are either going to mistakenly think I'm on their side trying to expose how ridiculous it is or just ignore my request cause I couldn't seriously expect them to use THOSE pronouns. And obviously it makes communication harder, not easier because 3rd person pronouns are really for OTHER people to identify me to other other people so shouldn't they just use whatever pronouns work best to do that?\n\nI want this view changed cause I think if I actually put this on a job application or an email signature or an audition form even that it would just be a personal detriment and serve no real purpose other than to get me ostracized by both \"sides\" of the great pronoun war and everyone who else who is sick of it at the same time.\n\nAnd yet--it's the only set of pronouns that feels right to me. Has nothing to do with gender, really. And maybe I want to expand the challenge to identity even further. Maybe the point is we need to find that which is universally human if we are to reconnect one with another and stop being so lonely and at each other's throats. So ummm...yeah.\n\nCMV: I should start saying/writing that my pronouns are who/whom/whose whenever I am given that choice to make.\n\n**EDIT: Thanks to** u/sirlafemme **and others for a clarifying conversation below. After those conversations, want to add this edit:**\n\nI will say that the whole thing probably makes me uncomfortable because while I'm not usually uncomfortable with gender identity per se, I have a whole lot of issues around identity more generally. My issue is mainly I don't like being asked to \"pick\" because I want to be open in some ways to becoming whatever is needed at the moment. I really do like to find out about who I am speaking with first and then I will emphasize whatever parts of my own identity I think they will feel most comfortable with. And I guess that's part people pleasing and part fear of rejection.\n\nWhich is weird because I'm not usually afraid to stand up for something. Even an unpopular something. But I'm much more comfortable with standing up for an IDEA than for my SELF. And maybe the pronoun thing makes me profoundly uncomfortable because I feel like it's throwing a question onto me about my SELF, publicly in a way I have a choice and in a way that could say something about how I view that SELF. And I'm not ready for that kind of SELF-disclosure right up front when these kinds of questions are usually asked.\n\nOther questions bother me a little less because they could be seen as \"facts\". Like if the ice breaker is \"where were you born\" or \"where are you from/where do you live\" I'm not making a choice or saying I identify with or don't identify with the place I was born.\n\nAnd lastly, when I am uncomfortable with something and don't like showing I'm uncomfortable with something my first and only remotely healthy coping mechanism is humor. Trying to be funny/absurd or trying to brush it off with an out of the box and kind of ridiculous answer is my way of deflecting and getting out of the box. But I don't want to use that if it's going to make someone else potentially feel made fun OF.","date":"2023-05-21","id":"13oe4fz","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: If I Can Choose My Pronouns I'm Going to Go With Who/Whom/Whose","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13oe4fz/cmv_if_i_can_choose_my_pronouns_im_going_to_go/"},{"author":"jajabingo2","body":"Jesus Christ what has the world become 😆 \n\nMaybe transform into a blob of white plasma - that what know one will know what the fuck you are and you can be at peace.\n\nYou may have gone too far down the rabbit hole my friend\n\nEdit\nMaybe join a Buddhist convent in the mountains or something? Really seems your only option… I think most people would find living your entire life like that very hard though… as much as you might currently think that’s what you want.","date":"2023-05-22","id":"jl5r6df","parent_id":"13oe4fz","score":5,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"stilltilting","body":"I've been thinking about this for awhile. First off, I don't like being asked for my pronouns. For that matter, I don't like being asked for any identifiers. Age. Ethnicity. Religion. Gender. Address. I don't even like giving out my name. I don't particularly like being called by my name. And I really hate any honorifics like Mr, Mrs, Ms, Dr, Professor, etc. There are probably lots of reasons for this, but mostly I don't like being put in a \"box.\" I don't like people knowing much if anything about me or having a lot of preconceived notions/biases about me before we even speak to one another. I want them to come to the encounter as free of those as possible and I try to go into each new encounter the same way.\n\nSo lots of forms ask you for these things. Some workplaces now make you put pronouns in your email signature. And whenever I get asked that question in some stupid ice breaker thing or via a form my GUT tells wants to blurt out \"who/whom\" pretty much every time. It just feels right.\n\nWhy does it feel right? Maybe because no identifiers feel right to me so leaving them open, vague, or as basically an open question feels right. If anything I think the Buddhist idea of anatman, having no permanent, abiding essence is as close to a dogma of self as I'd be willing to embrace. I'm very creative and love acting and writing and can play and write from the points of view of characters who are very different from how most others would identify me just on sight. And I feel like every character I play or write is in many ways \"truly me\". And yet not.\n\nI also tend to find most of our human existence and human categories a tad absurd. And what would be more absurd than being able to make other people refer to me with the indefinite/interrogative pronouns? Who is taking the lead on the project? Yes. Whose pencil is this? No, not whose, it's hers. What? I just love the chaos and laughter that would be caused by it.\n\nAnd yet, I want this view changed because I think if I actually start doing it, it will just get me in trouble. I think people who really care about the pronoun thing are going to think I'm making fun of them or their concerns or somehow not taking it seriously. I think those who are irrationally angry about being asked for pronouns are either going to mistakenly think I'm on their side trying to expose how ridiculous it is or just ignore my request cause I couldn't seriously expect them to use THOSE pronouns. And obviously it makes communication harder, not easier because 3rd person pronouns are really for OTHER people to identify me to other other people so shouldn't they just use whatever pronouns work best to do that?\n\nI want this view changed cause I think if I actually put this on a job application or an email signature or an audition form even that it would just be a personal detriment and serve no real purpose other than to get me ostracized by both \"sides\" of the great pronoun war and everyone who else who is sick of it at the same time.\n\nAnd yet--it's the only set of pronouns that feels right to me. Has nothing to do with gender, really. And maybe I want to expand the challenge to identity even further. Maybe the point is we need to find that which is universally human if we are to reconnect one with another and stop being so lonely and at each other's throats. So ummm...yeah.\n\nCMV: I should start saying/writing that my pronouns are who/whom/whose whenever I am given that choice to make.\n\n**EDIT: Thanks to** u/sirlafemme **and others for a clarifying conversation below. After those conversations, want to add this edit:**\n\nI will say that the whole thing probably makes me uncomfortable because while I'm not usually uncomfortable with gender identity per se, I have a whole lot of issues around identity more generally. My issue is mainly I don't like being asked to \"pick\" because I want to be open in some ways to becoming whatever is needed at the moment. I really do like to find out about who I am speaking with first and then I will emphasize whatever parts of my own identity I think they will feel most comfortable with. And I guess that's part people pleasing and part fear of rejection.\n\nWhich is weird because I'm not usually afraid to stand up for something. Even an unpopular something. But I'm much more comfortable with standing up for an IDEA than for my SELF. And maybe the pronoun thing makes me profoundly uncomfortable because I feel like it's throwing a question onto me about my SELF, publicly in a way I have a choice and in a way that could say something about how I view that SELF. And I'm not ready for that kind of SELF-disclosure right up front when these kinds of questions are usually asked.\n\nOther questions bother me a little less because they could be seen as \"facts\". Like if the ice breaker is \"where were you born\" or \"where are you from/where do you live\" I'm not making a choice or saying I identify with or don't identify with the place I was born.\n\nAnd lastly, when I am uncomfortable with something and don't like showing I'm uncomfortable with something my first and only remotely healthy coping mechanism is humor. Trying to be funny/absurd or trying to brush it off with an out of the box and kind of ridiculous answer is my way of deflecting and getting out of the box. But I don't want to use that if it's going to make someone else potentially feel made fun OF.","date":"2023-05-21","id":"13oe4fz","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: If I Can Choose My Pronouns I'm Going to Go With Who/Whom/Whose","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13oe4fz/cmv_if_i_can_choose_my_pronouns_im_going_to_go/"},{"author":"mwentzz","body":"Who is not a pronoun so it makes no sense to be called that. I’m all honesty just stick with your given pronouns it would be easier for everyone including yourself.","date":"2023-05-22","id":"jl5wh5a","parent_id":"13oe4fz","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"stilltilting","body":"While I have modified my view a view times as noted by the deltas, I have to flat out disagree here. Who/whose/whom are interrogative pronouns. Interrogative pronouns are pronouns. And I tend to view identify as always in question so why wouldn't those be the right ones to use?","date":"2023-05-22","id":"jl62u33","parent_id":"jl5wh5a","score":0,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"stilltilting","body":"I've been thinking about this for awhile. First off, I don't like being asked for my pronouns. For that matter, I don't like being asked for any identifiers. Age. Ethnicity. Religion. Gender. Address. I don't even like giving out my name. I don't particularly like being called by my name. And I really hate any honorifics like Mr, Mrs, Ms, Dr, Professor, etc. There are probably lots of reasons for this, but mostly I don't like being put in a \"box.\" I don't like people knowing much if anything about me or having a lot of preconceived notions/biases about me before we even speak to one another. I want them to come to the encounter as free of those as possible and I try to go into each new encounter the same way.\n\nSo lots of forms ask you for these things. Some workplaces now make you put pronouns in your email signature. And whenever I get asked that question in some stupid ice breaker thing or via a form my GUT tells wants to blurt out \"who/whom\" pretty much every time. It just feels right.\n\nWhy does it feel right? Maybe because no identifiers feel right to me so leaving them open, vague, or as basically an open question feels right. If anything I think the Buddhist idea of anatman, having no permanent, abiding essence is as close to a dogma of self as I'd be willing to embrace. I'm very creative and love acting and writing and can play and write from the points of view of characters who are very different from how most others would identify me just on sight. And I feel like every character I play or write is in many ways \"truly me\". And yet not.\n\nI also tend to find most of our human existence and human categories a tad absurd. And what would be more absurd than being able to make other people refer to me with the indefinite/interrogative pronouns? Who is taking the lead on the project? Yes. Whose pencil is this? No, not whose, it's hers. What? I just love the chaos and laughter that would be caused by it.\n\nAnd yet, I want this view changed because I think if I actually start doing it, it will just get me in trouble. I think people who really care about the pronoun thing are going to think I'm making fun of them or their concerns or somehow not taking it seriously. I think those who are irrationally angry about being asked for pronouns are either going to mistakenly think I'm on their side trying to expose how ridiculous it is or just ignore my request cause I couldn't seriously expect them to use THOSE pronouns. And obviously it makes communication harder, not easier because 3rd person pronouns are really for OTHER people to identify me to other other people so shouldn't they just use whatever pronouns work best to do that?\n\nI want this view changed cause I think if I actually put this on a job application or an email signature or an audition form even that it would just be a personal detriment and serve no real purpose other than to get me ostracized by both \"sides\" of the great pronoun war and everyone who else who is sick of it at the same time.\n\nAnd yet--it's the only set of pronouns that feels right to me. Has nothing to do with gender, really. And maybe I want to expand the challenge to identity even further. Maybe the point is we need to find that which is universally human if we are to reconnect one with another and stop being so lonely and at each other's throats. So ummm...yeah.\n\nCMV: I should start saying/writing that my pronouns are who/whom/whose whenever I am given that choice to make.\n\n**EDIT: Thanks to** u/sirlafemme **and others for a clarifying conversation below. After those conversations, want to add this edit:**\n\nI will say that the whole thing probably makes me uncomfortable because while I'm not usually uncomfortable with gender identity per se, I have a whole lot of issues around identity more generally. My issue is mainly I don't like being asked to \"pick\" because I want to be open in some ways to becoming whatever is needed at the moment. I really do like to find out about who I am speaking with first and then I will emphasize whatever parts of my own identity I think they will feel most comfortable with. And I guess that's part people pleasing and part fear of rejection.\n\nWhich is weird because I'm not usually afraid to stand up for something. Even an unpopular something. But I'm much more comfortable with standing up for an IDEA than for my SELF. And maybe the pronoun thing makes me profoundly uncomfortable because I feel like it's throwing a question onto me about my SELF, publicly in a way I have a choice and in a way that could say something about how I view that SELF. And I'm not ready for that kind of SELF-disclosure right up front when these kinds of questions are usually asked.\n\nOther questions bother me a little less because they could be seen as \"facts\". Like if the ice breaker is \"where were you born\" or \"where are you from/where do you live\" I'm not making a choice or saying I identify with or don't identify with the place I was born.\n\nAnd lastly, when I am uncomfortable with something and don't like showing I'm uncomfortable with something my first and only remotely healthy coping mechanism is humor. Trying to be funny/absurd or trying to brush it off with an out of the box and kind of ridiculous answer is my way of deflecting and getting out of the box. But I don't want to use that if it's going to make someone else potentially feel made fun OF.","date":"2023-05-21","id":"13oe4fz","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: If I Can Choose My Pronouns I'm Going to Go With Who/Whom/Whose","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13oe4fz/cmv_if_i_can_choose_my_pronouns_im_going_to_go/"},{"author":"Coooo8","body":"This isn't practical because it changes the meaning of your sentence dramatically. Full disclosure, I go by they/them pronouns and am non-binary.\n\nSo someone referring to me would say: \"They went to work today.\" \"They\" is commonly plural, but is used to refer to a known person or group, so this is just a minor mental adjustment for most people.\n\nSomeone referring to you would say: \"Who went to work today.\" Which sounds like a question. \"Who\" is a pronoun that is only ever used for an unknown person, that's why it exists.","date":"2023-05-23","id":"jlc2n19","parent_id":"13oe4fz","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}]],"string":"[\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"I've been thinking about this for awhile. First off, I don't like being asked for my pronouns. For that matter, I don't like being asked for any identifiers. Age. Ethnicity. Religion. Gender. Address. I don't even like giving out my name. I don't particularly like being called by my name. And I really hate any honorifics like Mr, Mrs, Ms, Dr, Professor, etc. There are probably lots of reasons for this, but mostly I don't like being put in a \\\"box.\\\" I don't like people knowing much if anything about me or having a lot of preconceived notions/biases about me before we even speak to one another. I want them to come to the encounter as free of those as possible and I try to go into each new encounter the same way.\\n\\nSo lots of forms ask you for these things. Some workplaces now make you put pronouns in your email signature. And whenever I get asked that question in some stupid ice breaker thing or via a form my GUT tells wants to blurt out \\\"who/whom\\\" pretty much every time. It just feels right.\\n\\nWhy does it feel right? Maybe because no identifiers feel right to me so leaving them open, vague, or as basically an open question feels right. If anything I think the Buddhist idea of anatman, having no permanent, abiding essence is as close to a dogma of self as I'd be willing to embrace. I'm very creative and love acting and writing and can play and write from the points of view of characters who are very different from how most others would identify me just on sight. And I feel like every character I play or write is in many ways \\\"truly me\\\". And yet not.\\n\\nI also tend to find most of our human existence and human categories a tad absurd. And what would be more absurd than being able to make other people refer to me with the indefinite/interrogative pronouns? Who is taking the lead on the project? Yes. Whose pencil is this? No, not whose, it's hers. What? I just love the chaos and laughter that would be caused by it.\\n\\nAnd yet, I want this view changed because I think if I actually start doing it, it will just get me in trouble. I think people who really care about the pronoun thing are going to think I'm making fun of them or their concerns or somehow not taking it seriously. I think those who are irrationally angry about being asked for pronouns are either going to mistakenly think I'm on their side trying to expose how ridiculous it is or just ignore my request cause I couldn't seriously expect them to use THOSE pronouns. And obviously it makes communication harder, not easier because 3rd person pronouns are really for OTHER people to identify me to other other people so shouldn't they just use whatever pronouns work best to do that?\\n\\nI want this view changed cause I think if I actually put this on a job application or an email signature or an audition form even that it would just be a personal detriment and serve no real purpose other than to get me ostracized by both \\\"sides\\\" of the great pronoun war and everyone who else who is sick of it at the same time.\\n\\nAnd yet--it's the only set of pronouns that feels right to me. Has nothing to do with gender, really. And maybe I want to expand the challenge to identity even further. Maybe the point is we need to find that which is universally human if we are to reconnect one with another and stop being so lonely and at each other's throats. So ummm...yeah.\\n\\nCMV: I should start saying/writing that my pronouns are who/whom/whose whenever I am given that choice to make.\\n\\n**EDIT: Thanks to** u/sirlafemme **and others for a clarifying conversation below. After those conversations, want to add this edit:**\\n\\nI will say that the whole thing probably makes me uncomfortable because while I'm not usually uncomfortable with gender identity per se, I have a whole lot of issues around identity more generally. My issue is mainly I don't like being asked to \\\"pick\\\" because I want to be open in some ways to becoming whatever is needed at the moment. I really do like to find out about who I am speaking with first and then I will emphasize whatever parts of my own identity I think they will feel most comfortable with. And I guess that's part people pleasing and part fear of rejection.\\n\\nWhich is weird because I'm not usually afraid to stand up for something. Even an unpopular something. But I'm much more comfortable with standing up for an IDEA than for my SELF. And maybe the pronoun thing makes me profoundly uncomfortable because I feel like it's throwing a question onto me about my SELF, publicly in a way I have a choice and in a way that could say something about how I view that SELF. And I'm not ready for that kind of SELF-disclosure right up front when these kinds of questions are usually asked.\\n\\nOther questions bother me a little less because they could be seen as \\\"facts\\\". Like if the ice breaker is \\\"where were you born\\\" or \\\"where are you from/where do you live\\\" I'm not making a choice or saying I identify with or don't identify with the place I was born.\\n\\nAnd lastly, when I am uncomfortable with something and don't like showing I'm uncomfortable with something my first and only remotely healthy coping mechanism is humor. Trying to be funny/absurd or trying to brush it off with an out of the box and kind of ridiculous answer is my way of deflecting and getting out of the box. But I don't want to use that if it's going to make someone else potentially feel made fun OF.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-21\",\n \"id\": \"13oe4fz\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: If I Can Choose My Pronouns I'm Going to Go With Who/Whom/Whose\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13oe4fz/cmv_if_i_can_choose_my_pronouns_im_going_to_go/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"anewleaf1234\",\n \"body\": \"Using who will simply cause lots of complications. This is almost going to be like the Abbott and Costello bit. \\n\\nIf you are going to a presentation and someone asks about when you are going I will have to respond \\\"Who is going next.\\\" Which sounds like a question. Even though you want me to say it as a statement.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-21\",\n \"id\": \"jl3yjan\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13oe4fz\",\n \"score\": 4,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"I think asking people to use a pronoun that isn't the first thing that comes into their mind already slows down communication and makes it more complicated. \\n\\nAnd every time someone replaces my name with my preferred pronouns, getting an Abbott and Costello routine sounds like a huge plus to me. That's one of my favorite comedy bits ever.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-21\",\n \"id\": \"jl3z0xe\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jl3yjan\",\n \"score\": -4,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"I've been thinking about this for awhile. First off, I don't like being asked for my pronouns. For that matter, I don't like being asked for any identifiers. Age. Ethnicity. Religion. Gender. Address. I don't even like giving out my name. I don't particularly like being called by my name. And I really hate any honorifics like Mr, Mrs, Ms, Dr, Professor, etc. There are probably lots of reasons for this, but mostly I don't like being put in a \\\"box.\\\" I don't like people knowing much if anything about me or having a lot of preconceived notions/biases about me before we even speak to one another. I want them to come to the encounter as free of those as possible and I try to go into each new encounter the same way.\\n\\nSo lots of forms ask you for these things. Some workplaces now make you put pronouns in your email signature. And whenever I get asked that question in some stupid ice breaker thing or via a form my GUT tells wants to blurt out \\\"who/whom\\\" pretty much every time. It just feels right.\\n\\nWhy does it feel right? Maybe because no identifiers feel right to me so leaving them open, vague, or as basically an open question feels right. If anything I think the Buddhist idea of anatman, having no permanent, abiding essence is as close to a dogma of self as I'd be willing to embrace. I'm very creative and love acting and writing and can play and write from the points of view of characters who are very different from how most others would identify me just on sight. And I feel like every character I play or write is in many ways \\\"truly me\\\". And yet not.\\n\\nI also tend to find most of our human existence and human categories a tad absurd. And what would be more absurd than being able to make other people refer to me with the indefinite/interrogative pronouns? Who is taking the lead on the project? Yes. Whose pencil is this? No, not whose, it's hers. What? I just love the chaos and laughter that would be caused by it.\\n\\nAnd yet, I want this view changed because I think if I actually start doing it, it will just get me in trouble. I think people who really care about the pronoun thing are going to think I'm making fun of them or their concerns or somehow not taking it seriously. I think those who are irrationally angry about being asked for pronouns are either going to mistakenly think I'm on their side trying to expose how ridiculous it is or just ignore my request cause I couldn't seriously expect them to use THOSE pronouns. And obviously it makes communication harder, not easier because 3rd person pronouns are really for OTHER people to identify me to other other people so shouldn't they just use whatever pronouns work best to do that?\\n\\nI want this view changed cause I think if I actually put this on a job application or an email signature or an audition form even that it would just be a personal detriment and serve no real purpose other than to get me ostracized by both \\\"sides\\\" of the great pronoun war and everyone who else who is sick of it at the same time.\\n\\nAnd yet--it's the only set of pronouns that feels right to me. Has nothing to do with gender, really. And maybe I want to expand the challenge to identity even further. Maybe the point is we need to find that which is universally human if we are to reconnect one with another and stop being so lonely and at each other's throats. So ummm...yeah.\\n\\nCMV: I should start saying/writing that my pronouns are who/whom/whose whenever I am given that choice to make.\\n\\n**EDIT: Thanks to** u/sirlafemme **and others for a clarifying conversation below. After those conversations, want to add this edit:**\\n\\nI will say that the whole thing probably makes me uncomfortable because while I'm not usually uncomfortable with gender identity per se, I have a whole lot of issues around identity more generally. My issue is mainly I don't like being asked to \\\"pick\\\" because I want to be open in some ways to becoming whatever is needed at the moment. I really do like to find out about who I am speaking with first and then I will emphasize whatever parts of my own identity I think they will feel most comfortable with. And I guess that's part people pleasing and part fear of rejection.\\n\\nWhich is weird because I'm not usually afraid to stand up for something. Even an unpopular something. But I'm much more comfortable with standing up for an IDEA than for my SELF. And maybe the pronoun thing makes me profoundly uncomfortable because I feel like it's throwing a question onto me about my SELF, publicly in a way I have a choice and in a way that could say something about how I view that SELF. And I'm not ready for that kind of SELF-disclosure right up front when these kinds of questions are usually asked.\\n\\nOther questions bother me a little less because they could be seen as \\\"facts\\\". Like if the ice breaker is \\\"where were you born\\\" or \\\"where are you from/where do you live\\\" I'm not making a choice or saying I identify with or don't identify with the place I was born.\\n\\nAnd lastly, when I am uncomfortable with something and don't like showing I'm uncomfortable with something my first and only remotely healthy coping mechanism is humor. Trying to be funny/absurd or trying to brush it off with an out of the box and kind of ridiculous answer is my way of deflecting and getting out of the box. But I don't want to use that if it's going to make someone else potentially feel made fun OF.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-21\",\n \"id\": \"13oe4fz\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: If I Can Choose My Pronouns I'm Going to Go With Who/Whom/Whose\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13oe4fz/cmv_if_i_can_choose_my_pronouns_im_going_to_go/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"WaterboysWaterboy\",\n \"body\": \"It would be to confusing. “ who went to the store”….” Who rote that paper”… it always sounds like a question. People will just end up always using your name when addressing you.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-21\",\n \"id\": \"jl3z8cv\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13oe4fz\",\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"I mean that would be fine with me. Except I don't like being called by name directly.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-21\",\n \"id\": \"jl3zm69\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jl3z8cv\",\n \"score\": -1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"I've been thinking about this for awhile. First off, I don't like being asked for my pronouns. For that matter, I don't like being asked for any identifiers. Age. Ethnicity. Religion. Gender. Address. I don't even like giving out my name. I don't particularly like being called by my name. And I really hate any honorifics like Mr, Mrs, Ms, Dr, Professor, etc. There are probably lots of reasons for this, but mostly I don't like being put in a \\\"box.\\\" I don't like people knowing much if anything about me or having a lot of preconceived notions/biases about me before we even speak to one another. I want them to come to the encounter as free of those as possible and I try to go into each new encounter the same way.\\n\\nSo lots of forms ask you for these things. Some workplaces now make you put pronouns in your email signature. And whenever I get asked that question in some stupid ice breaker thing or via a form my GUT tells wants to blurt out \\\"who/whom\\\" pretty much every time. It just feels right.\\n\\nWhy does it feel right? Maybe because no identifiers feel right to me so leaving them open, vague, or as basically an open question feels right. If anything I think the Buddhist idea of anatman, having no permanent, abiding essence is as close to a dogma of self as I'd be willing to embrace. I'm very creative and love acting and writing and can play and write from the points of view of characters who are very different from how most others would identify me just on sight. And I feel like every character I play or write is in many ways \\\"truly me\\\". And yet not.\\n\\nI also tend to find most of our human existence and human categories a tad absurd. And what would be more absurd than being able to make other people refer to me with the indefinite/interrogative pronouns? Who is taking the lead on the project? Yes. Whose pencil is this? No, not whose, it's hers. What? I just love the chaos and laughter that would be caused by it.\\n\\nAnd yet, I want this view changed because I think if I actually start doing it, it will just get me in trouble. I think people who really care about the pronoun thing are going to think I'm making fun of them or their concerns or somehow not taking it seriously. I think those who are irrationally angry about being asked for pronouns are either going to mistakenly think I'm on their side trying to expose how ridiculous it is or just ignore my request cause I couldn't seriously expect them to use THOSE pronouns. And obviously it makes communication harder, not easier because 3rd person pronouns are really for OTHER people to identify me to other other people so shouldn't they just use whatever pronouns work best to do that?\\n\\nI want this view changed cause I think if I actually put this on a job application or an email signature or an audition form even that it would just be a personal detriment and serve no real purpose other than to get me ostracized by both \\\"sides\\\" of the great pronoun war and everyone who else who is sick of it at the same time.\\n\\nAnd yet--it's the only set of pronouns that feels right to me. Has nothing to do with gender, really. And maybe I want to expand the challenge to identity even further. Maybe the point is we need to find that which is universally human if we are to reconnect one with another and stop being so lonely and at each other's throats. So ummm...yeah.\\n\\nCMV: I should start saying/writing that my pronouns are who/whom/whose whenever I am given that choice to make.\\n\\n**EDIT: Thanks to** u/sirlafemme **and others for a clarifying conversation below. After those conversations, want to add this edit:**\\n\\nI will say that the whole thing probably makes me uncomfortable because while I'm not usually uncomfortable with gender identity per se, I have a whole lot of issues around identity more generally. My issue is mainly I don't like being asked to \\\"pick\\\" because I want to be open in some ways to becoming whatever is needed at the moment. I really do like to find out about who I am speaking with first and then I will emphasize whatever parts of my own identity I think they will feel most comfortable with. And I guess that's part people pleasing and part fear of rejection.\\n\\nWhich is weird because I'm not usually afraid to stand up for something. Even an unpopular something. But I'm much more comfortable with standing up for an IDEA than for my SELF. And maybe the pronoun thing makes me profoundly uncomfortable because I feel like it's throwing a question onto me about my SELF, publicly in a way I have a choice and in a way that could say something about how I view that SELF. And I'm not ready for that kind of SELF-disclosure right up front when these kinds of questions are usually asked.\\n\\nOther questions bother me a little less because they could be seen as \\\"facts\\\". Like if the ice breaker is \\\"where were you born\\\" or \\\"where are you from/where do you live\\\" I'm not making a choice or saying I identify with or don't identify with the place I was born.\\n\\nAnd lastly, when I am uncomfortable with something and don't like showing I'm uncomfortable with something my first and only remotely healthy coping mechanism is humor. Trying to be funny/absurd or trying to brush it off with an out of the box and kind of ridiculous answer is my way of deflecting and getting out of the box. But I don't want to use that if it's going to make someone else potentially feel made fun OF.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-21\",\n \"id\": \"13oe4fz\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: If I Can Choose My Pronouns I'm Going to Go With Who/Whom/Whose\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13oe4fz/cmv_if_i_can_choose_my_pronouns_im_going_to_go/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"mortusowo\",\n \"body\": \">I also tend to find most of our human existence and human categories a tad absurd. And what would be more absurd than being able to make other people refer to me with the indefinite/interrogative pronouns? \\n\\nI think making a mockery of pronouns like this just for fun runs against what you say you want later in this post. Yes categories are absurd sometimes but they are just kinda part of our culture at this point. You're less likely to make a statement and more likely to have people think you're weird. \\n\\n>And yet, I want this view changed because I think if I actually start doing it, it will just get me in trouble. I think people who really care about the pronoun thing are going to think I'm making fun of them or their concerns or somehow not taking it seriously. I think those who are irrationally angry about being asked for pronouns are either going to mistakenly think I'm on their side trying to expose how ridiculous it is or just ignore my request cause I couldn't seriously expect them to use THOSE pronouns. And obviously it makes communication harder, not easier because 3rd person pronouns are really for OTHER people to identify me to other other people so shouldn't they just use whatever pronouns work best to do that?\\n\\n\\nHonestly it's not only going to be confusing but I forsee most people just ignoring it. They rarely get typical pronouns right for trans people. Anything outside of he and she is unlikely to get adopted easily. You won't achieve even the chaos you describe wanting. Itll be nothing\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-21\",\n \"id\": \"jl3zt7u\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13oe4fz\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"People probably think I'm weird already. I tend to prefer \\\"unique.\\\" Which is sort of the point here. I think individual people are unique. I think people can be called whatever they want to be called. And I think people can call me whatever I want. \\n\\nBut the issue is there are questions that put ME on the spot to define myself in a way that I really don't care to or want to or feel comfortable with. I honestly don't feel comfortable responding \\\"you must call me she/her or he/him or they/them.\\\" I don't like any of those choices. So do I just...pass? I think that gets taken the wrong way, too. As does saying \\\"call me whatever you want, I find it interesting to see what you think I am.\\\" Cause I sure as hell don't know the answer to that question and think that when you really self-reflect there isn't a great deal of certainty about human identity at all. We have modular brains made up of different parts that evolved at different times for different reasons and those minds are constantly evolving even in the same lifetime.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-21\",\n \"id\": \"jl40knn\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jl3zt7u\",\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"I've been thinking about this for awhile. First off, I don't like being asked for my pronouns. For that matter, I don't like being asked for any identifiers. Age. Ethnicity. Religion. Gender. Address. I don't even like giving out my name. I don't particularly like being called by my name. And I really hate any honorifics like Mr, Mrs, Ms, Dr, Professor, etc. There are probably lots of reasons for this, but mostly I don't like being put in a \\\"box.\\\" I don't like people knowing much if anything about me or having a lot of preconceived notions/biases about me before we even speak to one another. I want them to come to the encounter as free of those as possible and I try to go into each new encounter the same way.\\n\\nSo lots of forms ask you for these things. Some workplaces now make you put pronouns in your email signature. And whenever I get asked that question in some stupid ice breaker thing or via a form my GUT tells wants to blurt out \\\"who/whom\\\" pretty much every time. It just feels right.\\n\\nWhy does it feel right? Maybe because no identifiers feel right to me so leaving them open, vague, or as basically an open question feels right. If anything I think the Buddhist idea of anatman, having no permanent, abiding essence is as close to a dogma of self as I'd be willing to embrace. I'm very creative and love acting and writing and can play and write from the points of view of characters who are very different from how most others would identify me just on sight. And I feel like every character I play or write is in many ways \\\"truly me\\\". And yet not.\\n\\nI also tend to find most of our human existence and human categories a tad absurd. And what would be more absurd than being able to make other people refer to me with the indefinite/interrogative pronouns? Who is taking the lead on the project? Yes. Whose pencil is this? No, not whose, it's hers. What? I just love the chaos and laughter that would be caused by it.\\n\\nAnd yet, I want this view changed because I think if I actually start doing it, it will just get me in trouble. I think people who really care about the pronoun thing are going to think I'm making fun of them or their concerns or somehow not taking it seriously. I think those who are irrationally angry about being asked for pronouns are either going to mistakenly think I'm on their side trying to expose how ridiculous it is or just ignore my request cause I couldn't seriously expect them to use THOSE pronouns. And obviously it makes communication harder, not easier because 3rd person pronouns are really for OTHER people to identify me to other other people so shouldn't they just use whatever pronouns work best to do that?\\n\\nI want this view changed cause I think if I actually put this on a job application or an email signature or an audition form even that it would just be a personal detriment and serve no real purpose other than to get me ostracized by both \\\"sides\\\" of the great pronoun war and everyone who else who is sick of it at the same time.\\n\\nAnd yet--it's the only set of pronouns that feels right to me. Has nothing to do with gender, really. And maybe I want to expand the challenge to identity even further. Maybe the point is we need to find that which is universally human if we are to reconnect one with another and stop being so lonely and at each other's throats. So ummm...yeah.\\n\\nCMV: I should start saying/writing that my pronouns are who/whom/whose whenever I am given that choice to make.\\n\\n**EDIT: Thanks to** u/sirlafemme **and others for a clarifying conversation below. After those conversations, want to add this edit:**\\n\\nI will say that the whole thing probably makes me uncomfortable because while I'm not usually uncomfortable with gender identity per se, I have a whole lot of issues around identity more generally. My issue is mainly I don't like being asked to \\\"pick\\\" because I want to be open in some ways to becoming whatever is needed at the moment. I really do like to find out about who I am speaking with first and then I will emphasize whatever parts of my own identity I think they will feel most comfortable with. And I guess that's part people pleasing and part fear of rejection.\\n\\nWhich is weird because I'm not usually afraid to stand up for something. Even an unpopular something. But I'm much more comfortable with standing up for an IDEA than for my SELF. And maybe the pronoun thing makes me profoundly uncomfortable because I feel like it's throwing a question onto me about my SELF, publicly in a way I have a choice and in a way that could say something about how I view that SELF. And I'm not ready for that kind of SELF-disclosure right up front when these kinds of questions are usually asked.\\n\\nOther questions bother me a little less because they could be seen as \\\"facts\\\". Like if the ice breaker is \\\"where were you born\\\" or \\\"where are you from/where do you live\\\" I'm not making a choice or saying I identify with or don't identify with the place I was born.\\n\\nAnd lastly, when I am uncomfortable with something and don't like showing I'm uncomfortable with something my first and only remotely healthy coping mechanism is humor. Trying to be funny/absurd or trying to brush it off with an out of the box and kind of ridiculous answer is my way of deflecting and getting out of the box. But I don't want to use that if it's going to make someone else potentially feel made fun OF.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-21\",\n \"id\": \"13oe4fz\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: If I Can Choose My Pronouns I'm Going to Go With Who/Whom/Whose\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13oe4fz/cmv_if_i_can_choose_my_pronouns_im_going_to_go/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"johnmeeks1974\",\n \"body\": \"If you are making a statement against people using pronouns to be engaging in performative activism, why do you feel the need to fight fire with fire? My issue is not specifically with you but how our society confuses agitprop and stunts for actual dialogue and debate. The whole who/whom/whose thing sounds ready made for a TikTok or YouTube in which some unsuspecting person is roped into the social statement of the day. It goes viral and disappears like Roxie at the end of Chicago. I hear your frustration but you have the power to take a higher road than those you criticize\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-21\",\n \"id\": \"jl402jo\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13oe4fz\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"Well that's just the thing. It's not performative activism at all. I honestly do feel most comfortable with that answer when asked the question. And isn't that the answer I am supposed to give?\\n\\nI'm not against, per se, asking people for their pronouns but I am against basically giving them only two choices. Three if you count the plural. I'm not trying to be sensational or an smart ass.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-21\",\n \"id\": \"jl40v1r\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jl402jo\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"I've been thinking about this for awhile. First off, I don't like being asked for my pronouns. For that matter, I don't like being asked for any identifiers. Age. Ethnicity. Religion. Gender. Address. I don't even like giving out my name. I don't particularly like being called by my name. And I really hate any honorifics like Mr, Mrs, Ms, Dr, Professor, etc. There are probably lots of reasons for this, but mostly I don't like being put in a \\\"box.\\\" I don't like people knowing much if anything about me or having a lot of preconceived notions/biases about me before we even speak to one another. I want them to come to the encounter as free of those as possible and I try to go into each new encounter the same way.\\n\\nSo lots of forms ask you for these things. Some workplaces now make you put pronouns in your email signature. And whenever I get asked that question in some stupid ice breaker thing or via a form my GUT tells wants to blurt out \\\"who/whom\\\" pretty much every time. It just feels right.\\n\\nWhy does it feel right? Maybe because no identifiers feel right to me so leaving them open, vague, or as basically an open question feels right. If anything I think the Buddhist idea of anatman, having no permanent, abiding essence is as close to a dogma of self as I'd be willing to embrace. I'm very creative and love acting and writing and can play and write from the points of view of characters who are very different from how most others would identify me just on sight. And I feel like every character I play or write is in many ways \\\"truly me\\\". And yet not.\\n\\nI also tend to find most of our human existence and human categories a tad absurd. And what would be more absurd than being able to make other people refer to me with the indefinite/interrogative pronouns? Who is taking the lead on the project? Yes. Whose pencil is this? No, not whose, it's hers. What? I just love the chaos and laughter that would be caused by it.\\n\\nAnd yet, I want this view changed because I think if I actually start doing it, it will just get me in trouble. I think people who really care about the pronoun thing are going to think I'm making fun of them or their concerns or somehow not taking it seriously. I think those who are irrationally angry about being asked for pronouns are either going to mistakenly think I'm on their side trying to expose how ridiculous it is or just ignore my request cause I couldn't seriously expect them to use THOSE pronouns. And obviously it makes communication harder, not easier because 3rd person pronouns are really for OTHER people to identify me to other other people so shouldn't they just use whatever pronouns work best to do that?\\n\\nI want this view changed cause I think if I actually put this on a job application or an email signature or an audition form even that it would just be a personal detriment and serve no real purpose other than to get me ostracized by both \\\"sides\\\" of the great pronoun war and everyone who else who is sick of it at the same time.\\n\\nAnd yet--it's the only set of pronouns that feels right to me. Has nothing to do with gender, really. And maybe I want to expand the challenge to identity even further. Maybe the point is we need to find that which is universally human if we are to reconnect one with another and stop being so lonely and at each other's throats. So ummm...yeah.\\n\\nCMV: I should start saying/writing that my pronouns are who/whom/whose whenever I am given that choice to make.\\n\\n**EDIT: Thanks to** u/sirlafemme **and others for a clarifying conversation below. After those conversations, want to add this edit:**\\n\\nI will say that the whole thing probably makes me uncomfortable because while I'm not usually uncomfortable with gender identity per se, I have a whole lot of issues around identity more generally. My issue is mainly I don't like being asked to \\\"pick\\\" because I want to be open in some ways to becoming whatever is needed at the moment. I really do like to find out about who I am speaking with first and then I will emphasize whatever parts of my own identity I think they will feel most comfortable with. And I guess that's part people pleasing and part fear of rejection.\\n\\nWhich is weird because I'm not usually afraid to stand up for something. Even an unpopular something. But I'm much more comfortable with standing up for an IDEA than for my SELF. And maybe the pronoun thing makes me profoundly uncomfortable because I feel like it's throwing a question onto me about my SELF, publicly in a way I have a choice and in a way that could say something about how I view that SELF. And I'm not ready for that kind of SELF-disclosure right up front when these kinds of questions are usually asked.\\n\\nOther questions bother me a little less because they could be seen as \\\"facts\\\". Like if the ice breaker is \\\"where were you born\\\" or \\\"where are you from/where do you live\\\" I'm not making a choice or saying I identify with or don't identify with the place I was born.\\n\\nAnd lastly, when I am uncomfortable with something and don't like showing I'm uncomfortable with something my first and only remotely healthy coping mechanism is humor. Trying to be funny/absurd or trying to brush it off with an out of the box and kind of ridiculous answer is my way of deflecting and getting out of the box. But I don't want to use that if it's going to make someone else potentially feel made fun OF.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-21\",\n \"id\": \"13oe4fz\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: If I Can Choose My Pronouns I'm Going to Go With Who/Whom/Whose\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13oe4fz/cmv_if_i_can_choose_my_pronouns_im_going_to_go/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Love_Shaq_Baby\",\n \"body\": \"If you don't want to be categorized, why not just use they? Or he, she and they?\\n\\nThe issue with who/whom/whose is that these don't function as replacements for he/she they. If I say, for example, Who is over there, I can't phrase that in a way that doesn't sound like a question.\\n\\nAs you already acknowledged, its extremely confusing, to the point that practically no one will ever use \\\"who\\\" to refer to you. People will just use they.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-21\",\n \"id\": \"jl40dpl\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13oe4fz\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"Thank you for what feels like a more genuine response that takes the prompt in good faith. And it's made in good faith.\\n\\nThey/them maybe doesn't feel quite right because I at least have the initial reaction that it is typically used by people who have a certain kind of nonbinary conception of gender or something like that (that's a really bad description, just trying to grapple with the \\\"sense\\\" of how I feel its used) that doesn't really fit me. As in if I said my pronouns are they/them then people would just think I was trying to express a gender non-binary identity that maybe does or doesn't fit me? I'd like to follow this thread some more because my inability to fully answer your question from a \\\"gut level\\\" probably means we are onto something.\\n\\nJust not sure exactly what.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-21\",\n \"id\": \"jl41b51\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jl40dpl\",\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"I've been thinking about this for awhile. First off, I don't like being asked for my pronouns. For that matter, I don't like being asked for any identifiers. Age. Ethnicity. Religion. Gender. Address. I don't even like giving out my name. I don't particularly like being called by my name. And I really hate any honorifics like Mr, Mrs, Ms, Dr, Professor, etc. There are probably lots of reasons for this, but mostly I don't like being put in a \\\"box.\\\" I don't like people knowing much if anything about me or having a lot of preconceived notions/biases about me before we even speak to one another. I want them to come to the encounter as free of those as possible and I try to go into each new encounter the same way.\\n\\nSo lots of forms ask you for these things. Some workplaces now make you put pronouns in your email signature. And whenever I get asked that question in some stupid ice breaker thing or via a form my GUT tells wants to blurt out \\\"who/whom\\\" pretty much every time. It just feels right.\\n\\nWhy does it feel right? Maybe because no identifiers feel right to me so leaving them open, vague, or as basically an open question feels right. If anything I think the Buddhist idea of anatman, having no permanent, abiding essence is as close to a dogma of self as I'd be willing to embrace. I'm very creative and love acting and writing and can play and write from the points of view of characters who are very different from how most others would identify me just on sight. And I feel like every character I play or write is in many ways \\\"truly me\\\". And yet not.\\n\\nI also tend to find most of our human existence and human categories a tad absurd. And what would be more absurd than being able to make other people refer to me with the indefinite/interrogative pronouns? Who is taking the lead on the project? Yes. Whose pencil is this? No, not whose, it's hers. What? I just love the chaos and laughter that would be caused by it.\\n\\nAnd yet, I want this view changed because I think if I actually start doing it, it will just get me in trouble. I think people who really care about the pronoun thing are going to think I'm making fun of them or their concerns or somehow not taking it seriously. I think those who are irrationally angry about being asked for pronouns are either going to mistakenly think I'm on their side trying to expose how ridiculous it is or just ignore my request cause I couldn't seriously expect them to use THOSE pronouns. And obviously it makes communication harder, not easier because 3rd person pronouns are really for OTHER people to identify me to other other people so shouldn't they just use whatever pronouns work best to do that?\\n\\nI want this view changed cause I think if I actually put this on a job application or an email signature or an audition form even that it would just be a personal detriment and serve no real purpose other than to get me ostracized by both \\\"sides\\\" of the great pronoun war and everyone who else who is sick of it at the same time.\\n\\nAnd yet--it's the only set of pronouns that feels right to me. Has nothing to do with gender, really. And maybe I want to expand the challenge to identity even further. Maybe the point is we need to find that which is universally human if we are to reconnect one with another and stop being so lonely and at each other's throats. So ummm...yeah.\\n\\nCMV: I should start saying/writing that my pronouns are who/whom/whose whenever I am given that choice to make.\\n\\n**EDIT: Thanks to** u/sirlafemme **and others for a clarifying conversation below. After those conversations, want to add this edit:**\\n\\nI will say that the whole thing probably makes me uncomfortable because while I'm not usually uncomfortable with gender identity per se, I have a whole lot of issues around identity more generally. My issue is mainly I don't like being asked to \\\"pick\\\" because I want to be open in some ways to becoming whatever is needed at the moment. I really do like to find out about who I am speaking with first and then I will emphasize whatever parts of my own identity I think they will feel most comfortable with. And I guess that's part people pleasing and part fear of rejection.\\n\\nWhich is weird because I'm not usually afraid to stand up for something. Even an unpopular something. But I'm much more comfortable with standing up for an IDEA than for my SELF. And maybe the pronoun thing makes me profoundly uncomfortable because I feel like it's throwing a question onto me about my SELF, publicly in a way I have a choice and in a way that could say something about how I view that SELF. And I'm not ready for that kind of SELF-disclosure right up front when these kinds of questions are usually asked.\\n\\nOther questions bother me a little less because they could be seen as \\\"facts\\\". Like if the ice breaker is \\\"where were you born\\\" or \\\"where are you from/where do you live\\\" I'm not making a choice or saying I identify with or don't identify with the place I was born.\\n\\nAnd lastly, when I am uncomfortable with something and don't like showing I'm uncomfortable with something my first and only remotely healthy coping mechanism is humor. Trying to be funny/absurd or trying to brush it off with an out of the box and kind of ridiculous answer is my way of deflecting and getting out of the box. But I don't want to use that if it's going to make someone else potentially feel made fun OF.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-21\",\n \"id\": \"13oe4fz\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: If I Can Choose My Pronouns I'm Going to Go With Who/Whom/Whose\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13oe4fz/cmv_if_i_can_choose_my_pronouns_im_going_to_go/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"RIP_Greedo\",\n \"body\": \"How often are you actually being asked about your pronouns that you’ve spent the time concocting this sly response?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-21\",\n \"id\": \"jl41tcb\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13oe4fz\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"Well in the past month alone I've filled out a number of job applications, audition forms, program/class enrollments and two new email signatures for organizational accounts and I would say about 80% of them had this line in it. \\\"Preferred pronouns: \\\\_\\\\_\\\\_\\\\_\\\\_\\\\_\\\\_\\\\_\\\\_\\\\_\\\\_\\\\_\\\\_\\\\_\\\" and few had the option to leave it blank. So it has been on my mind a lot actually. \\n\\nAnd when I see it phrased in that way, as in \\\"What are your preferred pronouns?\\\" the answer that has been percolating deep within my psyche to the point that my fingers are ready to type it out every time now is \\\"who/whom/whose\\\" if I have to fill it out.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-21\",\n \"id\": \"jl44fc9\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jl41tcb\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"I've been thinking about this for awhile. First off, I don't like being asked for my pronouns. For that matter, I don't like being asked for any identifiers. Age. Ethnicity. Religion. Gender. Address. I don't even like giving out my name. I don't particularly like being called by my name. And I really hate any honorifics like Mr, Mrs, Ms, Dr, Professor, etc. There are probably lots of reasons for this, but mostly I don't like being put in a \\\"box.\\\" I don't like people knowing much if anything about me or having a lot of preconceived notions/biases about me before we even speak to one another. I want them to come to the encounter as free of those as possible and I try to go into each new encounter the same way.\\n\\nSo lots of forms ask you for these things. Some workplaces now make you put pronouns in your email signature. And whenever I get asked that question in some stupid ice breaker thing or via a form my GUT tells wants to blurt out \\\"who/whom\\\" pretty much every time. It just feels right.\\n\\nWhy does it feel right? Maybe because no identifiers feel right to me so leaving them open, vague, or as basically an open question feels right. If anything I think the Buddhist idea of anatman, having no permanent, abiding essence is as close to a dogma of self as I'd be willing to embrace. I'm very creative and love acting and writing and can play and write from the points of view of characters who are very different from how most others would identify me just on sight. And I feel like every character I play or write is in many ways \\\"truly me\\\". And yet not.\\n\\nI also tend to find most of our human existence and human categories a tad absurd. And what would be more absurd than being able to make other people refer to me with the indefinite/interrogative pronouns? Who is taking the lead on the project? Yes. Whose pencil is this? No, not whose, it's hers. What? I just love the chaos and laughter that would be caused by it.\\n\\nAnd yet, I want this view changed because I think if I actually start doing it, it will just get me in trouble. I think people who really care about the pronoun thing are going to think I'm making fun of them or their concerns or somehow not taking it seriously. I think those who are irrationally angry about being asked for pronouns are either going to mistakenly think I'm on their side trying to expose how ridiculous it is or just ignore my request cause I couldn't seriously expect them to use THOSE pronouns. And obviously it makes communication harder, not easier because 3rd person pronouns are really for OTHER people to identify me to other other people so shouldn't they just use whatever pronouns work best to do that?\\n\\nI want this view changed cause I think if I actually put this on a job application or an email signature or an audition form even that it would just be a personal detriment and serve no real purpose other than to get me ostracized by both \\\"sides\\\" of the great pronoun war and everyone who else who is sick of it at the same time.\\n\\nAnd yet--it's the only set of pronouns that feels right to me. Has nothing to do with gender, really. And maybe I want to expand the challenge to identity even further. Maybe the point is we need to find that which is universally human if we are to reconnect one with another and stop being so lonely and at each other's throats. So ummm...yeah.\\n\\nCMV: I should start saying/writing that my pronouns are who/whom/whose whenever I am given that choice to make.\\n\\n**EDIT: Thanks to** u/sirlafemme **and others for a clarifying conversation below. After those conversations, want to add this edit:**\\n\\nI will say that the whole thing probably makes me uncomfortable because while I'm not usually uncomfortable with gender identity per se, I have a whole lot of issues around identity more generally. My issue is mainly I don't like being asked to \\\"pick\\\" because I want to be open in some ways to becoming whatever is needed at the moment. I really do like to find out about who I am speaking with first and then I will emphasize whatever parts of my own identity I think they will feel most comfortable with. And I guess that's part people pleasing and part fear of rejection.\\n\\nWhich is weird because I'm not usually afraid to stand up for something. Even an unpopular something. But I'm much more comfortable with standing up for an IDEA than for my SELF. And maybe the pronoun thing makes me profoundly uncomfortable because I feel like it's throwing a question onto me about my SELF, publicly in a way I have a choice and in a way that could say something about how I view that SELF. And I'm not ready for that kind of SELF-disclosure right up front when these kinds of questions are usually asked.\\n\\nOther questions bother me a little less because they could be seen as \\\"facts\\\". Like if the ice breaker is \\\"where were you born\\\" or \\\"where are you from/where do you live\\\" I'm not making a choice or saying I identify with or don't identify with the place I was born.\\n\\nAnd lastly, when I am uncomfortable with something and don't like showing I'm uncomfortable with something my first and only remotely healthy coping mechanism is humor. Trying to be funny/absurd or trying to brush it off with an out of the box and kind of ridiculous answer is my way of deflecting and getting out of the box. But I don't want to use that if it's going to make someone else potentially feel made fun OF.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-21\",\n \"id\": \"13oe4fz\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: If I Can Choose My Pronouns I'm Going to Go With Who/Whom/Whose\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13oe4fz/cmv_if_i_can_choose_my_pronouns_im_going_to_go/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"tidalbeing\",\n \"body\": \"Using who, whose, whom would be extremly confusing, even more confusing for using pronouns that could mean a group of people, a group of things, or a single person.\\n\\nThe point of language including pronouns is clarity. I've been giving the problem a lot of thought. I agree with you that gender/sex should be private. But also who or what is being spoken to or about should be clear. \\n\\nThe best solutions I've found are to repeat the antecedent or to pluralize the antecedent. The antecedent is the noun that the pronoun replaces. Instead of \\\"everyone\\\" use \\\"all those present\\\" Instead of referring an unknown party(you don't know gender or number) as a single individual, refer to them as a \\\"party.\\\"\\n\\nAs for name tags, I'm considering writing \\\"repeat the antecedent.\\\" I want to keep my gender/ sex private but don't like being referred to in plural. Repeating the antecedent when number and gender are unknown beats having to repeat antecedents for groups of objects and groups of people, which must be done for clarity when \\\"They\\\" might be singular.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-21\",\n \"id\": \"jl42biz\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13oe4fz\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"I've been thinking about this for awhile. First off, I don't like being asked for my pronouns. For that matter, I don't like being asked for any identifiers. Age. Ethnicity. Religion. Gender. Address. I don't even like giving out my name. I don't particularly like being called by my name. And I really hate any honorifics like Mr, Mrs, Ms, Dr, Professor, etc. There are probably lots of reasons for this, but mostly I don't like being put in a \\\"box.\\\" I don't like people knowing much if anything about me or having a lot of preconceived notions/biases about me before we even speak to one another. I want them to come to the encounter as free of those as possible and I try to go into each new encounter the same way.\\n\\nSo lots of forms ask you for these things. Some workplaces now make you put pronouns in your email signature. And whenever I get asked that question in some stupid ice breaker thing or via a form my GUT tells wants to blurt out \\\"who/whom\\\" pretty much every time. It just feels right.\\n\\nWhy does it feel right? Maybe because no identifiers feel right to me so leaving them open, vague, or as basically an open question feels right. If anything I think the Buddhist idea of anatman, having no permanent, abiding essence is as close to a dogma of self as I'd be willing to embrace. I'm very creative and love acting and writing and can play and write from the points of view of characters who are very different from how most others would identify me just on sight. And I feel like every character I play or write is in many ways \\\"truly me\\\". And yet not.\\n\\nI also tend to find most of our human existence and human categories a tad absurd. And what would be more absurd than being able to make other people refer to me with the indefinite/interrogative pronouns? Who is taking the lead on the project? Yes. Whose pencil is this? No, not whose, it's hers. What? I just love the chaos and laughter that would be caused by it.\\n\\nAnd yet, I want this view changed because I think if I actually start doing it, it will just get me in trouble. I think people who really care about the pronoun thing are going to think I'm making fun of them or their concerns or somehow not taking it seriously. I think those who are irrationally angry about being asked for pronouns are either going to mistakenly think I'm on their side trying to expose how ridiculous it is or just ignore my request cause I couldn't seriously expect them to use THOSE pronouns. And obviously it makes communication harder, not easier because 3rd person pronouns are really for OTHER people to identify me to other other people so shouldn't they just use whatever pronouns work best to do that?\\n\\nI want this view changed cause I think if I actually put this on a job application or an email signature or an audition form even that it would just be a personal detriment and serve no real purpose other than to get me ostracized by both \\\"sides\\\" of the great pronoun war and everyone who else who is sick of it at the same time.\\n\\nAnd yet--it's the only set of pronouns that feels right to me. Has nothing to do with gender, really. And maybe I want to expand the challenge to identity even further. Maybe the point is we need to find that which is universally human if we are to reconnect one with another and stop being so lonely and at each other's throats. So ummm...yeah.\\n\\nCMV: I should start saying/writing that my pronouns are who/whom/whose whenever I am given that choice to make.\\n\\n**EDIT: Thanks to** u/sirlafemme **and others for a clarifying conversation below. After those conversations, want to add this edit:**\\n\\nI will say that the whole thing probably makes me uncomfortable because while I'm not usually uncomfortable with gender identity per se, I have a whole lot of issues around identity more generally. My issue is mainly I don't like being asked to \\\"pick\\\" because I want to be open in some ways to becoming whatever is needed at the moment. I really do like to find out about who I am speaking with first and then I will emphasize whatever parts of my own identity I think they will feel most comfortable with. And I guess that's part people pleasing and part fear of rejection.\\n\\nWhich is weird because I'm not usually afraid to stand up for something. Even an unpopular something. But I'm much more comfortable with standing up for an IDEA than for my SELF. And maybe the pronoun thing makes me profoundly uncomfortable because I feel like it's throwing a question onto me about my SELF, publicly in a way I have a choice and in a way that could say something about how I view that SELF. And I'm not ready for that kind of SELF-disclosure right up front when these kinds of questions are usually asked.\\n\\nOther questions bother me a little less because they could be seen as \\\"facts\\\". Like if the ice breaker is \\\"where were you born\\\" or \\\"where are you from/where do you live\\\" I'm not making a choice or saying I identify with or don't identify with the place I was born.\\n\\nAnd lastly, when I am uncomfortable with something and don't like showing I'm uncomfortable with something my first and only remotely healthy coping mechanism is humor. Trying to be funny/absurd or trying to brush it off with an out of the box and kind of ridiculous answer is my way of deflecting and getting out of the box. But I don't want to use that if it's going to make someone else potentially feel made fun OF.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-21\",\n \"id\": \"13oe4fz\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: If I Can Choose My Pronouns I'm Going to Go With Who/Whom/Whose\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13oe4fz/cmv_if_i_can_choose_my_pronouns_im_going_to_go/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Best-Analysis4401\",\n \"body\": \"If you used this pronoun, people will certainly still put you in a box.\\n\\nIn fact, by focusing so much on yourself and your pronouns, you end up boxing yourself to yourself. That is, you are saying, \\\"I think I am this kind of person\\\", \\\"I don't want to really have a permanent identity\\\", so then that is your identity of you.\\n\\nIf you instead forget yourself, then you will be much less \\\"boxed\\\" because you won't care.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-21\",\n \"id\": \"jl43zxv\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13oe4fz\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"I've been thinking about this for awhile. First off, I don't like being asked for my pronouns. For that matter, I don't like being asked for any identifiers. Age. Ethnicity. Religion. Gender. Address. I don't even like giving out my name. I don't particularly like being called by my name. And I really hate any honorifics like Mr, Mrs, Ms, Dr, Professor, etc. There are probably lots of reasons for this, but mostly I don't like being put in a \\\"box.\\\" I don't like people knowing much if anything about me or having a lot of preconceived notions/biases about me before we even speak to one another. I want them to come to the encounter as free of those as possible and I try to go into each new encounter the same way.\\n\\nSo lots of forms ask you for these things. Some workplaces now make you put pronouns in your email signature. And whenever I get asked that question in some stupid ice breaker thing or via a form my GUT tells wants to blurt out \\\"who/whom\\\" pretty much every time. It just feels right.\\n\\nWhy does it feel right? Maybe because no identifiers feel right to me so leaving them open, vague, or as basically an open question feels right. If anything I think the Buddhist idea of anatman, having no permanent, abiding essence is as close to a dogma of self as I'd be willing to embrace. I'm very creative and love acting and writing and can play and write from the points of view of characters who are very different from how most others would identify me just on sight. And I feel like every character I play or write is in many ways \\\"truly me\\\". And yet not.\\n\\nI also tend to find most of our human existence and human categories a tad absurd. And what would be more absurd than being able to make other people refer to me with the indefinite/interrogative pronouns? Who is taking the lead on the project? Yes. Whose pencil is this? No, not whose, it's hers. What? I just love the chaos and laughter that would be caused by it.\\n\\nAnd yet, I want this view changed because I think if I actually start doing it, it will just get me in trouble. I think people who really care about the pronoun thing are going to think I'm making fun of them or their concerns or somehow not taking it seriously. I think those who are irrationally angry about being asked for pronouns are either going to mistakenly think I'm on their side trying to expose how ridiculous it is or just ignore my request cause I couldn't seriously expect them to use THOSE pronouns. And obviously it makes communication harder, not easier because 3rd person pronouns are really for OTHER people to identify me to other other people so shouldn't they just use whatever pronouns work best to do that?\\n\\nI want this view changed cause I think if I actually put this on a job application or an email signature or an audition form even that it would just be a personal detriment and serve no real purpose other than to get me ostracized by both \\\"sides\\\" of the great pronoun war and everyone who else who is sick of it at the same time.\\n\\nAnd yet--it's the only set of pronouns that feels right to me. Has nothing to do with gender, really. And maybe I want to expand the challenge to identity even further. Maybe the point is we need to find that which is universally human if we are to reconnect one with another and stop being so lonely and at each other's throats. So ummm...yeah.\\n\\nCMV: I should start saying/writing that my pronouns are who/whom/whose whenever I am given that choice to make.\\n\\n**EDIT: Thanks to** u/sirlafemme **and others for a clarifying conversation below. After those conversations, want to add this edit:**\\n\\nI will say that the whole thing probably makes me uncomfortable because while I'm not usually uncomfortable with gender identity per se, I have a whole lot of issues around identity more generally. My issue is mainly I don't like being asked to \\\"pick\\\" because I want to be open in some ways to becoming whatever is needed at the moment. I really do like to find out about who I am speaking with first and then I will emphasize whatever parts of my own identity I think they will feel most comfortable with. And I guess that's part people pleasing and part fear of rejection.\\n\\nWhich is weird because I'm not usually afraid to stand up for something. Even an unpopular something. But I'm much more comfortable with standing up for an IDEA than for my SELF. And maybe the pronoun thing makes me profoundly uncomfortable because I feel like it's throwing a question onto me about my SELF, publicly in a way I have a choice and in a way that could say something about how I view that SELF. And I'm not ready for that kind of SELF-disclosure right up front when these kinds of questions are usually asked.\\n\\nOther questions bother me a little less because they could be seen as \\\"facts\\\". Like if the ice breaker is \\\"where were you born\\\" or \\\"where are you from/where do you live\\\" I'm not making a choice or saying I identify with or don't identify with the place I was born.\\n\\nAnd lastly, when I am uncomfortable with something and don't like showing I'm uncomfortable with something my first and only remotely healthy coping mechanism is humor. Trying to be funny/absurd or trying to brush it off with an out of the box and kind of ridiculous answer is my way of deflecting and getting out of the box. But I don't want to use that if it's going to make someone else potentially feel made fun OF.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-21\",\n \"id\": \"13oe4fz\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: If I Can Choose My Pronouns I'm Going to Go With Who/Whom/Whose\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13oe4fz/cmv_if_i_can_choose_my_pronouns_im_going_to_go/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"political_bot\",\n \"body\": \"If you're already going for the bit, why not commit all the way? https://youtu.be/sYOUFGfK4bU . Who/What . Better than an attack helicopter joke at least.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-21\",\n \"id\": \"jl46i5q\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13oe4fz\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"I've been thinking about this for awhile. First off, I don't like being asked for my pronouns. For that matter, I don't like being asked for any identifiers. Age. Ethnicity. Religion. Gender. Address. I don't even like giving out my name. I don't particularly like being called by my name. And I really hate any honorifics like Mr, Mrs, Ms, Dr, Professor, etc. There are probably lots of reasons for this, but mostly I don't like being put in a \\\"box.\\\" I don't like people knowing much if anything about me or having a lot of preconceived notions/biases about me before we even speak to one another. I want them to come to the encounter as free of those as possible and I try to go into each new encounter the same way.\\n\\nSo lots of forms ask you for these things. Some workplaces now make you put pronouns in your email signature. And whenever I get asked that question in some stupid ice breaker thing or via a form my GUT tells wants to blurt out \\\"who/whom\\\" pretty much every time. It just feels right.\\n\\nWhy does it feel right? Maybe because no identifiers feel right to me so leaving them open, vague, or as basically an open question feels right. If anything I think the Buddhist idea of anatman, having no permanent, abiding essence is as close to a dogma of self as I'd be willing to embrace. I'm very creative and love acting and writing and can play and write from the points of view of characters who are very different from how most others would identify me just on sight. And I feel like every character I play or write is in many ways \\\"truly me\\\". And yet not.\\n\\nI also tend to find most of our human existence and human categories a tad absurd. And what would be more absurd than being able to make other people refer to me with the indefinite/interrogative pronouns? Who is taking the lead on the project? Yes. Whose pencil is this? No, not whose, it's hers. What? I just love the chaos and laughter that would be caused by it.\\n\\nAnd yet, I want this view changed because I think if I actually start doing it, it will just get me in trouble. I think people who really care about the pronoun thing are going to think I'm making fun of them or their concerns or somehow not taking it seriously. I think those who are irrationally angry about being asked for pronouns are either going to mistakenly think I'm on their side trying to expose how ridiculous it is or just ignore my request cause I couldn't seriously expect them to use THOSE pronouns. And obviously it makes communication harder, not easier because 3rd person pronouns are really for OTHER people to identify me to other other people so shouldn't they just use whatever pronouns work best to do that?\\n\\nI want this view changed cause I think if I actually put this on a job application or an email signature or an audition form even that it would just be a personal detriment and serve no real purpose other than to get me ostracized by both \\\"sides\\\" of the great pronoun war and everyone who else who is sick of it at the same time.\\n\\nAnd yet--it's the only set of pronouns that feels right to me. Has nothing to do with gender, really. And maybe I want to expand the challenge to identity even further. Maybe the point is we need to find that which is universally human if we are to reconnect one with another and stop being so lonely and at each other's throats. So ummm...yeah.\\n\\nCMV: I should start saying/writing that my pronouns are who/whom/whose whenever I am given that choice to make.\\n\\n**EDIT: Thanks to** u/sirlafemme **and others for a clarifying conversation below. After those conversations, want to add this edit:**\\n\\nI will say that the whole thing probably makes me uncomfortable because while I'm not usually uncomfortable with gender identity per se, I have a whole lot of issues around identity more generally. My issue is mainly I don't like being asked to \\\"pick\\\" because I want to be open in some ways to becoming whatever is needed at the moment. I really do like to find out about who I am speaking with first and then I will emphasize whatever parts of my own identity I think they will feel most comfortable with. And I guess that's part people pleasing and part fear of rejection.\\n\\nWhich is weird because I'm not usually afraid to stand up for something. Even an unpopular something. But I'm much more comfortable with standing up for an IDEA than for my SELF. And maybe the pronoun thing makes me profoundly uncomfortable because I feel like it's throwing a question onto me about my SELF, publicly in a way I have a choice and in a way that could say something about how I view that SELF. And I'm not ready for that kind of SELF-disclosure right up front when these kinds of questions are usually asked.\\n\\nOther questions bother me a little less because they could be seen as \\\"facts\\\". Like if the ice breaker is \\\"where were you born\\\" or \\\"where are you from/where do you live\\\" I'm not making a choice or saying I identify with or don't identify with the place I was born.\\n\\nAnd lastly, when I am uncomfortable with something and don't like showing I'm uncomfortable with something my first and only remotely healthy coping mechanism is humor. Trying to be funny/absurd or trying to brush it off with an out of the box and kind of ridiculous answer is my way of deflecting and getting out of the box. But I don't want to use that if it's going to make someone else potentially feel made fun OF.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-21\",\n \"id\": \"13oe4fz\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: If I Can Choose My Pronouns I'm Going to Go With Who/Whom/Whose\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13oe4fz/cmv_if_i_can_choose_my_pronouns_im_going_to_go/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"thicc_noods117\",\n \"body\": \"I've read most of your arguments and comments so far. Putting yourself in a \\\"box\\\" is impossible to avoid. \\n\\nEven if you don't \\\"box\\\" yourself, people are going to box you. If you present male people are going to box you as male. If they actually care about how you feel they might change that box or they may not.\\n\\nHaving multiple pronouns which is a suggestion you liked still makes people think \\\"Oh they're queer.\\\" They still identify you as something.\\n\\nYou don't like giving out any personal information so it's not just a pronouns thing. You basically want to remain anonymous in real life which is just not feasible or else they'd allow babies to be nameless.\\n\\nI guess if you really wanted to go down this route the best way would to go by it. Like, name and all. You're just it. It are your pronouns and it is your name. That gives as little info or stigma as possible.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-22\",\n \"id\": \"jl4flc2\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13oe4fz\",\n \"score\": 4,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"And if I were to change my name in that way I think your point remains that I'd still be put in a box that I don't want to be in.\\n\\nYes, I want anonymity. Or at least slowly revealed identity as I find out how comfortable I am with a person. Spoke more on that in the edit I made this morning.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-22\",\n \"id\": \"jl61tdw\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jl4flc2\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"I've been thinking about this for awhile. First off, I don't like being asked for my pronouns. For that matter, I don't like being asked for any identifiers. Age. Ethnicity. Religion. Gender. Address. I don't even like giving out my name. I don't particularly like being called by my name. And I really hate any honorifics like Mr, Mrs, Ms, Dr, Professor, etc. There are probably lots of reasons for this, but mostly I don't like being put in a \\\"box.\\\" I don't like people knowing much if anything about me or having a lot of preconceived notions/biases about me before we even speak to one another. I want them to come to the encounter as free of those as possible and I try to go into each new encounter the same way.\\n\\nSo lots of forms ask you for these things. Some workplaces now make you put pronouns in your email signature. And whenever I get asked that question in some stupid ice breaker thing or via a form my GUT tells wants to blurt out \\\"who/whom\\\" pretty much every time. It just feels right.\\n\\nWhy does it feel right? Maybe because no identifiers feel right to me so leaving them open, vague, or as basically an open question feels right. If anything I think the Buddhist idea of anatman, having no permanent, abiding essence is as close to a dogma of self as I'd be willing to embrace. I'm very creative and love acting and writing and can play and write from the points of view of characters who are very different from how most others would identify me just on sight. And I feel like every character I play or write is in many ways \\\"truly me\\\". And yet not.\\n\\nI also tend to find most of our human existence and human categories a tad absurd. And what would be more absurd than being able to make other people refer to me with the indefinite/interrogative pronouns? Who is taking the lead on the project? Yes. Whose pencil is this? No, not whose, it's hers. What? I just love the chaos and laughter that would be caused by it.\\n\\nAnd yet, I want this view changed because I think if I actually start doing it, it will just get me in trouble. I think people who really care about the pronoun thing are going to think I'm making fun of them or their concerns or somehow not taking it seriously. I think those who are irrationally angry about being asked for pronouns are either going to mistakenly think I'm on their side trying to expose how ridiculous it is or just ignore my request cause I couldn't seriously expect them to use THOSE pronouns. And obviously it makes communication harder, not easier because 3rd person pronouns are really for OTHER people to identify me to other other people so shouldn't they just use whatever pronouns work best to do that?\\n\\nI want this view changed cause I think if I actually put this on a job application or an email signature or an audition form even that it would just be a personal detriment and serve no real purpose other than to get me ostracized by both \\\"sides\\\" of the great pronoun war and everyone who else who is sick of it at the same time.\\n\\nAnd yet--it's the only set of pronouns that feels right to me. Has nothing to do with gender, really. And maybe I want to expand the challenge to identity even further. Maybe the point is we need to find that which is universally human if we are to reconnect one with another and stop being so lonely and at each other's throats. So ummm...yeah.\\n\\nCMV: I should start saying/writing that my pronouns are who/whom/whose whenever I am given that choice to make.\\n\\n**EDIT: Thanks to** u/sirlafemme **and others for a clarifying conversation below. After those conversations, want to add this edit:**\\n\\nI will say that the whole thing probably makes me uncomfortable because while I'm not usually uncomfortable with gender identity per se, I have a whole lot of issues around identity more generally. My issue is mainly I don't like being asked to \\\"pick\\\" because I want to be open in some ways to becoming whatever is needed at the moment. I really do like to find out about who I am speaking with first and then I will emphasize whatever parts of my own identity I think they will feel most comfortable with. And I guess that's part people pleasing and part fear of rejection.\\n\\nWhich is weird because I'm not usually afraid to stand up for something. Even an unpopular something. But I'm much more comfortable with standing up for an IDEA than for my SELF. And maybe the pronoun thing makes me profoundly uncomfortable because I feel like it's throwing a question onto me about my SELF, publicly in a way I have a choice and in a way that could say something about how I view that SELF. And I'm not ready for that kind of SELF-disclosure right up front when these kinds of questions are usually asked.\\n\\nOther questions bother me a little less because they could be seen as \\\"facts\\\". Like if the ice breaker is \\\"where were you born\\\" or \\\"where are you from/where do you live\\\" I'm not making a choice or saying I identify with or don't identify with the place I was born.\\n\\nAnd lastly, when I am uncomfortable with something and don't like showing I'm uncomfortable with something my first and only remotely healthy coping mechanism is humor. Trying to be funny/absurd or trying to brush it off with an out of the box and kind of ridiculous answer is my way of deflecting and getting out of the box. But I don't want to use that if it's going to make someone else potentially feel made fun OF.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-21\",\n \"id\": \"13oe4fz\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: If I Can Choose My Pronouns I'm Going to Go With Who/Whom/Whose\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13oe4fz/cmv_if_i_can_choose_my_pronouns_im_going_to_go/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"nyxe12\",\n \"body\": \"Ultimately if a certain set of pronouns genuinely does feel good to you, sure, you can say those are your pronouns.\\n\\nPractically - and I say this as a non-binary person who uses they/them - if you put this on any application or say it outside a circle of people who accept use of \\\"neopronouns\\\", you're going to get laughed at, ostracized, questioned, or likely assumed to be doing this in bad faith or as a joke. Is that fair? Not if you're doing this in good faith, and again, GENUINELY feel that these would be affirming pronouns to you - but there's also people who GENUINELY feel that neopronouns like cat/cats/catself pronouns are affirming and also more realistically only use these online or in certain friend circles because asking for this in the majority of workplaces is going to make their life harder, not more comfortable.\\n\\n>And what would be more absurd than being able to make other people refer to me with the indefinite/interrogative pronouns? Who is taking the lead on the project? Yes. Whose pencil is this? No, not whose, it's hers. What? I just love the chaos and laughter that would be caused by it.\\n\\nThis does make me question the \\\"genuine\\\" aspect of your want for these pronouns - I don't know a single person who uses pronouns other than the ones they'd be assumed to use for the \\\"absurdity\\\" or to cause chaos (other than transphobes doing a bit), even people who use extremely uncommon and difficult to use ones. Because, again, in practice? You're going to get a LOT of people who are shitheads about you using anything other than what they assume is correct to refer to you as, and this bit stops being funny as soon as someone decides to actually treat you like a trans person and doesn't like trans people, especially ones who use uncommon/atypical pronouns. Stating my pronouns, even just \\\"they/them\\\", is literally a risk to my physical and mental wellbeing, even though their use is at the same time good for my mental wellbeing. Being out about the pronouns I use requires being aware of the space I am in and the people I'm around and judging whether or not I'm opening myself up to harassment, mocking, or worse by actually saying what they are. I think I would have a hard time trusting that this was a good-faith request IRL unless I had a serious one-on-one with the person asking for this, again, as someone using they/them pronouns - because I've run into a lot of cis people who do shit like this in bad faith because they think it's funny.\\n\\nNone of this is to say you can't use \\\"different\\\" pronouns - but this seems motivated in part by the assumed comedy of using a set that fundamentally makes communication hard/turns statements into questions and not entirely by the need to relieve dysphoria or experience comfort with the correct pronouns being used for you. If you think you are some type of non-binary person or otherwise would be affirmed by something other than he/she/they, I think it would be worth looking at some of the non-\\\"they\\\" pronouns out there that are used (zie/hir is fairly common, but there's others) and try and ask yourself what would be affirming about being referred to as those pronouns, and if that's coming from a place of \\\"heh, it'd be funny to cause chaos\\\", maybe you should think a little longer and harder about the actual reactions you're going to get and if that risk is worth the reward of the joke that only you are in on.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-22\",\n \"id\": \"jl5cgz4\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13oe4fz\",\n \"score\": 7,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"Spoke more to both of these in the edit above. Hadn't read this comment at the time but thank you for a very thoughtful response. These discussions have helped me clarify what really is the source of discomfort in being asked the question (and having to answer it before a group of strangers) and how trying to deflect to something humorous/absurd is my usual way of deflecting any discomfort.\\n\\nIf you have more to add after reading the \\\"edit\\\" portion would be happy to respond when I get the chance.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-22\",\n \"id\": \"jl62ehb\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jl5cgz4\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"I've been thinking about this for awhile. First off, I don't like being asked for my pronouns. For that matter, I don't like being asked for any identifiers. Age. Ethnicity. Religion. Gender. Address. I don't even like giving out my name. I don't particularly like being called by my name. And I really hate any honorifics like Mr, Mrs, Ms, Dr, Professor, etc. There are probably lots of reasons for this, but mostly I don't like being put in a \\\"box.\\\" I don't like people knowing much if anything about me or having a lot of preconceived notions/biases about me before we even speak to one another. I want them to come to the encounter as free of those as possible and I try to go into each new encounter the same way.\\n\\nSo lots of forms ask you for these things. Some workplaces now make you put pronouns in your email signature. And whenever I get asked that question in some stupid ice breaker thing or via a form my GUT tells wants to blurt out \\\"who/whom\\\" pretty much every time. It just feels right.\\n\\nWhy does it feel right? Maybe because no identifiers feel right to me so leaving them open, vague, or as basically an open question feels right. If anything I think the Buddhist idea of anatman, having no permanent, abiding essence is as close to a dogma of self as I'd be willing to embrace. I'm very creative and love acting and writing and can play and write from the points of view of characters who are very different from how most others would identify me just on sight. And I feel like every character I play or write is in many ways \\\"truly me\\\". And yet not.\\n\\nI also tend to find most of our human existence and human categories a tad absurd. And what would be more absurd than being able to make other people refer to me with the indefinite/interrogative pronouns? Who is taking the lead on the project? Yes. Whose pencil is this? No, not whose, it's hers. What? I just love the chaos and laughter that would be caused by it.\\n\\nAnd yet, I want this view changed because I think if I actually start doing it, it will just get me in trouble. I think people who really care about the pronoun thing are going to think I'm making fun of them or their concerns or somehow not taking it seriously. I think those who are irrationally angry about being asked for pronouns are either going to mistakenly think I'm on their side trying to expose how ridiculous it is or just ignore my request cause I couldn't seriously expect them to use THOSE pronouns. And obviously it makes communication harder, not easier because 3rd person pronouns are really for OTHER people to identify me to other other people so shouldn't they just use whatever pronouns work best to do that?\\n\\nI want this view changed cause I think if I actually put this on a job application or an email signature or an audition form even that it would just be a personal detriment and serve no real purpose other than to get me ostracized by both \\\"sides\\\" of the great pronoun war and everyone who else who is sick of it at the same time.\\n\\nAnd yet--it's the only set of pronouns that feels right to me. Has nothing to do with gender, really. And maybe I want to expand the challenge to identity even further. Maybe the point is we need to find that which is universally human if we are to reconnect one with another and stop being so lonely and at each other's throats. So ummm...yeah.\\n\\nCMV: I should start saying/writing that my pronouns are who/whom/whose whenever I am given that choice to make.\\n\\n**EDIT: Thanks to** u/sirlafemme **and others for a clarifying conversation below. After those conversations, want to add this edit:**\\n\\nI will say that the whole thing probably makes me uncomfortable because while I'm not usually uncomfortable with gender identity per se, I have a whole lot of issues around identity more generally. My issue is mainly I don't like being asked to \\\"pick\\\" because I want to be open in some ways to becoming whatever is needed at the moment. I really do like to find out about who I am speaking with first and then I will emphasize whatever parts of my own identity I think they will feel most comfortable with. And I guess that's part people pleasing and part fear of rejection.\\n\\nWhich is weird because I'm not usually afraid to stand up for something. Even an unpopular something. But I'm much more comfortable with standing up for an IDEA than for my SELF. And maybe the pronoun thing makes me profoundly uncomfortable because I feel like it's throwing a question onto me about my SELF, publicly in a way I have a choice and in a way that could say something about how I view that SELF. And I'm not ready for that kind of SELF-disclosure right up front when these kinds of questions are usually asked.\\n\\nOther questions bother me a little less because they could be seen as \\\"facts\\\". Like if the ice breaker is \\\"where were you born\\\" or \\\"where are you from/where do you live\\\" I'm not making a choice or saying I identify with or don't identify with the place I was born.\\n\\nAnd lastly, when I am uncomfortable with something and don't like showing I'm uncomfortable with something my first and only remotely healthy coping mechanism is humor. Trying to be funny/absurd or trying to brush it off with an out of the box and kind of ridiculous answer is my way of deflecting and getting out of the box. But I don't want to use that if it's going to make someone else potentially feel made fun OF.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-21\",\n \"id\": \"13oe4fz\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: If I Can Choose My Pronouns I'm Going to Go With Who/Whom/Whose\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13oe4fz/cmv_if_i_can_choose_my_pronouns_im_going_to_go/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Infamous-Advantage85\",\n \"body\": \"Have you considered asking for people to use the demonstrative pronouns for you? They don't refer to gender at all, and fit much more cleanly into English grammar than who/whom. \\n\\n\\nAsking for people to just avoid using pronouns for you is also an option that I've seen go over pretty well. The anti-preferred pronouns crowd still usually flips out, but everyone else seems ok with it. Generally these people prefer their name, a nickname, or the aforementioned demonstrative pronouns.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-22\",\n \"id\": \"jl5eae6\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13oe4fz\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"I've been thinking about this for awhile. First off, I don't like being asked for my pronouns. For that matter, I don't like being asked for any identifiers. Age. Ethnicity. Religion. Gender. Address. I don't even like giving out my name. I don't particularly like being called by my name. And I really hate any honorifics like Mr, Mrs, Ms, Dr, Professor, etc. There are probably lots of reasons for this, but mostly I don't like being put in a \\\"box.\\\" I don't like people knowing much if anything about me or having a lot of preconceived notions/biases about me before we even speak to one another. I want them to come to the encounter as free of those as possible and I try to go into each new encounter the same way.\\n\\nSo lots of forms ask you for these things. Some workplaces now make you put pronouns in your email signature. And whenever I get asked that question in some stupid ice breaker thing or via a form my GUT tells wants to blurt out \\\"who/whom\\\" pretty much every time. It just feels right.\\n\\nWhy does it feel right? Maybe because no identifiers feel right to me so leaving them open, vague, or as basically an open question feels right. If anything I think the Buddhist idea of anatman, having no permanent, abiding essence is as close to a dogma of self as I'd be willing to embrace. I'm very creative and love acting and writing and can play and write from the points of view of characters who are very different from how most others would identify me just on sight. And I feel like every character I play or write is in many ways \\\"truly me\\\". And yet not.\\n\\nI also tend to find most of our human existence and human categories a tad absurd. And what would be more absurd than being able to make other people refer to me with the indefinite/interrogative pronouns? Who is taking the lead on the project? Yes. Whose pencil is this? No, not whose, it's hers. What? I just love the chaos and laughter that would be caused by it.\\n\\nAnd yet, I want this view changed because I think if I actually start doing it, it will just get me in trouble. I think people who really care about the pronoun thing are going to think I'm making fun of them or their concerns or somehow not taking it seriously. I think those who are irrationally angry about being asked for pronouns are either going to mistakenly think I'm on their side trying to expose how ridiculous it is or just ignore my request cause I couldn't seriously expect them to use THOSE pronouns. And obviously it makes communication harder, not easier because 3rd person pronouns are really for OTHER people to identify me to other other people so shouldn't they just use whatever pronouns work best to do that?\\n\\nI want this view changed cause I think if I actually put this on a job application or an email signature or an audition form even that it would just be a personal detriment and serve no real purpose other than to get me ostracized by both \\\"sides\\\" of the great pronoun war and everyone who else who is sick of it at the same time.\\n\\nAnd yet--it's the only set of pronouns that feels right to me. Has nothing to do with gender, really. And maybe I want to expand the challenge to identity even further. Maybe the point is we need to find that which is universally human if we are to reconnect one with another and stop being so lonely and at each other's throats. So ummm...yeah.\\n\\nCMV: I should start saying/writing that my pronouns are who/whom/whose whenever I am given that choice to make.\\n\\n**EDIT: Thanks to** u/sirlafemme **and others for a clarifying conversation below. After those conversations, want to add this edit:**\\n\\nI will say that the whole thing probably makes me uncomfortable because while I'm not usually uncomfortable with gender identity per se, I have a whole lot of issues around identity more generally. My issue is mainly I don't like being asked to \\\"pick\\\" because I want to be open in some ways to becoming whatever is needed at the moment. I really do like to find out about who I am speaking with first and then I will emphasize whatever parts of my own identity I think they will feel most comfortable with. And I guess that's part people pleasing and part fear of rejection.\\n\\nWhich is weird because I'm not usually afraid to stand up for something. Even an unpopular something. But I'm much more comfortable with standing up for an IDEA than for my SELF. And maybe the pronoun thing makes me profoundly uncomfortable because I feel like it's throwing a question onto me about my SELF, publicly in a way I have a choice and in a way that could say something about how I view that SELF. And I'm not ready for that kind of SELF-disclosure right up front when these kinds of questions are usually asked.\\n\\nOther questions bother me a little less because they could be seen as \\\"facts\\\". Like if the ice breaker is \\\"where were you born\\\" or \\\"where are you from/where do you live\\\" I'm not making a choice or saying I identify with or don't identify with the place I was born.\\n\\nAnd lastly, when I am uncomfortable with something and don't like showing I'm uncomfortable with something my first and only remotely healthy coping mechanism is humor. Trying to be funny/absurd or trying to brush it off with an out of the box and kind of ridiculous answer is my way of deflecting and getting out of the box. But I don't want to use that if it's going to make someone else potentially feel made fun OF.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-21\",\n \"id\": \"13oe4fz\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: If I Can Choose My Pronouns I'm Going to Go With Who/Whom/Whose\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13oe4fz/cmv_if_i_can_choose_my_pronouns_im_going_to_go/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"jajabingo2\",\n \"body\": \"Jesus Christ what has the world become 😆 \\n\\nMaybe transform into a blob of white plasma - that what know one will know what the fuck you are and you can be at peace.\\n\\nYou may have gone too far down the rabbit hole my friend\\n\\nEdit\\nMaybe join a Buddhist convent in the mountains or something? Really seems your only option… I think most people would find living your entire life like that very hard though… as much as you might currently think that’s what you want.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-22\",\n \"id\": \"jl5r6df\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13oe4fz\",\n \"score\": 5,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"I've been thinking about this for awhile. First off, I don't like being asked for my pronouns. For that matter, I don't like being asked for any identifiers. Age. Ethnicity. Religion. Gender. Address. I don't even like giving out my name. I don't particularly like being called by my name. And I really hate any honorifics like Mr, Mrs, Ms, Dr, Professor, etc. There are probably lots of reasons for this, but mostly I don't like being put in a \\\"box.\\\" I don't like people knowing much if anything about me or having a lot of preconceived notions/biases about me before we even speak to one another. I want them to come to the encounter as free of those as possible and I try to go into each new encounter the same way.\\n\\nSo lots of forms ask you for these things. Some workplaces now make you put pronouns in your email signature. And whenever I get asked that question in some stupid ice breaker thing or via a form my GUT tells wants to blurt out \\\"who/whom\\\" pretty much every time. It just feels right.\\n\\nWhy does it feel right? Maybe because no identifiers feel right to me so leaving them open, vague, or as basically an open question feels right. If anything I think the Buddhist idea of anatman, having no permanent, abiding essence is as close to a dogma of self as I'd be willing to embrace. I'm very creative and love acting and writing and can play and write from the points of view of characters who are very different from how most others would identify me just on sight. And I feel like every character I play or write is in many ways \\\"truly me\\\". And yet not.\\n\\nI also tend to find most of our human existence and human categories a tad absurd. And what would be more absurd than being able to make other people refer to me with the indefinite/interrogative pronouns? Who is taking the lead on the project? Yes. Whose pencil is this? No, not whose, it's hers. What? I just love the chaos and laughter that would be caused by it.\\n\\nAnd yet, I want this view changed because I think if I actually start doing it, it will just get me in trouble. I think people who really care about the pronoun thing are going to think I'm making fun of them or their concerns or somehow not taking it seriously. I think those who are irrationally angry about being asked for pronouns are either going to mistakenly think I'm on their side trying to expose how ridiculous it is or just ignore my request cause I couldn't seriously expect them to use THOSE pronouns. And obviously it makes communication harder, not easier because 3rd person pronouns are really for OTHER people to identify me to other other people so shouldn't they just use whatever pronouns work best to do that?\\n\\nI want this view changed cause I think if I actually put this on a job application or an email signature or an audition form even that it would just be a personal detriment and serve no real purpose other than to get me ostracized by both \\\"sides\\\" of the great pronoun war and everyone who else who is sick of it at the same time.\\n\\nAnd yet--it's the only set of pronouns that feels right to me. Has nothing to do with gender, really. And maybe I want to expand the challenge to identity even further. Maybe the point is we need to find that which is universally human if we are to reconnect one with another and stop being so lonely and at each other's throats. So ummm...yeah.\\n\\nCMV: I should start saying/writing that my pronouns are who/whom/whose whenever I am given that choice to make.\\n\\n**EDIT: Thanks to** u/sirlafemme **and others for a clarifying conversation below. After those conversations, want to add this edit:**\\n\\nI will say that the whole thing probably makes me uncomfortable because while I'm not usually uncomfortable with gender identity per se, I have a whole lot of issues around identity more generally. My issue is mainly I don't like being asked to \\\"pick\\\" because I want to be open in some ways to becoming whatever is needed at the moment. I really do like to find out about who I am speaking with first and then I will emphasize whatever parts of my own identity I think they will feel most comfortable with. And I guess that's part people pleasing and part fear of rejection.\\n\\nWhich is weird because I'm not usually afraid to stand up for something. Even an unpopular something. But I'm much more comfortable with standing up for an IDEA than for my SELF. And maybe the pronoun thing makes me profoundly uncomfortable because I feel like it's throwing a question onto me about my SELF, publicly in a way I have a choice and in a way that could say something about how I view that SELF. And I'm not ready for that kind of SELF-disclosure right up front when these kinds of questions are usually asked.\\n\\nOther questions bother me a little less because they could be seen as \\\"facts\\\". Like if the ice breaker is \\\"where were you born\\\" or \\\"where are you from/where do you live\\\" I'm not making a choice or saying I identify with or don't identify with the place I was born.\\n\\nAnd lastly, when I am uncomfortable with something and don't like showing I'm uncomfortable with something my first and only remotely healthy coping mechanism is humor. Trying to be funny/absurd or trying to brush it off with an out of the box and kind of ridiculous answer is my way of deflecting and getting out of the box. But I don't want to use that if it's going to make someone else potentially feel made fun OF.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-21\",\n \"id\": \"13oe4fz\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: If I Can Choose My Pronouns I'm Going to Go With Who/Whom/Whose\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13oe4fz/cmv_if_i_can_choose_my_pronouns_im_going_to_go/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"mwentzz\",\n \"body\": \"Who is not a pronoun so it makes no sense to be called that. I’m all honesty just stick with your given pronouns it would be easier for everyone including yourself.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-22\",\n \"id\": \"jl5wh5a\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13oe4fz\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"While I have modified my view a view times as noted by the deltas, I have to flat out disagree here. Who/whose/whom are interrogative pronouns. Interrogative pronouns are pronouns. And I tend to view identify as always in question so why wouldn't those be the right ones to use?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-22\",\n \"id\": \"jl62u33\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jl5wh5a\",\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"stilltilting\",\n \"body\": \"I've been thinking about this for awhile. First off, I don't like being asked for my pronouns. For that matter, I don't like being asked for any identifiers. Age. Ethnicity. Religion. Gender. Address. I don't even like giving out my name. I don't particularly like being called by my name. And I really hate any honorifics like Mr, Mrs, Ms, Dr, Professor, etc. There are probably lots of reasons for this, but mostly I don't like being put in a \\\"box.\\\" I don't like people knowing much if anything about me or having a lot of preconceived notions/biases about me before we even speak to one another. I want them to come to the encounter as free of those as possible and I try to go into each new encounter the same way.\\n\\nSo lots of forms ask you for these things. Some workplaces now make you put pronouns in your email signature. And whenever I get asked that question in some stupid ice breaker thing or via a form my GUT tells wants to blurt out \\\"who/whom\\\" pretty much every time. It just feels right.\\n\\nWhy does it feel right? Maybe because no identifiers feel right to me so leaving them open, vague, or as basically an open question feels right. If anything I think the Buddhist idea of anatman, having no permanent, abiding essence is as close to a dogma of self as I'd be willing to embrace. I'm very creative and love acting and writing and can play and write from the points of view of characters who are very different from how most others would identify me just on sight. And I feel like every character I play or write is in many ways \\\"truly me\\\". And yet not.\\n\\nI also tend to find most of our human existence and human categories a tad absurd. And what would be more absurd than being able to make other people refer to me with the indefinite/interrogative pronouns? Who is taking the lead on the project? Yes. Whose pencil is this? No, not whose, it's hers. What? I just love the chaos and laughter that would be caused by it.\\n\\nAnd yet, I want this view changed because I think if I actually start doing it, it will just get me in trouble. I think people who really care about the pronoun thing are going to think I'm making fun of them or their concerns or somehow not taking it seriously. I think those who are irrationally angry about being asked for pronouns are either going to mistakenly think I'm on their side trying to expose how ridiculous it is or just ignore my request cause I couldn't seriously expect them to use THOSE pronouns. And obviously it makes communication harder, not easier because 3rd person pronouns are really for OTHER people to identify me to other other people so shouldn't they just use whatever pronouns work best to do that?\\n\\nI want this view changed cause I think if I actually put this on a job application or an email signature or an audition form even that it would just be a personal detriment and serve no real purpose other than to get me ostracized by both \\\"sides\\\" of the great pronoun war and everyone who else who is sick of it at the same time.\\n\\nAnd yet--it's the only set of pronouns that feels right to me. Has nothing to do with gender, really. And maybe I want to expand the challenge to identity even further. Maybe the point is we need to find that which is universally human if we are to reconnect one with another and stop being so lonely and at each other's throats. So ummm...yeah.\\n\\nCMV: I should start saying/writing that my pronouns are who/whom/whose whenever I am given that choice to make.\\n\\n**EDIT: Thanks to** u/sirlafemme **and others for a clarifying conversation below. After those conversations, want to add this edit:**\\n\\nI will say that the whole thing probably makes me uncomfortable because while I'm not usually uncomfortable with gender identity per se, I have a whole lot of issues around identity more generally. My issue is mainly I don't like being asked to \\\"pick\\\" because I want to be open in some ways to becoming whatever is needed at the moment. I really do like to find out about who I am speaking with first and then I will emphasize whatever parts of my own identity I think they will feel most comfortable with. And I guess that's part people pleasing and part fear of rejection.\\n\\nWhich is weird because I'm not usually afraid to stand up for something. Even an unpopular something. But I'm much more comfortable with standing up for an IDEA than for my SELF. And maybe the pronoun thing makes me profoundly uncomfortable because I feel like it's throwing a question onto me about my SELF, publicly in a way I have a choice and in a way that could say something about how I view that SELF. And I'm not ready for that kind of SELF-disclosure right up front when these kinds of questions are usually asked.\\n\\nOther questions bother me a little less because they could be seen as \\\"facts\\\". Like if the ice breaker is \\\"where were you born\\\" or \\\"where are you from/where do you live\\\" I'm not making a choice or saying I identify with or don't identify with the place I was born.\\n\\nAnd lastly, when I am uncomfortable with something and don't like showing I'm uncomfortable with something my first and only remotely healthy coping mechanism is humor. Trying to be funny/absurd or trying to brush it off with an out of the box and kind of ridiculous answer is my way of deflecting and getting out of the box. But I don't want to use that if it's going to make someone else potentially feel made fun OF.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-21\",\n \"id\": \"13oe4fz\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: If I Can Choose My Pronouns I'm Going to Go With Who/Whom/Whose\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13oe4fz/cmv_if_i_can_choose_my_pronouns_im_going_to_go/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Coooo8\",\n \"body\": \"This isn't practical because it changes the meaning of your sentence dramatically. Full disclosure, I go by they/them pronouns and am non-binary.\\n\\nSo someone referring to me would say: \\\"They went to work today.\\\" \\\"They\\\" is commonly plural, but is used to refer to a known person or group, so this is just a minor mental adjustment for most people.\\n\\nSomeone referring to you would say: \\\"Who went to work today.\\\" Which sounds like a question. \\\"Who\\\" is a pronoun that is only ever used for an unknown person, that's why it exists.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-23\",\n \"id\": \"jlc2n19\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13oe4fz\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ]\n]","isConversational":false},"2":{"kind":"string","value":"moderate"}}},{"rowIdx":43,"cells":{"0":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"Spanglertastic","body":"History has shown that the NRA faction will support gun control if they feel it will be applied in a racist manner or will be applied more harshly towards minorities. The NRA supported the Mulford Act after the Black Panthers started carrying guns. Gun rights advocates oppose restoring rights to felons because the large number of black males who were targeted in the Drug War. You just have to look at things like the NRAs failed response to the Philando Castile shooting to see where their support ends. \n\nThey only oppose legislation that they feel applies primarily, or equally, to their core demographic. If there was a bill that barred Muslims (for example) from buying a gun, most of the right wing would support it.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"jlz8jbi","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":-3,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"This is actually a good point. They do seem very selective in who counts as a \"real\" gun owner and they're less likely to be outraged when a black person suffers through carrying a gun.\n\n!delta","date":"2023-05-28","id":"jm01hjj","parent_id":"jlz8jbi","score":-5,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"DeltaBot","body":"Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/Spanglertastic ([7∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/Spanglertastic)).\n\n^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)","date":"2023-05-28","id":"jm01l1j","parent_id":"jm01hjj","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],"string":"[\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Spanglertastic\",\n \"body\": \"History has shown that the NRA faction will support gun control if they feel it will be applied in a racist manner or will be applied more harshly towards minorities. The NRA supported the Mulford Act after the Black Panthers started carrying guns. Gun rights advocates oppose restoring rights to felons because the large number of black males who were targeted in the Drug War. You just have to look at things like the NRAs failed response to the Philando Castile shooting to see where their support ends. \\n\\nThey only oppose legislation that they feel applies primarily, or equally, to their core demographic. If there was a bill that barred Muslims (for example) from buying a gun, most of the right wing would support it.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"jlz8jbi\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": -3,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"This is actually a good point. They do seem very selective in who counts as a \\\"real\\\" gun owner and they're less likely to be outraged when a black person suffers through carrying a gun.\\n\\n!delta\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"jm01hjj\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jlz8jbi\",\n \"score\": -5,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"DeltaBot\",\n \"body\": \"Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/Spanglertastic ([7∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/Spanglertastic)).\\n\\n^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"jm01l1j\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jm01hjj\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n]","isConversational":false},"1":{"kind":"list like","value":[[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"UserOfSlurs","body":"I refuse gun control because I have no seen effective arguments. That doesn't mean that no argument could exist, just that nobody has presented it. You seem to just be caught up in that *your* chosen arguments aren't just met with universal support for gun control.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"jlz0sxy","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":-5,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"What argument would convince you?\n\n>You seem to just be caught up in that your chosen arguments aren't just met with universal support for gun control.\n\nActually everyone agrees with me outside of a large minority in the US. My view is common in every other nation and in half of the US.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"jlz1473","parent_id":"jlz0sxy","score":8,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"JustSomeApparition","body":"[Here is a video by Lawyer Leeja Miller](https://youtu.be/zcMrDGs71v8) where she discusses the history of the second amendment and how it evolved into what it came to be today including what it would take to change it.\n\nIt is possible, but it's not just a matter of convincing the people; however, possible nonetheless.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"jlz0ypd","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"TouchGrassRedditor","body":"Just because none of your arguments can change the mind of the other side doesn’t mean that no argument would ever be capable of it. Your arguments might simply not be as convincing as you think.\n\nThe reality is that America is not the only country with guns, but it’s the only country with this reoccurring problem. It’s a complicated issue that, if you ask me, is mostly cultural and driven by the 24 hour news cycle giving these killers exactly what they want: attention and infamy","date":"2023-05-28","id":"jlz1ahp","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":-5,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"loufalnicek","body":"I wonder if you truly appreciate how much of an outlier the U S. is in terms of gun ownership:\n\nhttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_guns_per_capita_by_country\n\nDo other countries not have 24/7 news cycles, why would that be a uniquely American thing?","date":"2023-05-28","id":"jlz21rg","parent_id":"jlz1ahp","score":3,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"CBL44","body":"You are misrepresenting the views of people who refuse to budge on gun control. They neither feels there are no problems with America's gun culturel or have a religious belief.\n\nThey see problems but they want to keep their guns for protection, hunting, target shooting and fear of government overreach. These are valid reasons for wanting to keep guns despite the fact you and others disagree. \n\nYou think they should compromise which is reasonable but gun owners do not trust progressives to stop at a small steps. They know that many progressive want to ban guns and believe than any compromise would lead to demands for ever increasing restrictions. \n\nTo sum it up.\n1) They want guns for valid reasons.\n2) They see problems with guns but think the benefits outweigh the cost.\n3) They refuse budge because they know progressives want to ban guns and any gun control is a step towards banning guns entirely.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"jlz3e24","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":54,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"PizzaKubeti","body":"With point 3 you are proving his CMV. They refuse to budge = no arguement would suffice.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"jlz441v","parent_id":"jlz3e24","score":-2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"MercurianAspirations","body":"I mean, isn't that just true of most political divides, though? The right to own guns is a privilege that offers power over others. So the argument you're making is that a group of priveliged people cannot be rhetorically convinced to willingly give up their privileges, which, you know, obviously, right","date":"2023-05-28","id":"jlz3glj","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":3,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"That's fair. It names it not unique but I think the intensity of the opponents to gun control is unique given the amount of gun violence in America.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"jm007c3","parent_id":"jlz3glj","score":-1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"TheSarcasticCrusader","body":">gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue.\n\nGun control supporters also refuse to budge, and never offer a real compromise.\n\nThey just take what they want little by little. Never actually giving anything in return. \"Just this little extra addition will help fix things, nothing more,\" etc etc.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"jlz3t64","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":15,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"MontiBurns","body":"What compromise would be accpetavle for you?","date":"2023-05-28","id":"jlz4mie","parent_id":"jlz3t64","score":-1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"apsidalsauce","body":"It’s literally written into our Constitution.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"jlz44br","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":4,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"KonaKathie","body":"When the guns referenced were single-shot and could barely hit the side of a barn.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"jlz50ko","parent_id":"jlz44br","score":-1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"Freezefire2","body":"Is there an argument that would convince you that America's gun culture (I don't know what America's gun culture is) isn't a problem?","date":"2023-05-28","id":"jlz49ja","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":3,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Selethorme","body":"Yes.\n\nIt would just require different facts than the real world.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"jlz90ql","parent_id":"jlz49ja","score":3,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"TylerDurden626","body":"I think most gun rights supporters would also support a crackdown on gangs, that would easily bring down the gun crime rate. The problem is the other side refuses to crack down on anyone that could be perceived as making them look racist. \nAlso gun rights supporters don’t see suicide as gun violence, it would be like calling someone jumping off a building “gravity violence”","date":"2023-05-28","id":"jlz4apb","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":3,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"KnittingTrekkie","body":"People often argue that if someone is determined enough, they would manage to commit suicide, so gun deaths by suicide don’t matter. But completed suicide is much more likely with access to more lethal means of committing suicide. (And they also do more damage to people who manage to survive an attempt than other means. I knew a survivor of a gun suicide attempt who have had to live with brain damage.) Gun advocates should still support safe storage and [https://www.endfamilyfire.org/](https://www.endfamilyfire.org/) has information to help prevent suicide.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"jlz9rxu","parent_id":"jlz4apb","score":7,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"geeman1984","body":"I'd rather live in a culture that gives me the tools of self defence rather than a knife attack culture that takes away your avenue and right of self defence.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"jlz60cb","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":7,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"There are methods of self defence aside from guns. Tasers, mace etc","date":"2023-05-28","id":"jm00g3p","parent_id":"jlz60cb","score":-6,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"jumpup","body":"well i changed the mind of one, so even if its 99.9999% its not a 100%.\n\nbut for most arguments its not actually a debate, a gun user knows guns kill people, so arguing that it causes deaths isn't actually an argument, the trick is to establish rules, like if a kids under 13 it shouldn't be allowed around a gun, then its if a kid has mental issues it shouldn't be allowed a gun, then if an adult has severe mental issues he shouldn't have a gun etc\n\nits not that they don't know guns have problems, they just want to keep their own and not have to deal with a lot of hassle","date":"2023-05-28","id":"jlz64ud","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"Fluffy_Ear_9014","body":"Historically, the US has passed gun control legislation with the Gun Control Act of 1968, in 1993 with the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act and the Violent Crime Control Act and machine weapons ban shortly after in 1994. \n\nEdit: Shortened to remove context.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"jlz74d0","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"This is actually a fair point. Do you think modern conservatives would do the same?","date":"2023-05-28","id":"jm01b7o","parent_id":"jlz74d0","score":-1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"Green__lightning","body":"This is the case because gun control comes from the premise that the actions of bad people should be able to impact the rights of good people. This is a form of collective punishment and wrong on both a legal and moral level, given that it's taking the rights of people to own guns because of the actions of people who misused those rights. \n\nFundamentally, this is a philosophic difference in valuing individual rights above safety, and not at all a problem, but a valid ideological difference. \n\nWhere the problem is, is that modern life is stressful to the point that people being driven to mass-murder-suicide is becoming alarmingly common, and it's very hard to stop people who hate the world and have nothing to lose. Actually doing something about it would probably be best done by making it so life doesn't drive people as crazy, but that's not happening, as increasing standard of living would be more expensive than paying for these shootings. Furthermore, disarming the populous is actively helpful when working people until they want to die is standard operating procedure.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"jlzb159","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":13,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Selethorme","body":"That’s a fundamentally untrue assertion, particularly as none of what’s generally called “common sense gun regulation” actually impacts the rights of “good people” at all.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"jlzphre","parent_id":"jlzb159","score":-4,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"DBDude","body":"Define \"gun culture.\" Where I am, \"gun culture\" means community shooting and hunting clubs, and kids being raised shooting knowing the responsibility that comes with it. This \"gun culture\" is not contributing to any societal problems. \n\nIn this country we have things called constitutional rights. They can't be violated. Guns are one of those rights. That's the end of the story unless you can get enough support to amend the Constitution. \n\nWe did have a history of oppression in the name of safety. The case of Dred Scott said that black people shouldn't be recognized as citizens or it would cause a whole host of negative societal issues. Arguments against our early civil rights laws said that it would be dangerous to protect the rights of black people since the police wouldn't be able to crack down on them to suppress violent crime. \n\nAnd guess what, we started protecting the rights of black people over their objections. Sure, black people now commit violent crimes at a far higher rate than any other race, but it doesn't matter as far as rights go. Those arguments to suppress their rights to keep violent crime down are simply not acceptable. \n\nAnd what makes you think gun control supporters actually want to reduce deaths? The difference between a banned \"assault weapon\" and a legal rifle can be as simple as the presence of a bayonet lug. That doesn't have anything to do with the suitability of the rifle for shooting people, but it gets a gun banned. When was the last time we had a mounted bayonet murder in this country?","date":"2023-05-28","id":"jlzbttc","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":4,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Moonblaze13","body":">A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.\n\nThe founding fathers had a plan for how the country would be defended. There was near universal agreement that the federal government having a standing army was not to be trusted as that could easily turn tyrannical. The states were expected to maintain militias that, should the whole country come under threat, would be used to defend it.\n\nIn the context of what they wrote at the time about their intentions, the second amendment (which consists of this single sentence) is pretty clearly referring to the maintaince of a milita. Especially when you consider that \"the people\" is used by the founding fathers to refer to representatives numerous times in their writings. Such as \"We the people find these truths to be self evident\". 'People' was used used in contrast to King.\n\nNow, I am one who believes that if we were to ask the founding fathers what they meant by something, they would respond with something akin to; decide for yourself. We made the government able to change so it could adapt to the times. What we meant doesn't matter, what matches the needs of your time should matter. So I'm not bringing this up to make any kind of argument that their intentions are the way we ought to interpret it. The Supreme Court has already ruled that, in effect, we ought to cut this sentence in half and interpret each part separately. But *that* is my argument.\n\n>In this country we have things called constitutional rights. They can't be violated. Guns are one of those rights. That's the end of the story unless you can get enough support to amend the Constitution.\n\nYou don't need the support to amend the Constitution. You just need to change your perspective on the subject. Like it or not, that's how the system works.\n\nAlso, side note because I'm really tired of this argument.\n\n>Sure, black people now commit violent crimes at a far higher rate than any other race\n\nViolent crime is correlated to race to a certain degree. It is much more tightly correlated to low socio-economic status. Yes, 13-50 is true. (Or true enough, that study is way out of date.) Ever look at the ratio of people in poverty to the amount of crime they commit? It's many times higher a ratio. Black people are more often in poverty, which is due to historical precedent of policies such as redlining. Pointing at their race as though it correlates to violent crime is either ignorant of reality or just dishonest and either way this argument needs to die so we can focus on the actual causes of violent crimes and the solutions to stopping them.\n\nThanks for bearing with my tangent.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"jlzg70a","parent_id":"jlzbttc","score":3,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"sto_brohammed","body":"I'm not necessarily a gun control opponent in theory but in practice I'm extremely leery about most measures and I agree 100% that American gun culture is a problem. In fact, the gun culture is why I'm leery. I'm on the far left, for context. So it's not a question of necessarily changing our minds but it's a case of the two ideas you find contradictory being held by reasonable people.\n\nThe US is on an extremely dangerous trajectory right now. Violence against marginalized people is on the rise and the rhetoric is at utterly insane levels. The police generally don't give a shit about these communities and not infrequently the people committing this sort of violence are off duty cops or very close to them. These communities are already at a high level of risk and I'm afraid it's going continue to rise to some very, very dangerous levels. If the cops won't protect these communities, who will? Gun control historically has effected these communities disproportionately and many, especially black, Asian and LGBTQ have been arming themselves at a fairly high rate since 2016 but it's still far behind the far-right. Of course that's not to say any of those communities are in lockstep of course, that would be silly, but there are large portions who are arming themselves. In this climate I'm skeptical of sweeping measures like assault weapon bans because the far-right is already heavily armed. If they weren't and the police weren't I'd be more ok with it but none of those are the case. We don't get to choose the world we live in.\n\nSo what are these people doing with these guns? Here are some articles on the subject. Keep in mind that left wing \"gun culture\" such as it is is very different from the broader American one. Here guns are tools, they're not some kind of cultural identifier or symbol of masculinity or, which I think shouldn't have to be pointed as they're leftists, patriotism.\n\n[https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/tenacious-unicorn-ranch-colorado](https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/tenacious-unicorn-ranch-colorado)\n\n[https://theintercept.com/2022/11/29/club-q-lgbtq-armed-self-defense/](https://theintercept.com/2022/11/29/club-q-lgbtq-armed-self-defense/)\n\n[https://dallasvoice.com/drag-in-the-suburbs/](https://dallasvoice.com/drag-in-the-suburbs/)\n\n[https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/john-brown-gun-club-armed-anti-fascist-1234733200/](https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/john-brown-gun-club-armed-anti-fascist-1234733200/)\n\n[https://www.wbap.com/2022/07/22/advocates-for-homeless-block-encampment-sweep/](https://www.wbap.com/2022/07/22/advocates-for-homeless-block-encampment-sweep/)\n\n[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/dallas-drag-brunch-texas-protest-b2155624.html](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/dallas-drag-brunch-texas-protest-b2155624.html)\n\n[https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jul/22/if-others-have-rifles-well-have-rifles-why-leftist-groups-are-taking-up-arms](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jul/22/if-others-have-rifles-well-have-rifles-why-leftist-groups-are-taking-up-arms)\n\nThere are a ton of other incidents but they don't always get press. There are also a ton of other articles. There are also a growing number of leftist pro-gun groups like the Socialist Rifle Association, Yellow Peril Tactical, the Latino Rifle Association, the Huey P. Newton Gun Club, the John Brown Gun Club (they're more a direct action group) and more.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"jlzc85g","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Im_Talking","body":"But guns have been a cause of this divisiveness (I'm not saying they are THE cause). People are arming themselves because of the fear that others are arming themselves.\n\nTherefore you can't say that a cause for a societal ill is also a solution.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"jm0bzyq","parent_id":"jlzc85g","score":0,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"CeilingFanUpThere","body":"https://www.npr.org/2022/07/08/1110239487/most-gun-owners-favor-modest-restrictions-but-deeply-distrust-government-poll-fi\n\n\"More than 8 in 10 gun owners said they are in favor of universal background checks for all gun sales, including private sales and at gun shows. That's similar to the almost 9 in 10 of all Americans who say so in other surveys.\"\n\nGun control opponents are mistrustful--of government, of changing demographics, of people who don't value guns the way they do.\n\nThis suggests that if they had unlimited power and control of the government, and were confident they would forever have unlimited power, then they would not fear pushing forward on gun regulations, because they would feel confident in their power to increase or decrease gun regulations and the enforcement of those regulations in the future.\n\nThe problem is actually that 20% of Americans feel threatened by the way the status quo is changing.\n\n1. It's harder to pass the younger generations their own set of beliefs and convince them to not think critically about those beliefs, because younger generations are caring less about organized religion. It used to be exceptionally easy 50-100 years ago.\n2. Immigrants that are conservative and inclined to join the Republican party often come from countries with governments that are much more repressive and don't fear the American government like gun control opponents do. So even when they have all the other conservative beliefs, they aren't always reliable voters because they sometimes vote against the Republican candidate if they think the candidate is too much of a warmonger, or is crazy, or is an idiot.\n3. There are unknown consequences to them and their power whenever the country moves closer to equality and personal autonomy for all people.\n\nSo they play politics really hard with an 'ends justify the means' attitude.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"jlzczdg","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":5,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"doomsdaysushi","body":"This is untrue. \n\nFirst off the people that are gun control opponents are not the problem. The deaths that occur in Chicago, St. Louis, Baltimore, etc are not committed by NRA members. \n\nDo you want the policy that would reduce gun homicides and would be supported by gun advocates? Stop and Frisk. \n\nStop everyone and search them for a gun. If you have a gun and are not legally allowed to have a gun, then you get arrested.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"jlze1h8","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":0,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Selethorme","body":"Besides that cities aren’t the primary number of gun deaths, stop and frisk was pretty blatantly racist policy. It didn’t stop everyone.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"jlziysw","parent_id":"jlze1h8","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"Wyrdeone","body":"It's important to understand that gun control opponents are not a monolithic group. \n\nThere is a difference between folks who own guns to hunt, or because their geographic location makes it a practical investment, compared to the stereotypical gun-fetishist who owns 50+ firearms and spends most of their time taking pictures of them for social media.\n\nThere are many gun control opponents in my state of Vermont, but we have just managed to enact some common sense restrictions such as waiting periods, just in the last legislative session.\n\nSo, while the majority of rural vermonters are not about to give their guns up to the government or compromise on their constitutional right, we are capable of agreeing, as sensible people, that more needs to be done to curb gun crime.\n\nYou're not ever gonna convince the guy who is sexually attracted to AR-15s, but that is FAR from every gun owner in the nation.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"jlze7gu","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"UserOfSlurs","body":"\n>that more needs to be done to curb gun crime.\n\nWhy should I care specifically about gun crime when all available evidence shows that reducing it doesn't save lives?","date":"2023-05-28","id":"jm00yrw","parent_id":"jlze7gu","score":0,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"pigeonshual","body":"I think that many gun control opponents are specifically open to arguments about americas gun culture, which many see as the actual problem, as opposed to the gun laws. Switzerland, for example, is held up by advocates as a case where gun ownership is extremely widespread, but gun violence is low, and many argue that culture has a lot to do with it.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"jlzg9xl","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":0,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"CeilingFanUpThere","body":"[https://impakter.com/why-gun-ownership-switzerland-not-same-us/](https://impakter.com/why-gun-ownership-switzerland-not-same-us/)\n\nIf gun control opponents wanted to adopt Switzerland's gun laws, which are described in this article, progressives would get everything they've been trying to negotiate for and then some.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"jm0cvbb","parent_id":"jlzg9xl","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"_Vervayne","body":"Most people that want guns understand the problems with gun culture , their problem lies with the facts that the laws that are being placed as “gun control laws” don’t really do much to actually address the negative parts of “gun culture” most gun laws advertised as “common sense” are actually laws that hurt the carrying law abiding citizen more than it actually stops / suicides.\n\n I bring up this first because it actually accounts for most of the firearm related deaths annual \nGetting guns “ off the street “ doesn’t actually address the suicide problem. When you’re speaking of a “gun control” opponent you are speaking about a law abiding citizen who’s legally allowed to own their firearm . Most gun crime that happens occurs with a firearm being posses illegally ..","date":"2023-05-28","id":"jlzi9e5","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":9,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Selethorme","body":">\t“common sense” are actually laws that hurt the carrying law abiding citizen more than it actually stops / suicides.\n\nCare to detail how? Background check requirements don’t hurt them. Requiring transactions occur through an FFL don’t hurt them. Registration doesn’t hurt them. Licensure doesn’t hurt them. Waiting periods don’t hurt them.\n\n>\tMost gun crime that happens occurs with a firearm being posses illegally ..\n\nThis is just flatly untrue on a logical level. All guns being bought are originated through what would seem to be a legal transaction. \n\n>\tI bring up this first because it actually accounts for most of the firearm related deaths annual Getting guns “ off the street “ doesn’t actually address the suicide problem. \n\nWaiting periods do exactly that. Licensure does that.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"jlzpraa","parent_id":"jlzi9e5","score":-2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"MikeOxmoll_","body":"You should be qualified to own and carry firearms. If you can't pass qualifications you shouldn't have them. Nothing spooks me more than seeing some idiot open carrying and touching their piece all the time.\n\nEveryone's also angry all the fucking time and have zero deescalation skills.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"jlziflr","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":3,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"That-Possibility-427","body":"Best point thus far and as a father and gun owner I couldn't agree with you more.","date":"2023-05-29","id":"jm13evc","parent_id":"jlziflr","score":3,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"RedditExplorer89","body":"Sorry, u/Anonon_990 – your submission has been removed for breaking Rule E: \r\n\r\n> **Only post if you are willing to have a conversation with those who reply to you, and are available to start doing so within 3 hours of posting**. If you haven't replied within this time, your post will be removed. [See the wiki for more information](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules#wiki_rule_e). \r\n\r\nIf you would like to appeal, **first respond substantially to some of the arguments people have made**, then [message the moderators by clicking this link](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fchangemyview&subject=Rule%20E%20Appeal%20Anonon_990&message=Anonon_990%20would%20like%20to%20appeal%20the%20removal%20of%20\\[their%20post\\]\\(https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/-/\\)%20because\\.\\.\\.). \r\n\r\nPlease note that multiple violations will lead to a ban, as explained in our [moderation standards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/modstandards).","date":"2023-05-28","id":"jlzjs29","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"Stillwater215","body":"Here’s the thing about the “majority favor background checks” argument: how many of them would support criminal charges against a seller for failing to complete a background check? I would guess that the number would fall substantially.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"jm08odw","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":3,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"That-Possibility-427","body":">would guess that the number would fall substantially.\n\nThere in lies the problem. Your guess as in your assumption. What factual information are you basing your \"guess\" on? Isn't it much more logical to assume that if the majority favor background checks that they would also support whatever consequences that those who fail to comply would receive?","date":"2023-05-29","id":"jm15w6y","parent_id":"jm08odw","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"beltalowda_oye","body":"Idk man I support more gun control but I also think they don't do a whole lot because most people who support gun control like I do have no idea how rampant black market gun trade is. You can't throw a rock without hitting someone selling guns off instagram or telegram. It's so rampant, every recent facility I worked, there was always at least one person who was selling guns on the side. I'm talking actual glocks with mags and ammo. Entire kits shipped across state line. And these aren't 3d printed garbage either. \n\nIf there's an incentive to make money, people will do it. You can own a glock w/ ammo for the measly price of 350-550. So yes absolutely there is a massive gun problem in the USA and people aren't even aware of it tbh.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"jm09wre","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"SnooSeagulls6564","body":"Fair. But a lot of people misunderstand the gun problem on both sides, it’s not mass shootings, it’s the gun culture already ingrained in the American culture. \n\nI might be going on a tangent but I want to explain something I feel not many people here have seen or can attest too. People will flip out when it’s found that a kid brings (not uses) a gun to school in a “”good neighborhood””; it’ll make the news. This shit is commonplace in areas that are neglected \n\nMy high school used to bus in kids from an area a little farther away that was much less well off then us. My PE teacher told us a story, he found a kid with a gun that fell out his bag, and he explained that he needed it, that he was so scared from where he came from and the people around him that it was a necessity. THATS the gun culture here. \n\nPeople seem to generalize and think it’s all the hicks with the guns that want to defend that right, and that couldn’t be farther from the truth. There’s too many guns in this country, and it’s almost a lost cause because hard reforms suggested that prevent “”law abiding citizens”” from getting them would do so little and may in turn harm others. It’s too late for these types of reforms I believe. \n\nThat being said small reform like background checks red flags etc should still be implemented. But even if the US were to ban ALL guns (something not being argued often but let’s use the extreme), there would only be continued violence, you just probably wouldn’t here about it.\n\n(But on a sidenote too suicides? Assuming they’re purposeful I don’t really think you can’t count that as an effect of guns, another way will be found. I’ve known suicidal people with guns, to them it was only a particular option)","date":"2023-05-28","id":"jm0bfik","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"wilfordbrimley778","body":"Schools and guns have been around since america started. Drugs used to treat things like ADHD and schizophrenia are relatively new however. And almost all mass shootings happen from someone on one of those drugs","date":"2023-05-28","id":"jm0moaf","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":0,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Selethorme","body":"That’s just not accurate.","date":"2023-05-29","id":"jm3d9fv","parent_id":"jm0moaf","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"bandt4ever","body":"Gun control is one of the most successful dividing lines the Oiligarchs have used to divide America into two opposing sides. No one but the most extreme leftists really wants to ban guns in America all together. That would be foolish. Common sense regulations, sure, good plan, but the NRA who is mostly funded by the Oiligarchs and fully in their control. Their function is to divide the country so that we won't notice the Oiligarchs and the fact that they control our supposedly free country and reap all of the benefits of our labors.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"jm0t5v0","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"gslavik","body":"> A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\".\n\nSandy Hook was in 2012 and one of the more recent widely reported massacre. If you do a search, it won't take too much effort to find similar stories that go back decades. The only difference between those stories and Sandy Hook is that we have many more media channels (including various discussion boards and social media type places) to spread the news much wider and much quicker.\n\nThere was an interview with the journalists who uncovered all the Nixon stuff that eventually caused him to resign (to not go through the impeachment and senate trial process). They were asked about today's media (I think Twitter was mentioned) and they said that their stories would've unfolded much much quicker.\n\n> I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nYou should look up the Columbine shooting coverage (which interestingly enough was supposed to be a bombing with guns being used to kill people who were running from the blasts, but the bombs never went off). I believe that was the first mass murder that received such wide coverage. There is also a theory of media contagion effect playing into this (one of the reasons why suicides aren't usually reported on the news and why there are studies showing that there was an increase in suicides in the few months after Robin Williams' suicide was reported on).\n\n> Regardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nThe issue I take with this viewpoint is twofold. Most gun control proposals are usually an attempt to restrict guns when an outright ban wouldn't work. But the ban is still the ultimate goal. In some European countries, where the general access to self-owned (as opposed to gun/range owned) guns is stricter than most of US, they do not have outright bans to everything. For example, in NYC, you can get a rifle and shotgun permit which takes 6 months (before COVID19), but you cannot own any air/spring powered weapons (NYC Administrative code 10-131, if you are interested). Under many assault weapon bans, even some of the types of guns used for international shooting competitions are illegal (because magazine doesn't get inserted into the grip). Then we look at countries that have registrations (like Canada) and when someone smuggles guns across the border (another issue) that wouldn't be legal anyway, guns still get restricted there even more.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"jm0z7u1","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"Titty_Slicer_5000","body":"Imagine for a second that a group of people want to enact something called “free from reasonable search and seizure control”. They don’t like that police need probable cause to search people’s persons or effects and that if a search done without probable cause turns up evidence that 100% proves that the person they searched committed a crime, any crime (even murder), that that evidence can not be used in trial against that person. They would point to known murderers and rapists being let go “on technicalities” and going on to rape and murder again. Would it matter how many murderers and rapists were being let go and murdering and raping again to you? Would there be some number where you could say “okay let’s infringe on people’s 4th amendment right”? I hope not. \n\nWhat about the 5th amendment’s protection against double jeopardy? Would there be a number of murderers and rapists who get acquitted at trial only to have evidence come out later that proves they are 100% guilty that would make you say “okay let’s infringe on people’s 5th amendment rights”? I hope not. \n\nLet’s go to a more realistic example. The rise of fake news, inflammatory news, and people sharing inflammatory news has led to a serious problem in the US with misinformation and political divide. You could reasonably argue it led to tens of thousands if not even hundreds of thousands of extra deaths from covid. It is, quite literally, a threat to out democracy. Should the government be allowed to silence news stations it deems “inflammatory”. Should people not be allowed to share news the government deems “fake news” or “misleading” on facebook and social media. Again, I hope you answer this question in the negative. \n\nHaving individual rights comes with certain problems that are inherent in how these rights work and how they restrict the tools government has to deal with problems. That is the price of freedom. There are certainly countries where the people give up individual liberties when problems arise so that government can more easily and more effectively tackle those problems. Those countries eventually turn into authoritarian hellholes. \n\nIt is no different, in my view, when it comes to the 2nd amendment. Guns are the great equalizer. Every human has a right to self defense. And in my view that also means every human has the right to the proper tools for self defense (you can of course lose rights through due process of law). People do not need to be athletes and martial art experts to have a decent chance at defending themselves or their family. The weak should not just be expected to have no defense when attacked by the strong. The people must have the ability to tell their government “no”. They must have some kind of *real power* to do that, not just words on paper that give power only because the government allows it to be so. A well armed and well trained population has *real power* to tell its government “no”, whether the government allows it or not. Restrictions that make it much more difficult to get guns, get ammo, train with guns, severely limit the type of guns you can get, etc. , are all restrictions that remove that power from the people. History is too replete with examples of government turning on its people in a brutal and authoritarian way, and the people having no real means to fight back. The Tiananmen Square Massacre is a great example of this. The Holocaust, another. Stalin’s rule of terror, yet another.\n\nIt’s not that I don’t think gun violence is a problem. It’s that I think that the government must address this problem *within the confines of the US constitution*, just like it addressed any other problem. Gun control is just easy political points for people who don’t know jack shit about guns and are all too happy to be nannied by the government. But it doesn’t get at the root of the issue, which is what high level policy choices led us here (namely drug prohibition, the war on drugs, a history of racism, and “tough on crime policies”). Reversing the effects of those high level policies would, realistically, take decades. The average voter just does not have that kind of attention span. They want everything “now now now”, and it’s all based on fear and ignorance. Just like the introduction of drug prohibition and the drug war was based on fear and ignorance (and racism). And yet we still haven’t learned.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"jm11ydq","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":17,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"OfTheAtom","body":"If there were advancements in tazer technology, or even where it currently stands, wouldn't the idea of the Equalizer be met with this technology? \n\nThe issue being that bombs, and automatic guns are seen as too easily capable of mass destruction beyond what is needed to deter/stop harm from coming to an individual. And that semi-auto is also, just too capable of killing more than one attacker beyond the scenario people will actually find themselves in.","date":"2023-05-29","id":"jm2dvb0","parent_id":"jm11ydq","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"offwivisead","body":"Nope .their whole family could be blown away and they still wouldn't change their minds..would they?","date":"2023-05-29","id":"jm1lwyq","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"CP1870","body":"It's rejected because being able to own a gun is an individual constitutional right just like the right to free speech is. If we just start ignoring the constitution then the constitution becomes meaningless. The gun control side main goal is to ban and confiscate all private firearms, why would someone for the second amendment EVER give up ANYTHING to them?! I'll use the recent gun control \"comprise\" as an example: in the \"comprise\" the Republicans only got some vague mental health funding while the Democrats got almost everything they wanted. Not even a week later what do the Democrats do? Oh they try to pass an AWB that would have made every single gun owner a felon overnight! Yes sorry but F the gun control side, I honestly can't wait for SCOTUS to rule the AR15 is a protected weapon and that AWB are unconstitutional. I also can't wait for them to gut Chevron Deference and remove basically all the power the ATF has","date":"2023-05-29","id":"jm1pqe4","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Anonon_990","body":">The gun control side main goal is to ban and confiscate all private firearms, why would someone for the second amendment EVER give up ANYTHING to them?!\n\n\"The gun advocate side main goal is to legalise all private firearms for everyone regardless of age, criminal al record or mental health, why would someone for public safety EVER give up ANYTHING to them?!\"","date":"2023-06-03","id":"jmreezc","parent_id":"jm1pqe4","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"beautiflywings","body":"For starters, nothing ever great comes out of the government being the only ones armed. Second, people who already don't care about following the law will always find a firearm. Lastly, I believe that guns are a great equalizer. I want my 5'4, 100 lb niece to be able to protect herself against a 6' plus guy.","date":"2023-05-29","id":"jm1vn6f","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":3,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"authorityiscancer222","body":"I’ll change my mind on gun control when they take away the guns of cops.","date":"2023-05-29","id":"jm2752o","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Dorbz95","body":"I hear the cops in some countries in europe don't even carry guns. Very low chance for the bad guy to have one.","date":"2023-05-29","id":"jm4a7jp","parent_id":"jm2752o","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"Bfitness93","body":"I think it's the other way around. The facts simply don't support what you say and I'll give you many examples as to why gun control is BS. All we need to do is break down the data. Maybe you never heard these arguments before.\n\nEveryone in America needs to follow the gun laws in their local area. We can see that regardless of the area, each demographic commits gun crime at far different rates. Men and women perhaps the biggest, Men commit FAR more gun crime than women do despite following the same gun laws. Whites commit more gun crime than Asians, Hispanics commit more gun crime than whites, blacks commit gun crime more than Hispanics. 21yr Olds commit more gun crime than 51yr Olds. If it were gun control than these statistics would be even. But clearly there's a much different problem it's the people not the guns.\n\nIf we go back in time when some European country's had similar gun laws to America, European country's still virtually saw no gun crime. Compare the city of London to NYC. Same exact gun laws back in the 50s, the 2 were the exact same. London saw virtually no gun crime. NYC so a lot more.\n\nWhich brings us over to the time line of gun crime. In the 60s the gun crime started to rise and got worse and worse until the late 80s to early 90s when it peaked. It started decreasing since the early 90s. All of which fell under the same gun control laws. \n\nMore guns are in circulation now in 2023 than in the late 80s, far more. But we experience far less gun crime despite guns being much easier to get and more guns being in circulation. I can just refute gun control all day long. \n\nWe see in the United States that gun crime varies and that some of our most heavily gun regulated areas have some of the worst gun crime. Which brings us back to country vs country. Brazil and Russia have much stricter gun laws than the United States but experience much higher levels of gun crime. Even in terms of class, the Asian lower class commits less gun crime than the black middle class. America is the richest country on Earth, our lower class is the upper class of the planet. But we don't experience the lowest levels of crime so it's not a poverty issue and to refute that again we see that gun crime was worse in the 90s despite being much richer in the 90s compared to the 50s.\n\nGuns save a lot of lives too through deterrence and self defense. You use them to hunt and have recreational activities with them. They're used to protect us against government tyranny. \n\nILLEGAL handguns commit the vast majority of crime. So why go after the guns that have almost nothing to do with crime? It makes no sense. \n\nYour kids have a better chance at being struck by lightening than dying from a legally purchased firearm. I know you see someone kill a few kids, it's all over the media and you think this is happening like crazy over here. It's not. You're far more likely to die during a car accident than shot by a gun by an extremely large margin. \n\nLook at the war on drugs here. Look at prohibition. Not only does it not work but it makes things worse. You want the black market to open up and all the fun things that come out of there? People will get the guns anyway. Same with heroin in illegal and people still get their hands on that easily. It's pointless. \n\nPeople cherry pick and like to compare America to some country's in Europe that already had a low level of gun crime even when guns were legalized. They base everything off that and leave all other data out. This is either confirmation bias or the dunning Kruger affect, you don't know what you don't know. Or ignorance. \n\nSo its not that people who are pro gun have stances that can't be changed no matter what you say to them its just that the opposing side makes easily refutable arguments.","date":"2023-05-29","id":"jm29h1d","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":6,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Nucaranlaeg","body":"> Look at prohibition. Not only does it not work but it makes things worse.\n\nProhibition didn't make things worse. If you look at total alcohol-related violent crime, it fell off a cliff during prohibition. Some of that can be attributable to broader trends, so it's not obvious that prohibition made things better, but it didn't make things worse.","date":"2023-05-29","id":"jm4c7pt","parent_id":"jm29h1d","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"23663456","body":"Ok, I want to dispell a few myths I've been seeing crop up here.\n\n 1. We already have background checks. If you're a felon, no gun for you. If you want to buy a gun, you are legally required to go through a background check. There are no loopholes, just people breaking the law, and people not enforcing it properly.\n\n 2. (The following is not to minimize the tragedy of, and the suffering that comes with loosing a child or witnessing a shooting at your school. It is simply giving context) Many seem to be under the impression that school shootings are the majority of gun violence here in the States. This is not true. Most deaths from gun violence occur in intercity gang violence, and domestic shootings elsewhere. School shootings, and really mass shootings in general, actually only make up about 10% of gun violence in the country.\n\n 3. Many firearms used in mass shootings were obtained illegally, and if they weren't, the shooter often had nothing in their past to suggest their future actions. If a monster wishes to do harm, make the gun illegal won't stop them.\n\n 4. While banning guns may drop gun violence, it will increase violence in general. We've seen this in the UK. Yes, no more shootings, but stabbings, and assaults increase to new heights(though to be fair different cultures exist in these countries and are likely the most responsible). If there are no guns, the school shooter will just get a knife.\n\n 5. Many have said, or implied, that gun owners don't care when innocent people are shot. They do. We all do. We merely disagree with how to fix the issue. \n This is why issues like this, abortion, racial discrimination, and gender equality continue to be issues. No one talks, they just call the other guy a monster. If we were to leave insults at the door, grow thicker skin, and talk to each other like adults, we could probably fix most of these issues in a heartbeat. But we don't. We act like children who want the last cookie. All this will lead to is further division, and most likely, even more death.","date":"2023-05-29","id":"jm2ggfh","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":7,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Selethorme","body":"1.\tFactually untrue. Private sales don’t require one in most states.\n2.\tthat doesn’t mean school shootings aren’t a problem we can try to solve\n3.\tthis is factually untrue. 75% of mass shooters acquire their guns legally. Making it harder for them to access it absolutely can impact their actions\n4.\tthis is just a misleading correlation vs causation argument","date":"2023-05-29","id":"jm3bhjx","parent_id":"jm2ggfh","score":7,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"Sneakydivil32","body":"Let's not forget that we're talking about the least intelligent and most obnoxiously idiotic race of people on earth here. I'm suprised more of them don't accidentally blow their own brains out on the daily tbh.","date":"2023-05-29","id":"jm2rmix","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"soft_pretzel_twist","body":"Actually make a good point or get out of here.","date":"2023-07-16","id":"js9e0d5","parent_id":"jm2rmix","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"Dorbz95","body":"They are convinced that mass shootings are \"statistically insignificant\" and call you emotional if you think otherwise. They are robotic and lack any ounce of humanity. They only use libertarian logic, semantics, pedantry, and disingenuous tactics when debating gun control. If you back them into a corner they will just say \"it's a right\" \"shall not be infringed\".","date":"2023-05-29","id":"jm493de","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"p5219163","body":"Pro Gun guy here. I highly disagree. There's plenty of arguments that could get me to change my opinions.\n\nThe issue is none of these arguments exist. There's no modern day statistics that paint firearms as a glaring problem. Furthermore, firearm ownership is protected by the constitution.\n\nHow hypothetically if that was never the case, and firearms were an actual issue in every day life. Arguments could be made.\n\nHowever that isn't the case. \n\nThis is a bit like saying there's no way to get an atheist to believe in God. Well there is, god could talk to him. Issue is that isn't going to happen.","date":"2023-05-29","id":"jm4u6ce","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"Jew_of_house_Levi","body":"\"racism\"\n\n​\n\nIf a significant amount of minorities started purchasing firearms openly, than that may cause some conservative panic and make them believe that \"gun culture\" is a problem, at least in minority circles.","date":"2023-05-30","id":"jm76wal","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"A6000user","body":"It's quite simple really; the real problem with gun violence in the United States occurs in the inner cities and with the use of mostly illegally obtained and owned guns. Those that oppose gun control, for the most part, are legal, law-abiding persons whose only connection to the violence that the media chooses to use to focus on for the sake of gun control is that the assailant used a gun similar to the ones owned by those opposed to gun control.\n\nHowever, if the media were to truly address the issue of gun violence in the United States, they would have to admit many facts that correlate largely to minority populated liberal areas; that goes against the current media narrative.\n\nThis leads to the other aspect which strengthens the resolve of those opposed to gun control; the realization that there is an overwhelmingly biased media and political climate in the United States that is willing to lie about one of the biggest problems this country faces all for the sake of taking the guns away from law abiding citizens. To what end is unknown, but it is frightening.","date":"2023-05-30","id":"jm8ucbg","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"> However, if the media were to truly address the issue of gun violence in the United States, they would have to admit many facts that correlate largely to minority populated liberal areas; that goes against the current media narrative.\n\nAnd what facts are those?","date":"2023-06-03","id":"jmrffci","parent_id":"jm8ucbg","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"realistic_dreamer42","body":" I also don't live in the US, but in a Southern African ex-colony that gets in the news a lot for government oppression etc. This country does have strict gun laws and the police generally don't carry guns, but please don't use this as an excuse to 'prove' gun control opponents and claim that the country I am from would be different if there were no gun controls, as bad as Zimbabwe is it'd likely be even worse if there weren't gun controls. \n\nI grew up around guns and though I discovered I have a nature that doesn't do well with murdering wildlife (what I did kill when I was young is now a burden on me) I am, unfortunately, naturally talented with a long rifle and 12 gauge and when I did hunt there was no pleasure or enjoyment in it for me so I did it in a psychologically 'cold' state and suffered afterward for it (no shaky hands 'buck fever', talented stalking ability and dislike for causing suffering made me lethal and capable of making point to point instant kills that'd make a trained sniper sit up and pay attention to my unfortunate skill). After my Father passed (suicide by gun), I made no effort to take over his guns and allowed the police to take my guns as well, so I haven't had guns in my home for twenty years. \n\nI reflect now, that due to stresses in my personal life, had I had guns - I would either have ended up in jail for shooting some of my neighbors dogs, or I would have taken my life by gun. Whichever came first. So for me, personally, even though I could have, having guns would have been a bad idea - but I recognized that and self regulated. \n\nInterestingly though, I was unfortunate to find myself trapped in bad 'elitist' private schools where teachers and the entire system were exploiting, damaging, the children in horrifying ways which proved impossible to bring to light and I was obliged as a child to strategize using guns (I had access to!) to murder some predatory teachers and bring the hidden problem out in the open - of course it would have cost me my life, but the point is I was on the margin of becoming a school 'mass' shooter as a solution to a real world problem and I'm a profoundly talented strategist that goes calm in intense situations so it is likely I would have done an awful lot of damage before I got taken down which would have taken hours given the response times in the arena I was in. \n\nOf course I never did it and if I had gone the violent route there were more effective ways available to me (explosive devices, poisons etc) - but through consideration of guns as a solution I came to understand the problem with guns, they get a power over people, it is as if the 'want' to be used and it is just too easy for guns to be used as a quick solution in an 'in the moment' circumstance (like shooting my neighbors dog on the night I finally can't take it anymore). \n\nI don't consider the argument for and against guns to really be about guns - it is about social environment and the pressures contained within. If people have realistic protection from the kind of threat that may cause them to need to consider retaliation, then having no gun control is going to be dangerous. Getting illegal weapons is always possible, but at least there is a time period for reconsideration between getting overly stressed and snapping and going and seeking a weapon - having guns immediately available just makes it too easy. \n\nIn addition, people appear to have become confused about the realities of what happens when bullets start flying - I noticed that when the US NRA and anti-gun control advocates make arguments about supposedly sensible civilians and police bearing arms to protect society, they tend to make 'perfect' scenario arguments that assume that 'bad guy/gal become public danger, the good guy/gal citizens get their guns out and shoot the baddies' - in the real world, very few people are going to be accurate or circumspect. Furthermore sidearms (which I'm useless with, they're cool to hold and play with, but not really effective) and are only really accurate to use at suicide distances. Every bullet in the air is another bullet that can harm innocent bystanders and people who think they are brave and heroic and would carry guns out of a need to 'protect' society tend to be the same people who would panic and start spraying bullets around - personally I wouldn't want to be carrying a gun, because I know I would never survive harming an innocent (and the 'bad' guys probably qualify as being socially sick, which my personality treats as 'innocent though dangerous'). \n\nFurther interestingly, I worked as a contractor for private security companies in Iraq and Afghanistan for about five years over a decade ago (desk jockey and strategic management roles so I didn't carry guns, though I could have, left that to the security operatives excepting for one contract where I kept an AK beside my bed - the zone I was in was too exposed, I had no choice). So I got to be in an environment where pretty much everybody carried guns with high expectation that they may need to use them - what caught me most is the effect on the people I worked with who did end up in firefights and put insurgents down, it hurt them, *badly.* Could see it in their eyes, their body language, hear it in their voices - terrible, terrible pain. And these were trained ex-military operatives of high standard in justifiable shootings in a war zone and taking a life tore them to pieces and gave them a cancer on their soul that will never wash out. \n\n*But my personal take on the gun control argument in the US - it's pointless, you're not going to stop people carrying guns in the US as is the tradition of the country or prevent mass shootings through politics or making new gun control laws or having endless barneys between the NRA and gun control advocates. Stop wasting your time on it and give the time toward overarching solutions to the social problems of the human community, institutional abuse and clearing up the confusion gangs of sickening, false and dangerous politicians, teachers, preachers, mental health functionaries and other exploitive business creatures playing with the life of the human community and your gun argument will resolve itself by extension.*\n\nIf the US spent even a little of the time it spends arguing about unwinnable arguments like gun control on attempting to understand the truths about countries it interferes with in a shallow self serving manner, like Zimbabwe, then my country would probably be in a much better place rather than suffering from being infected with other countries failures. I wouldn't take US citizens guns away, *I'd block the muzzle on your politicians' mouth guns, take away your* ***money*** *ammunition, depose your gunpowder corporations and put a safety catch on your International exploitation.*","date":"2023-05-31","id":"jmb1f9h","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"Annual_Ad_1536","body":"They aren't changing their minds because nobody's offered any innovative proposals. They just repeat the same thing every year.\n\nHere's what would instantly change their minds.\n\n1. (secretly) replace all gun inventory with networked smart weapons.\n2. Inform the public that to curb issues with older guns, the government will buy back every gun for $40,000 each.\n3. The gun rights supporters will then all buy the new weapons. Realizing that they are more badass than the guns they previously had, they will initially be pissed, but eventually will be happier with the new ones than the old ones.\n\nWham bam, no more mass shootings with legal guns.\n\nI should mention, a small contingent of conservatives will now just buy illegal guns, but the point of the question was convincing gun rights supporters of anti-gun violence policy, and this pretty much does that.","date":"2023-06-03","id":"jmps8ae","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"Specific-Trouble1599","body":"632 people were killed in “mass shootings” (more than 4 in one place/shooting) in the US in 2022. 10,000 (1000 children) people are killed in drunk driving accidents. Are they going to ban all alcohol? Of course not!","date":"2023-06-18","id":"jolc55l","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"IcyCharacter6527","body":"You are right, but I believe it to be more of a macho-fetish thing. Like expensive cars etc. Makes them feel like they have power, are someone.\n\nThe other \"reasons\" are just make-believe.","date":"2023-06-21","id":"joxsijk","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"AnotherLoudAsshole","body":"Incorrect. \n\nI am an American gun maker who is devoted to firearms rights as if it is my religion. I say that without any irony. \n\nWhat it would take to change my mind is unbiased statistics and for the last two centuries of human history to not be filled with people murdered by governments shortly after disarming. *You don't have those arguments, because those arguments are not aligned with reality.*\n\nIf you're really interested in changing your view, how about you ask yourself \"what would it take for me to realize that my opinions on firearms might be based on propagandistic bullshit?\"","date":"2023-06-28","id":"jpufyt5","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"Better-Strategy-3846","body":"Could be worse we could be dunce...to say we know about something that goes on in another country while also admitting that we don't live there like someone second none of what was said there is true The gun crime is actually horribly cherry picked data to make it go in their favor in argument third shootings happen every few years or a couple of months as in 8 to 9 months at shortest third It's constitutionally protected if you had any common sense you would know that's how our country is run by the Constitution It is above all... And first We like having our rights and we're not going to live like any other s***** countries around the world like Mexico Canada Australia Britain London... All communist control to where the police are even a part of the government in corrupt that in our livelihood was almost stolen from us back then and the only thing that saved us was guns Oh and what happened what did the government try to do that we permanently kept guns in our culture.... Tried to steal them from us so they could take over our land 🤯","date":"2023-07-01","id":"jq9bzr6","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"Slight-Ad7863","body":"I JUST CAME HERE TO MENTION THAT I JUST PURCHASED AN EXTENDED CLIP, SO THAT IF ANYONE WANTS TO FEEL SMART, THEY CAN REMIND ME THAT IT US A MAGAZINE, AND ASK ME WHY I AM YELLING.","date":"2023-07-01","id":"jqacrkc","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"Joegannonlct","body":"There really isn't. These people are INSANE. Some of them truly want no rules, regulations, or common sense.","date":"2023-07-05","id":"jqpwnd5","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"Better-Strategy-3846","body":"Because it's not it's the person who does it I mean are we going to call cars if they hit someone or ever used as a weapon assault vehicles 😂.... The gun didn't pick itself up and find someone to cause bodily harm to did it... Now it might have had the action to kill but it was not it itself that caused it It was a person to holding it... Also fun fact The recent gun laws don't really work that well especially in places like Chicago is because there's no punishment for breaking into cars and stealing guns or people's houses 🤦♂️ some of those states are stupid in my opinion for putting in legislation that lets criminals break the law get guns when they're not supposed to have them even though they say gun laws and gun control works.... Also why aren't criminals punished for breaking into steal a weapon to commit extreme harm with why is there no extra prison sentence although I guess I'm pretty stupid for saying that because they don't really punish them in those states anyway 🤔....","date":"2023-07-25","id":"jtdsrmh","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"Better-Strategy-3846","body":"Kind of like there's no argument that would prove sheep ding dongs that say killing a baby is okay but owning a gun isn't... Yeah sounds real stupid when you try to compare murdering a newborn that wasn't conceived by RAPE or any other disgusting thing... Or the almost as gross incest... But yeah you want to own a gun you're apparently the bad guy... And left us always wonder why they're the butt of every joke and made fun of 😐... You can't pretend to be on the moral high ground and then blatantly throw it to the side because your argument isn't convenient to using anymore... Its like are you trying to gas light people or something I might be an ass but at least I'm honest... Also I don't think I'll be taking any advice that's supposed to be intelligent from individuals who voted for a guy who gave automatic weapons to civilians in another country and most of our tax money and criminals and an entire terrorist organization 🤣","date":"2023-08-08","id":"jvappir","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"wholelottaslatttt","body":"How will gun control work if criminals can 3D print guns and ammo while regular citizens are restricted to protecting themselves? Should be common sense but it’s no longer common nowadays.","date":"2023-08-09","id":"jvj1vrs","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"safarisam94","body":"First off, gun control already exists in the USA. Most gun owners own semi-automatic guns; fully-automatic guns require a special permit to own. In addition, you have to be 18 to purchase, and felons cannot own a gun. These are already forms of gun control — what you’re advocating for is ADDITIONAL gun control. \n\nAccording to the FBI, gun violence results in approximately 10K deaths per year. https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-8.xls Even if we make the assumption that additional gun control would be 100% preventative of all gun-deaths caused by violent crime, it would only reduce US deaths per by 10K per year.\nWe would save more lives in the USA by reallocating the resources used to enforce additional gun control to the FDA, to increase regulation on unhealthy food products and food production practices in the USA. The estimated number of annual deaths attributable to obesity among US adults is approximately 280000 based on HRs from all subjects and 325000 based on HRs from only nonsmokers and never-smokers.” https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10546692/\nEven if stricter FDA regulations only reduced obesity-related deaths by 10%, there would still be x3 more annual lives saved in the US from FDA’s increased food regulation than from a 100% violent-gun-death preventative.","date":"2023-09-30","id":"k2vrjg5","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"MBSV2020","body":">Regardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. \n\nThat is because it is a black and white issue. The purpose of 2A is to ensure the government cannot disarm the people. This is to protect the people's ability to stand up to a tyrannical government. Gun Control means the government is disarming the people. \n\n​\n\n>Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nThere is a lot that contain change around guns. Gun control is not a solution. Criminals, by definition, do not follow the law. Gun control regulates the law abiding.","date":"2023-10-02","id":"k37e1pc","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"How did you find this thread?","date":"2023-10-02","id":"k37en7n","parent_id":"k37e1pc","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"Teachers-Petty","body":"Here's a cute, and somehow scary short film. It's only 5 minutes long, but it points out that the US is crazy about safety except when it comes to guns. Viewer discretion is advised.\nhttps://youtu.be/t7NK7W2NPVo?si=s2U4VMvSmwD6fQTw","date":"2023-10-09","id":"k439e3e","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"jcgonzmo","body":"I see some comments here throwing around religious beliefs as if that is a factor in going against gun control. In which part of the bible does it says anything about guns? Pro or against gun control has nothing to do with religion.","date":"2023-11-01","id":"k7eo6r2","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"InvaderJoshua94","body":"Yet we are not the only heavily armed nation of civilians in the industrialized world and those other nations have less gun violence, yet we have such statistics so its not the guns. There is a much worse cause in this nation and that is constant prohibition's on substances causing criminals to be empowered, and a lack of socialized healthcare making mental healthcare something people can't afford or are afraid to get because of overreaching red flag laws. \r \n\r \nPoliticians are the cause not the guns. They are purposely making the perfect storm to de-arm the citizens of the 2A that was built into the constitution to defend them from the politicians. And unfortunately it seems a large stupid portion of the citizens are going along with it. The politicians did the same thing with the NFA in response to the last prohibition they created on alcohol back in the day. WAKE THE F UP AMERICA!!!!","date":"2023-11-09","id":"k8j17ex","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"InvaderJoshua94","body":"Yet we are not the only heavily armed nation of civilians in the industrialized world and those other nations have less gun violence, yet we have such statistics so its not the guns. There is a much worse cause in this nation and that is constant prohibition's on substances causing criminals to be empowered, and a lack of socialized healthcare making mental healthcare something people can't afford or are afraid to get because of overreaching red flag laws. \r \n\r \nPoliticians are the cause not the guns. They are purposely making the perfect storm to de-arm the citizens of the 2A that was built into the constitution to defend them from the politicians. And unfortunately it seems a large stupid portion of the citizens are going along with it. The politicians did the same thing with the NFA in response to the last prohibition they created on alcohol back in the day.","date":"2023-11-09","id":"k8j1i13","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"Bulrat","body":"I belive \"both sides\" will be much more willing to listen to eachother id the arguments posed were rationa and logical.\n\nlets look at the \"ASSAULT WEAPON\" debate.....this is a debate ONLY about how a weapon looks not how it actually works.\n\nan Assault rifle is capable of FULL AUTOMATIC FIRE, meaning or rather called \"select fire\" and full auto IS illegal.\n\nso if FULL AUTO is illegal then it is no point in making a law banning what is already illegal.\n\nA Ruger mini-14 and a AR-15 does the same thing, with the same amount of damage and lethality (and ease of use for the average person) but only the AR-15 is being looked at...becuse it LOOKS LIKE the assault rifles used by the military.\n\nI always found the Subaru Impreaza to be the perfect example of how \"silly\" this debat is.\n\nWe have the Subaru Impreza Rally Car, and the \"normal street\" car......while they look very much the same, remove all decals and paint them both blue, you wull have a hard time telling them appart, but they are wastly differnt under the chassis.....the trally car has features the stret car does not.\n\nSo if someone then takes the Rally car and begins to drive insanely and all over, then it makes no sense to BAN the regular car.......or?\n\n​\n\nOr lets look to perhaps the most talked about and documneted school shooting tragedy. at COLOUMBINE...and then lets ask ourselves this question. HOW would an \"assault weapon look alike but not actual assault weapon\" ban have prevented that shooting.\n\nthe weapons involved were thses: Tech-9 (SEMI AUTO, not full auto), A Hi-point Carbine, basically a Hi-point handgun with added stock. and a SHOTGUN from savage arms.....\n\nit would not in any way have helped.\n\n​\n\nNow lets ask this......if people began to hit eachother in the head with hammers, is the problem the hammer or the people using them?\n\nor better yet, this analogy: you enter an EMPTY room, on the floor is a basketball...is there danger in the room? NO\n\nYou enter a EMPTY room and there is Pistol on the floor, is there any danger in the room? NO\n\nyou enter an EMPTY room, and soon after another PERSON enters the same room, is there danger here...YES\n\nso unless anyone can find any inicdents of a gun comming to life a gun is an item, it is metal, composits and wood...it is NOT someone with a mind, a will and can take any actions....\n\npeople can and people do.......\n\nso any such debate is simply a dumb one, unless it is actually debated within the same frame of knowledge and useage, not becuse it looks a certain way.\n\ni have 2 rifles, one with a \"psitol grip\" and one without, they are noth the same calibre, and they are both equally deadly, the grip does not affect the properties of the bullet fired in any way.....","date":"2023-11-13","id":"k949a5a","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"Nicholaspayneinct","body":"You are right there never was and never will be a debate ,Debate is only possible when people have open minds. American gun nuttery is more of a cult which of course precludes anything that looks like debate. This issue will likely be settled by the eventual funerals of the gun nuts.","date":"2023-11-17","id":"k9pxgx3","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"Jimbo-McDroid-Face","body":"Most ppl who live in “western English speaking countries” lack the cultural and historical context to understand. \nThe US declared independence from England and fought a war to be independent. Canada, Australia and NZ were all told to become independent. Likened to being kicked out of their parents basement. \nAnother part of our history is the fact that the American Industrial Revolution heavily involved the design and manufacturing of firearms. In more recent history, most other countries do not have to grapple with the issue of drug related gang violence. If not for the gang violence in America, our gun violence rates would be similar to most other counties. \nBut most notably, the US has a 2nd Amendment, which was written as the first amendment AFTER the 1st Amendment. The founders seem to have thought that it was rather important to codify that right explicitly.","date":"2023-11-21","id":"ka8927s","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Anonon_990","body":"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\". I think this is right and the \"debate\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\n\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\n\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\n\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.","date":"2023-05-28","id":"13u71ft","parent_id":null,"score":36,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/"},{"author":"OldReputation865","body":"\"Americans Gun Culture is a problem\" How so?? What causes mass shootings? I'm sure it isn't our culture liking guns mass shootings happen because bad mentally insane people gain ownership of firearms and how do we stop this? Well threes many ways but one way is arming more good people with guns according to the CDC guns save around 3 million lives annually and stop 2.5 million crimes per year so really, it's a good thing people won't give up their guns.","date":"2023-11-22","id":"kabfn8t","parent_id":"13u71ft","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}]],"string":"[\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"UserOfSlurs\",\n \"body\": \"I refuse gun control because I have no seen effective arguments. That doesn't mean that no argument could exist, just that nobody has presented it. You seem to just be caught up in that *your* chosen arguments aren't just met with universal support for gun control.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"jlz0sxy\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": -5,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"What argument would convince you?\\n\\n>You seem to just be caught up in that your chosen arguments aren't just met with universal support for gun control.\\n\\nActually everyone agrees with me outside of a large minority in the US. My view is common in every other nation and in half of the US.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"jlz1473\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jlz0sxy\",\n \"score\": 8,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"JustSomeApparition\",\n \"body\": \"[Here is a video by Lawyer Leeja Miller](https://youtu.be/zcMrDGs71v8) where she discusses the history of the second amendment and how it evolved into what it came to be today including what it would take to change it.\\n\\nIt is possible, but it's not just a matter of convincing the people; however, possible nonetheless.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"jlz0ypd\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"TouchGrassRedditor\",\n \"body\": \"Just because none of your arguments can change the mind of the other side doesn’t mean that no argument would ever be capable of it. Your arguments might simply not be as convincing as you think.\\n\\nThe reality is that America is not the only country with guns, but it’s the only country with this reoccurring problem. It’s a complicated issue that, if you ask me, is mostly cultural and driven by the 24 hour news cycle giving these killers exactly what they want: attention and infamy\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"jlz1ahp\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": -5,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"loufalnicek\",\n \"body\": \"I wonder if you truly appreciate how much of an outlier the U S. is in terms of gun ownership:\\n\\nhttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_guns_per_capita_by_country\\n\\nDo other countries not have 24/7 news cycles, why would that be a uniquely American thing?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"jlz21rg\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jlz1ahp\",\n \"score\": 3,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CBL44\",\n \"body\": \"You are misrepresenting the views of people who refuse to budge on gun control. They neither feels there are no problems with America's gun culturel or have a religious belief.\\n\\nThey see problems but they want to keep their guns for protection, hunting, target shooting and fear of government overreach. These are valid reasons for wanting to keep guns despite the fact you and others disagree. \\n\\nYou think they should compromise which is reasonable but gun owners do not trust progressives to stop at a small steps. They know that many progressive want to ban guns and believe than any compromise would lead to demands for ever increasing restrictions. \\n\\nTo sum it up.\\n1) They want guns for valid reasons.\\n2) They see problems with guns but think the benefits outweigh the cost.\\n3) They refuse budge because they know progressives want to ban guns and any gun control is a step towards banning guns entirely.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"jlz3e24\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": 54,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"PizzaKubeti\",\n \"body\": \"With point 3 you are proving his CMV. They refuse to budge = no arguement would suffice.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"jlz441v\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jlz3e24\",\n \"score\": -2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"MercurianAspirations\",\n \"body\": \"I mean, isn't that just true of most political divides, though? The right to own guns is a privilege that offers power over others. So the argument you're making is that a group of priveliged people cannot be rhetorically convinced to willingly give up their privileges, which, you know, obviously, right\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"jlz3glj\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": 3,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"That's fair. It names it not unique but I think the intensity of the opponents to gun control is unique given the amount of gun violence in America.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"jm007c3\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jlz3glj\",\n \"score\": -1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"TheSarcasticCrusader\",\n \"body\": \">gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue.\\n\\nGun control supporters also refuse to budge, and never offer a real compromise.\\n\\nThey just take what they want little by little. Never actually giving anything in return. \\\"Just this little extra addition will help fix things, nothing more,\\\" etc etc.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"jlz3t64\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": 15,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"MontiBurns\",\n \"body\": \"What compromise would be accpetavle for you?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"jlz4mie\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jlz3t64\",\n \"score\": -1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"apsidalsauce\",\n \"body\": \"It’s literally written into our Constitution.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"jlz44br\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": 4,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"KonaKathie\",\n \"body\": \"When the guns referenced were single-shot and could barely hit the side of a barn.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"jlz50ko\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jlz44br\",\n \"score\": -1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Freezefire2\",\n \"body\": \"Is there an argument that would convince you that America's gun culture (I don't know what America's gun culture is) isn't a problem?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"jlz49ja\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": 3,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Selethorme\",\n \"body\": \"Yes.\\n\\nIt would just require different facts than the real world.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"jlz90ql\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jlz49ja\",\n \"score\": 3,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"TylerDurden626\",\n \"body\": \"I think most gun rights supporters would also support a crackdown on gangs, that would easily bring down the gun crime rate. The problem is the other side refuses to crack down on anyone that could be perceived as making them look racist. \\nAlso gun rights supporters don’t see suicide as gun violence, it would be like calling someone jumping off a building “gravity violence”\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"jlz4apb\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": 3,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"KnittingTrekkie\",\n \"body\": \"People often argue that if someone is determined enough, they would manage to commit suicide, so gun deaths by suicide don’t matter. But completed suicide is much more likely with access to more lethal means of committing suicide. (And they also do more damage to people who manage to survive an attempt than other means. I knew a survivor of a gun suicide attempt who have had to live with brain damage.) Gun advocates should still support safe storage and [https://www.endfamilyfire.org/](https://www.endfamilyfire.org/) has information to help prevent suicide.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"jlz9rxu\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jlz4apb\",\n \"score\": 7,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"geeman1984\",\n \"body\": \"I'd rather live in a culture that gives me the tools of self defence rather than a knife attack culture that takes away your avenue and right of self defence.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"jlz60cb\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": 7,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"There are methods of self defence aside from guns. Tasers, mace etc\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"jm00g3p\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jlz60cb\",\n \"score\": -6,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"jumpup\",\n \"body\": \"well i changed the mind of one, so even if its 99.9999% its not a 100%.\\n\\nbut for most arguments its not actually a debate, a gun user knows guns kill people, so arguing that it causes deaths isn't actually an argument, the trick is to establish rules, like if a kids under 13 it shouldn't be allowed around a gun, then its if a kid has mental issues it shouldn't be allowed a gun, then if an adult has severe mental issues he shouldn't have a gun etc\\n\\nits not that they don't know guns have problems, they just want to keep their own and not have to deal with a lot of hassle\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"jlz64ud\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Fluffy_Ear_9014\",\n \"body\": \"Historically, the US has passed gun control legislation with the Gun Control Act of 1968, in 1993 with the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act and the Violent Crime Control Act and machine weapons ban shortly after in 1994. \\n\\nEdit: Shortened to remove context.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"jlz74d0\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"This is actually a fair point. Do you think modern conservatives would do the same?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"jm01b7o\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jlz74d0\",\n \"score\": -1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Green__lightning\",\n \"body\": \"This is the case because gun control comes from the premise that the actions of bad people should be able to impact the rights of good people. This is a form of collective punishment and wrong on both a legal and moral level, given that it's taking the rights of people to own guns because of the actions of people who misused those rights. \\n\\nFundamentally, this is a philosophic difference in valuing individual rights above safety, and not at all a problem, but a valid ideological difference. \\n\\nWhere the problem is, is that modern life is stressful to the point that people being driven to mass-murder-suicide is becoming alarmingly common, and it's very hard to stop people who hate the world and have nothing to lose. Actually doing something about it would probably be best done by making it so life doesn't drive people as crazy, but that's not happening, as increasing standard of living would be more expensive than paying for these shootings. Furthermore, disarming the populous is actively helpful when working people until they want to die is standard operating procedure.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"jlzb159\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": 13,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Selethorme\",\n \"body\": \"That’s a fundamentally untrue assertion, particularly as none of what’s generally called “common sense gun regulation” actually impacts the rights of “good people” at all.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"jlzphre\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jlzb159\",\n \"score\": -4,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"DBDude\",\n \"body\": \"Define \\\"gun culture.\\\" Where I am, \\\"gun culture\\\" means community shooting and hunting clubs, and kids being raised shooting knowing the responsibility that comes with it. This \\\"gun culture\\\" is not contributing to any societal problems. \\n\\nIn this country we have things called constitutional rights. They can't be violated. Guns are one of those rights. That's the end of the story unless you can get enough support to amend the Constitution. \\n\\nWe did have a history of oppression in the name of safety. The case of Dred Scott said that black people shouldn't be recognized as citizens or it would cause a whole host of negative societal issues. Arguments against our early civil rights laws said that it would be dangerous to protect the rights of black people since the police wouldn't be able to crack down on them to suppress violent crime. \\n\\nAnd guess what, we started protecting the rights of black people over their objections. Sure, black people now commit violent crimes at a far higher rate than any other race, but it doesn't matter as far as rights go. Those arguments to suppress their rights to keep violent crime down are simply not acceptable. \\n\\nAnd what makes you think gun control supporters actually want to reduce deaths? The difference between a banned \\\"assault weapon\\\" and a legal rifle can be as simple as the presence of a bayonet lug. That doesn't have anything to do with the suitability of the rifle for shooting people, but it gets a gun banned. When was the last time we had a mounted bayonet murder in this country?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"jlzbttc\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": 4,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Moonblaze13\",\n \"body\": \">A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.\\n\\nThe founding fathers had a plan for how the country would be defended. There was near universal agreement that the federal government having a standing army was not to be trusted as that could easily turn tyrannical. The states were expected to maintain militias that, should the whole country come under threat, would be used to defend it.\\n\\nIn the context of what they wrote at the time about their intentions, the second amendment (which consists of this single sentence) is pretty clearly referring to the maintaince of a milita. Especially when you consider that \\\"the people\\\" is used by the founding fathers to refer to representatives numerous times in their writings. Such as \\\"We the people find these truths to be self evident\\\". 'People' was used used in contrast to King.\\n\\nNow, I am one who believes that if we were to ask the founding fathers what they meant by something, they would respond with something akin to; decide for yourself. We made the government able to change so it could adapt to the times. What we meant doesn't matter, what matches the needs of your time should matter. So I'm not bringing this up to make any kind of argument that their intentions are the way we ought to interpret it. The Supreme Court has already ruled that, in effect, we ought to cut this sentence in half and interpret each part separately. But *that* is my argument.\\n\\n>In this country we have things called constitutional rights. They can't be violated. Guns are one of those rights. That's the end of the story unless you can get enough support to amend the Constitution.\\n\\nYou don't need the support to amend the Constitution. You just need to change your perspective on the subject. Like it or not, that's how the system works.\\n\\nAlso, side note because I'm really tired of this argument.\\n\\n>Sure, black people now commit violent crimes at a far higher rate than any other race\\n\\nViolent crime is correlated to race to a certain degree. It is much more tightly correlated to low socio-economic status. Yes, 13-50 is true. (Or true enough, that study is way out of date.) Ever look at the ratio of people in poverty to the amount of crime they commit? It's many times higher a ratio. Black people are more often in poverty, which is due to historical precedent of policies such as redlining. Pointing at their race as though it correlates to violent crime is either ignorant of reality or just dishonest and either way this argument needs to die so we can focus on the actual causes of violent crimes and the solutions to stopping them.\\n\\nThanks for bearing with my tangent.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"jlzg70a\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jlzbttc\",\n \"score\": 3,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"sto_brohammed\",\n \"body\": \"I'm not necessarily a gun control opponent in theory but in practice I'm extremely leery about most measures and I agree 100% that American gun culture is a problem. In fact, the gun culture is why I'm leery. I'm on the far left, for context. So it's not a question of necessarily changing our minds but it's a case of the two ideas you find contradictory being held by reasonable people.\\n\\nThe US is on an extremely dangerous trajectory right now. Violence against marginalized people is on the rise and the rhetoric is at utterly insane levels. The police generally don't give a shit about these communities and not infrequently the people committing this sort of violence are off duty cops or very close to them. These communities are already at a high level of risk and I'm afraid it's going continue to rise to some very, very dangerous levels. If the cops won't protect these communities, who will? Gun control historically has effected these communities disproportionately and many, especially black, Asian and LGBTQ have been arming themselves at a fairly high rate since 2016 but it's still far behind the far-right. Of course that's not to say any of those communities are in lockstep of course, that would be silly, but there are large portions who are arming themselves. In this climate I'm skeptical of sweeping measures like assault weapon bans because the far-right is already heavily armed. If they weren't and the police weren't I'd be more ok with it but none of those are the case. We don't get to choose the world we live in.\\n\\nSo what are these people doing with these guns? Here are some articles on the subject. Keep in mind that left wing \\\"gun culture\\\" such as it is is very different from the broader American one. Here guns are tools, they're not some kind of cultural identifier or symbol of masculinity or, which I think shouldn't have to be pointed as they're leftists, patriotism.\\n\\n[https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/tenacious-unicorn-ranch-colorado](https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/tenacious-unicorn-ranch-colorado)\\n\\n[https://theintercept.com/2022/11/29/club-q-lgbtq-armed-self-defense/](https://theintercept.com/2022/11/29/club-q-lgbtq-armed-self-defense/)\\n\\n[https://dallasvoice.com/drag-in-the-suburbs/](https://dallasvoice.com/drag-in-the-suburbs/)\\n\\n[https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/john-brown-gun-club-armed-anti-fascist-1234733200/](https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/john-brown-gun-club-armed-anti-fascist-1234733200/)\\n\\n[https://www.wbap.com/2022/07/22/advocates-for-homeless-block-encampment-sweep/](https://www.wbap.com/2022/07/22/advocates-for-homeless-block-encampment-sweep/)\\n\\n[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/dallas-drag-brunch-texas-protest-b2155624.html](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/dallas-drag-brunch-texas-protest-b2155624.html)\\n\\n[https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jul/22/if-others-have-rifles-well-have-rifles-why-leftist-groups-are-taking-up-arms](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jul/22/if-others-have-rifles-well-have-rifles-why-leftist-groups-are-taking-up-arms)\\n\\nThere are a ton of other incidents but they don't always get press. There are also a ton of other articles. There are also a growing number of leftist pro-gun groups like the Socialist Rifle Association, Yellow Peril Tactical, the Latino Rifle Association, the Huey P. Newton Gun Club, the John Brown Gun Club (they're more a direct action group) and more.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"jlzc85g\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Im_Talking\",\n \"body\": \"But guns have been a cause of this divisiveness (I'm not saying they are THE cause). People are arming themselves because of the fear that others are arming themselves.\\n\\nTherefore you can't say that a cause for a societal ill is also a solution.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"jm0bzyq\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jlzc85g\",\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CeilingFanUpThere\",\n \"body\": \"https://www.npr.org/2022/07/08/1110239487/most-gun-owners-favor-modest-restrictions-but-deeply-distrust-government-poll-fi\\n\\n\\\"More than 8 in 10 gun owners said they are in favor of universal background checks for all gun sales, including private sales and at gun shows. That's similar to the almost 9 in 10 of all Americans who say so in other surveys.\\\"\\n\\nGun control opponents are mistrustful--of government, of changing demographics, of people who don't value guns the way they do.\\n\\nThis suggests that if they had unlimited power and control of the government, and were confident they would forever have unlimited power, then they would not fear pushing forward on gun regulations, because they would feel confident in their power to increase or decrease gun regulations and the enforcement of those regulations in the future.\\n\\nThe problem is actually that 20% of Americans feel threatened by the way the status quo is changing.\\n\\n1. It's harder to pass the younger generations their own set of beliefs and convince them to not think critically about those beliefs, because younger generations are caring less about organized religion. It used to be exceptionally easy 50-100 years ago.\\n2. Immigrants that are conservative and inclined to join the Republican party often come from countries with governments that are much more repressive and don't fear the American government like gun control opponents do. So even when they have all the other conservative beliefs, they aren't always reliable voters because they sometimes vote against the Republican candidate if they think the candidate is too much of a warmonger, or is crazy, or is an idiot.\\n3. There are unknown consequences to them and their power whenever the country moves closer to equality and personal autonomy for all people.\\n\\nSo they play politics really hard with an 'ends justify the means' attitude.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"jlzczdg\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": 5,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"doomsdaysushi\",\n \"body\": \"This is untrue. \\n\\nFirst off the people that are gun control opponents are not the problem. The deaths that occur in Chicago, St. Louis, Baltimore, etc are not committed by NRA members. \\n\\nDo you want the policy that would reduce gun homicides and would be supported by gun advocates? Stop and Frisk. \\n\\nStop everyone and search them for a gun. If you have a gun and are not legally allowed to have a gun, then you get arrested.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"jlze1h8\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Selethorme\",\n \"body\": \"Besides that cities aren’t the primary number of gun deaths, stop and frisk was pretty blatantly racist policy. It didn’t stop everyone.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"jlziysw\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jlze1h8\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Wyrdeone\",\n \"body\": \"It's important to understand that gun control opponents are not a monolithic group. \\n\\nThere is a difference between folks who own guns to hunt, or because their geographic location makes it a practical investment, compared to the stereotypical gun-fetishist who owns 50+ firearms and spends most of their time taking pictures of them for social media.\\n\\nThere are many gun control opponents in my state of Vermont, but we have just managed to enact some common sense restrictions such as waiting periods, just in the last legislative session.\\n\\nSo, while the majority of rural vermonters are not about to give their guns up to the government or compromise on their constitutional right, we are capable of agreeing, as sensible people, that more needs to be done to curb gun crime.\\n\\nYou're not ever gonna convince the guy who is sexually attracted to AR-15s, but that is FAR from every gun owner in the nation.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"jlze7gu\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"UserOfSlurs\",\n \"body\": \"\\n>that more needs to be done to curb gun crime.\\n\\nWhy should I care specifically about gun crime when all available evidence shows that reducing it doesn't save lives?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"jm00yrw\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jlze7gu\",\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"pigeonshual\",\n \"body\": \"I think that many gun control opponents are specifically open to arguments about americas gun culture, which many see as the actual problem, as opposed to the gun laws. Switzerland, for example, is held up by advocates as a case where gun ownership is extremely widespread, but gun violence is low, and many argue that culture has a lot to do with it.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"jlzg9xl\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CeilingFanUpThere\",\n \"body\": \"[https://impakter.com/why-gun-ownership-switzerland-not-same-us/](https://impakter.com/why-gun-ownership-switzerland-not-same-us/)\\n\\nIf gun control opponents wanted to adopt Switzerland's gun laws, which are described in this article, progressives would get everything they've been trying to negotiate for and then some.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"jm0cvbb\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jlzg9xl\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"_Vervayne\",\n \"body\": \"Most people that want guns understand the problems with gun culture , their problem lies with the facts that the laws that are being placed as “gun control laws” don’t really do much to actually address the negative parts of “gun culture” most gun laws advertised as “common sense” are actually laws that hurt the carrying law abiding citizen more than it actually stops / suicides.\\n\\n I bring up this first because it actually accounts for most of the firearm related deaths annual \\nGetting guns “ off the street “ doesn’t actually address the suicide problem. When you’re speaking of a “gun control” opponent you are speaking about a law abiding citizen who’s legally allowed to own their firearm . Most gun crime that happens occurs with a firearm being posses illegally ..\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"jlzi9e5\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": 9,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Selethorme\",\n \"body\": \">\\t“common sense” are actually laws that hurt the carrying law abiding citizen more than it actually stops / suicides.\\n\\nCare to detail how? Background check requirements don’t hurt them. Requiring transactions occur through an FFL don’t hurt them. Registration doesn’t hurt them. Licensure doesn’t hurt them. Waiting periods don’t hurt them.\\n\\n>\\tMost gun crime that happens occurs with a firearm being posses illegally ..\\n\\nThis is just flatly untrue on a logical level. All guns being bought are originated through what would seem to be a legal transaction. \\n\\n>\\tI bring up this first because it actually accounts for most of the firearm related deaths annual Getting guns “ off the street “ doesn’t actually address the suicide problem. \\n\\nWaiting periods do exactly that. Licensure does that.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"jlzpraa\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jlzi9e5\",\n \"score\": -2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"MikeOxmoll_\",\n \"body\": \"You should be qualified to own and carry firearms. If you can't pass qualifications you shouldn't have them. Nothing spooks me more than seeing some idiot open carrying and touching their piece all the time.\\n\\nEveryone's also angry all the fucking time and have zero deescalation skills.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"jlziflr\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": 3,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"That-Possibility-427\",\n \"body\": \"Best point thus far and as a father and gun owner I couldn't agree with you more.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-29\",\n \"id\": \"jm13evc\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jlziflr\",\n \"score\": 3,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditExplorer89\",\n \"body\": \"Sorry, u/Anonon_990 – your submission has been removed for breaking Rule E: \\r\\n\\r\\n> **Only post if you are willing to have a conversation with those who reply to you, and are available to start doing so within 3 hours of posting**. If you haven't replied within this time, your post will be removed. [See the wiki for more information](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules#wiki_rule_e). \\r\\n\\r\\nIf you would like to appeal, **first respond substantially to some of the arguments people have made**, then [message the moderators by clicking this link](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fchangemyview&subject=Rule%20E%20Appeal%20Anonon_990&message=Anonon_990%20would%20like%20to%20appeal%20the%20removal%20of%20\\\\[their%20post\\\\]\\\\(https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/-/\\\\)%20because\\\\.\\\\.\\\\.). \\r\\n\\r\\nPlease note that multiple violations will lead to a ban, as explained in our [moderation standards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/modstandards).\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"jlzjs29\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Stillwater215\",\n \"body\": \"Here’s the thing about the “majority favor background checks” argument: how many of them would support criminal charges against a seller for failing to complete a background check? I would guess that the number would fall substantially.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"jm08odw\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": 3,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"That-Possibility-427\",\n \"body\": \">would guess that the number would fall substantially.\\n\\nThere in lies the problem. Your guess as in your assumption. What factual information are you basing your \\\"guess\\\" on? Isn't it much more logical to assume that if the majority favor background checks that they would also support whatever consequences that those who fail to comply would receive?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-29\",\n \"id\": \"jm15w6y\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jm08odw\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"beltalowda_oye\",\n \"body\": \"Idk man I support more gun control but I also think they don't do a whole lot because most people who support gun control like I do have no idea how rampant black market gun trade is. You can't throw a rock without hitting someone selling guns off instagram or telegram. It's so rampant, every recent facility I worked, there was always at least one person who was selling guns on the side. I'm talking actual glocks with mags and ammo. Entire kits shipped across state line. And these aren't 3d printed garbage either. \\n\\nIf there's an incentive to make money, people will do it. You can own a glock w/ ammo for the measly price of 350-550. So yes absolutely there is a massive gun problem in the USA and people aren't even aware of it tbh.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"jm09wre\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"SnooSeagulls6564\",\n \"body\": \"Fair. But a lot of people misunderstand the gun problem on both sides, it’s not mass shootings, it’s the gun culture already ingrained in the American culture. \\n\\nI might be going on a tangent but I want to explain something I feel not many people here have seen or can attest too. People will flip out when it’s found that a kid brings (not uses) a gun to school in a “”good neighborhood””; it’ll make the news. This shit is commonplace in areas that are neglected \\n\\nMy high school used to bus in kids from an area a little farther away that was much less well off then us. My PE teacher told us a story, he found a kid with a gun that fell out his bag, and he explained that he needed it, that he was so scared from where he came from and the people around him that it was a necessity. THATS the gun culture here. \\n\\nPeople seem to generalize and think it’s all the hicks with the guns that want to defend that right, and that couldn’t be farther from the truth. There’s too many guns in this country, and it’s almost a lost cause because hard reforms suggested that prevent “”law abiding citizens”” from getting them would do so little and may in turn harm others. It’s too late for these types of reforms I believe. \\n\\nThat being said small reform like background checks red flags etc should still be implemented. But even if the US were to ban ALL guns (something not being argued often but let’s use the extreme), there would only be continued violence, you just probably wouldn’t here about it.\\n\\n(But on a sidenote too suicides? Assuming they’re purposeful I don’t really think you can’t count that as an effect of guns, another way will be found. I’ve known suicidal people with guns, to them it was only a particular option)\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"jm0bfik\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"wilfordbrimley778\",\n \"body\": \"Schools and guns have been around since america started. Drugs used to treat things like ADHD and schizophrenia are relatively new however. And almost all mass shootings happen from someone on one of those drugs\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"jm0moaf\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Selethorme\",\n \"body\": \"That’s just not accurate.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-29\",\n \"id\": \"jm3d9fv\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jm0moaf\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"bandt4ever\",\n \"body\": \"Gun control is one of the most successful dividing lines the Oiligarchs have used to divide America into two opposing sides. No one but the most extreme leftists really wants to ban guns in America all together. That would be foolish. Common sense regulations, sure, good plan, but the NRA who is mostly funded by the Oiligarchs and fully in their control. Their function is to divide the country so that we won't notice the Oiligarchs and the fact that they control our supposedly free country and reap all of the benefits of our labors.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"jm0t5v0\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"gslavik\",\n \"body\": \"> A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\".\\n\\nSandy Hook was in 2012 and one of the more recent widely reported massacre. If you do a search, it won't take too much effort to find similar stories that go back decades. The only difference between those stories and Sandy Hook is that we have many more media channels (including various discussion boards and social media type places) to spread the news much wider and much quicker.\\n\\nThere was an interview with the journalists who uncovered all the Nixon stuff that eventually caused him to resign (to not go through the impeachment and senate trial process). They were asked about today's media (I think Twitter was mentioned) and they said that their stories would've unfolded much much quicker.\\n\\n> I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nYou should look up the Columbine shooting coverage (which interestingly enough was supposed to be a bombing with guns being used to kill people who were running from the blasts, but the bombs never went off). I believe that was the first mass murder that received such wide coverage. There is also a theory of media contagion effect playing into this (one of the reasons why suicides aren't usually reported on the news and why there are studies showing that there was an increase in suicides in the few months after Robin Williams' suicide was reported on).\\n\\n> Regardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nThe issue I take with this viewpoint is twofold. Most gun control proposals are usually an attempt to restrict guns when an outright ban wouldn't work. But the ban is still the ultimate goal. In some European countries, where the general access to self-owned (as opposed to gun/range owned) guns is stricter than most of US, they do not have outright bans to everything. For example, in NYC, you can get a rifle and shotgun permit which takes 6 months (before COVID19), but you cannot own any air/spring powered weapons (NYC Administrative code 10-131, if you are interested). Under many assault weapon bans, even some of the types of guns used for international shooting competitions are illegal (because magazine doesn't get inserted into the grip). Then we look at countries that have registrations (like Canada) and when someone smuggles guns across the border (another issue) that wouldn't be legal anyway, guns still get restricted there even more.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"jm0z7u1\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Titty_Slicer_5000\",\n \"body\": \"Imagine for a second that a group of people want to enact something called “free from reasonable search and seizure control”. They don’t like that police need probable cause to search people’s persons or effects and that if a search done without probable cause turns up evidence that 100% proves that the person they searched committed a crime, any crime (even murder), that that evidence can not be used in trial against that person. They would point to known murderers and rapists being let go “on technicalities” and going on to rape and murder again. Would it matter how many murderers and rapists were being let go and murdering and raping again to you? Would there be some number where you could say “okay let’s infringe on people’s 4th amendment right”? I hope not. \\n\\nWhat about the 5th amendment’s protection against double jeopardy? Would there be a number of murderers and rapists who get acquitted at trial only to have evidence come out later that proves they are 100% guilty that would make you say “okay let’s infringe on people’s 5th amendment rights”? I hope not. \\n\\nLet’s go to a more realistic example. The rise of fake news, inflammatory news, and people sharing inflammatory news has led to a serious problem in the US with misinformation and political divide. You could reasonably argue it led to tens of thousands if not even hundreds of thousands of extra deaths from covid. It is, quite literally, a threat to out democracy. Should the government be allowed to silence news stations it deems “inflammatory”. Should people not be allowed to share news the government deems “fake news” or “misleading” on facebook and social media. Again, I hope you answer this question in the negative. \\n\\nHaving individual rights comes with certain problems that are inherent in how these rights work and how they restrict the tools government has to deal with problems. That is the price of freedom. There are certainly countries where the people give up individual liberties when problems arise so that government can more easily and more effectively tackle those problems. Those countries eventually turn into authoritarian hellholes. \\n\\nIt is no different, in my view, when it comes to the 2nd amendment. Guns are the great equalizer. Every human has a right to self defense. And in my view that also means every human has the right to the proper tools for self defense (you can of course lose rights through due process of law). People do not need to be athletes and martial art experts to have a decent chance at defending themselves or their family. The weak should not just be expected to have no defense when attacked by the strong. The people must have the ability to tell their government “no”. They must have some kind of *real power* to do that, not just words on paper that give power only because the government allows it to be so. A well armed and well trained population has *real power* to tell its government “no”, whether the government allows it or not. Restrictions that make it much more difficult to get guns, get ammo, train with guns, severely limit the type of guns you can get, etc. , are all restrictions that remove that power from the people. History is too replete with examples of government turning on its people in a brutal and authoritarian way, and the people having no real means to fight back. The Tiananmen Square Massacre is a great example of this. The Holocaust, another. Stalin’s rule of terror, yet another.\\n\\nIt’s not that I don’t think gun violence is a problem. It’s that I think that the government must address this problem *within the confines of the US constitution*, just like it addressed any other problem. Gun control is just easy political points for people who don’t know jack shit about guns and are all too happy to be nannied by the government. But it doesn’t get at the root of the issue, which is what high level policy choices led us here (namely drug prohibition, the war on drugs, a history of racism, and “tough on crime policies”). Reversing the effects of those high level policies would, realistically, take decades. The average voter just does not have that kind of attention span. They want everything “now now now”, and it’s all based on fear and ignorance. Just like the introduction of drug prohibition and the drug war was based on fear and ignorance (and racism). And yet we still haven’t learned.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"jm11ydq\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": 17,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"OfTheAtom\",\n \"body\": \"If there were advancements in tazer technology, or even where it currently stands, wouldn't the idea of the Equalizer be met with this technology? \\n\\nThe issue being that bombs, and automatic guns are seen as too easily capable of mass destruction beyond what is needed to deter/stop harm from coming to an individual. And that semi-auto is also, just too capable of killing more than one attacker beyond the scenario people will actually find themselves in.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-29\",\n \"id\": \"jm2dvb0\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jm11ydq\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"offwivisead\",\n \"body\": \"Nope .their whole family could be blown away and they still wouldn't change their minds..would they?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-29\",\n \"id\": \"jm1lwyq\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CP1870\",\n \"body\": \"It's rejected because being able to own a gun is an individual constitutional right just like the right to free speech is. If we just start ignoring the constitution then the constitution becomes meaningless. The gun control side main goal is to ban and confiscate all private firearms, why would someone for the second amendment EVER give up ANYTHING to them?! I'll use the recent gun control \\\"comprise\\\" as an example: in the \\\"comprise\\\" the Republicans only got some vague mental health funding while the Democrats got almost everything they wanted. Not even a week later what do the Democrats do? Oh they try to pass an AWB that would have made every single gun owner a felon overnight! Yes sorry but F the gun control side, I honestly can't wait for SCOTUS to rule the AR15 is a protected weapon and that AWB are unconstitutional. I also can't wait for them to gut Chevron Deference and remove basically all the power the ATF has\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-29\",\n \"id\": \"jm1pqe4\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \">The gun control side main goal is to ban and confiscate all private firearms, why would someone for the second amendment EVER give up ANYTHING to them?!\\n\\n\\\"The gun advocate side main goal is to legalise all private firearms for everyone regardless of age, criminal al record or mental health, why would someone for public safety EVER give up ANYTHING to them?!\\\"\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-03\",\n \"id\": \"jmreezc\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jm1pqe4\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"beautiflywings\",\n \"body\": \"For starters, nothing ever great comes out of the government being the only ones armed. Second, people who already don't care about following the law will always find a firearm. Lastly, I believe that guns are a great equalizer. I want my 5'4, 100 lb niece to be able to protect herself against a 6' plus guy.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-29\",\n \"id\": \"jm1vn6f\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": 3,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"authorityiscancer222\",\n \"body\": \"I’ll change my mind on gun control when they take away the guns of cops.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-29\",\n \"id\": \"jm2752o\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Dorbz95\",\n \"body\": \"I hear the cops in some countries in europe don't even carry guns. Very low chance for the bad guy to have one.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-29\",\n \"id\": \"jm4a7jp\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jm2752o\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Bfitness93\",\n \"body\": \"I think it's the other way around. The facts simply don't support what you say and I'll give you many examples as to why gun control is BS. All we need to do is break down the data. Maybe you never heard these arguments before.\\n\\nEveryone in America needs to follow the gun laws in their local area. We can see that regardless of the area, each demographic commits gun crime at far different rates. Men and women perhaps the biggest, Men commit FAR more gun crime than women do despite following the same gun laws. Whites commit more gun crime than Asians, Hispanics commit more gun crime than whites, blacks commit gun crime more than Hispanics. 21yr Olds commit more gun crime than 51yr Olds. If it were gun control than these statistics would be even. But clearly there's a much different problem it's the people not the guns.\\n\\nIf we go back in time when some European country's had similar gun laws to America, European country's still virtually saw no gun crime. Compare the city of London to NYC. Same exact gun laws back in the 50s, the 2 were the exact same. London saw virtually no gun crime. NYC so a lot more.\\n\\nWhich brings us over to the time line of gun crime. In the 60s the gun crime started to rise and got worse and worse until the late 80s to early 90s when it peaked. It started decreasing since the early 90s. All of which fell under the same gun control laws. \\n\\nMore guns are in circulation now in 2023 than in the late 80s, far more. But we experience far less gun crime despite guns being much easier to get and more guns being in circulation. I can just refute gun control all day long. \\n\\nWe see in the United States that gun crime varies and that some of our most heavily gun regulated areas have some of the worst gun crime. Which brings us back to country vs country. Brazil and Russia have much stricter gun laws than the United States but experience much higher levels of gun crime. Even in terms of class, the Asian lower class commits less gun crime than the black middle class. America is the richest country on Earth, our lower class is the upper class of the planet. But we don't experience the lowest levels of crime so it's not a poverty issue and to refute that again we see that gun crime was worse in the 90s despite being much richer in the 90s compared to the 50s.\\n\\nGuns save a lot of lives too through deterrence and self defense. You use them to hunt and have recreational activities with them. They're used to protect us against government tyranny. \\n\\nILLEGAL handguns commit the vast majority of crime. So why go after the guns that have almost nothing to do with crime? It makes no sense. \\n\\nYour kids have a better chance at being struck by lightening than dying from a legally purchased firearm. I know you see someone kill a few kids, it's all over the media and you think this is happening like crazy over here. It's not. You're far more likely to die during a car accident than shot by a gun by an extremely large margin. \\n\\nLook at the war on drugs here. Look at prohibition. Not only does it not work but it makes things worse. You want the black market to open up and all the fun things that come out of there? People will get the guns anyway. Same with heroin in illegal and people still get their hands on that easily. It's pointless. \\n\\nPeople cherry pick and like to compare America to some country's in Europe that already had a low level of gun crime even when guns were legalized. They base everything off that and leave all other data out. This is either confirmation bias or the dunning Kruger affect, you don't know what you don't know. Or ignorance. \\n\\nSo its not that people who are pro gun have stances that can't be changed no matter what you say to them its just that the opposing side makes easily refutable arguments.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-29\",\n \"id\": \"jm29h1d\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": 6,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Nucaranlaeg\",\n \"body\": \"> Look at prohibition. Not only does it not work but it makes things worse.\\n\\nProhibition didn't make things worse. If you look at total alcohol-related violent crime, it fell off a cliff during prohibition. Some of that can be attributable to broader trends, so it's not obvious that prohibition made things better, but it didn't make things worse.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-29\",\n \"id\": \"jm4c7pt\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jm29h1d\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"23663456\",\n \"body\": \"Ok, I want to dispell a few myths I've been seeing crop up here.\\n\\n 1. We already have background checks. If you're a felon, no gun for you. If you want to buy a gun, you are legally required to go through a background check. There are no loopholes, just people breaking the law, and people not enforcing it properly.\\n\\n 2. (The following is not to minimize the tragedy of, and the suffering that comes with loosing a child or witnessing a shooting at your school. It is simply giving context) Many seem to be under the impression that school shootings are the majority of gun violence here in the States. This is not true. Most deaths from gun violence occur in intercity gang violence, and domestic shootings elsewhere. School shootings, and really mass shootings in general, actually only make up about 10% of gun violence in the country.\\n\\n 3. Many firearms used in mass shootings were obtained illegally, and if they weren't, the shooter often had nothing in their past to suggest their future actions. If a monster wishes to do harm, make the gun illegal won't stop them.\\n\\n 4. While banning guns may drop gun violence, it will increase violence in general. We've seen this in the UK. Yes, no more shootings, but stabbings, and assaults increase to new heights(though to be fair different cultures exist in these countries and are likely the most responsible). If there are no guns, the school shooter will just get a knife.\\n\\n 5. Many have said, or implied, that gun owners don't care when innocent people are shot. They do. We all do. We merely disagree with how to fix the issue. \\n This is why issues like this, abortion, racial discrimination, and gender equality continue to be issues. No one talks, they just call the other guy a monster. If we were to leave insults at the door, grow thicker skin, and talk to each other like adults, we could probably fix most of these issues in a heartbeat. But we don't. We act like children who want the last cookie. All this will lead to is further division, and most likely, even more death.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-29\",\n \"id\": \"jm2ggfh\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": 7,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Selethorme\",\n \"body\": \"1.\\tFactually untrue. Private sales don’t require one in most states.\\n2.\\tthat doesn’t mean school shootings aren’t a problem we can try to solve\\n3.\\tthis is factually untrue. 75% of mass shooters acquire their guns legally. Making it harder for them to access it absolutely can impact their actions\\n4.\\tthis is just a misleading correlation vs causation argument\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-29\",\n \"id\": \"jm3bhjx\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jm2ggfh\",\n \"score\": 7,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Sneakydivil32\",\n \"body\": \"Let's not forget that we're talking about the least intelligent and most obnoxiously idiotic race of people on earth here. I'm suprised more of them don't accidentally blow their own brains out on the daily tbh.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-29\",\n \"id\": \"jm2rmix\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"soft_pretzel_twist\",\n \"body\": \"Actually make a good point or get out of here.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-16\",\n \"id\": \"js9e0d5\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jm2rmix\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Dorbz95\",\n \"body\": \"They are convinced that mass shootings are \\\"statistically insignificant\\\" and call you emotional if you think otherwise. They are robotic and lack any ounce of humanity. They only use libertarian logic, semantics, pedantry, and disingenuous tactics when debating gun control. If you back them into a corner they will just say \\\"it's a right\\\" \\\"shall not be infringed\\\".\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-29\",\n \"id\": \"jm493de\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"p5219163\",\n \"body\": \"Pro Gun guy here. I highly disagree. There's plenty of arguments that could get me to change my opinions.\\n\\nThe issue is none of these arguments exist. There's no modern day statistics that paint firearms as a glaring problem. Furthermore, firearm ownership is protected by the constitution.\\n\\nHow hypothetically if that was never the case, and firearms were an actual issue in every day life. Arguments could be made.\\n\\nHowever that isn't the case. \\n\\nThis is a bit like saying there's no way to get an atheist to believe in God. Well there is, god could talk to him. Issue is that isn't going to happen.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-29\",\n \"id\": \"jm4u6ce\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Jew_of_house_Levi\",\n \"body\": \"\\\"racism\\\"\\n\\n​\\n\\nIf a significant amount of minorities started purchasing firearms openly, than that may cause some conservative panic and make them believe that \\\"gun culture\\\" is a problem, at least in minority circles.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-30\",\n \"id\": \"jm76wal\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"A6000user\",\n \"body\": \"It's quite simple really; the real problem with gun violence in the United States occurs in the inner cities and with the use of mostly illegally obtained and owned guns. Those that oppose gun control, for the most part, are legal, law-abiding persons whose only connection to the violence that the media chooses to use to focus on for the sake of gun control is that the assailant used a gun similar to the ones owned by those opposed to gun control.\\n\\nHowever, if the media were to truly address the issue of gun violence in the United States, they would have to admit many facts that correlate largely to minority populated liberal areas; that goes against the current media narrative.\\n\\nThis leads to the other aspect which strengthens the resolve of those opposed to gun control; the realization that there is an overwhelmingly biased media and political climate in the United States that is willing to lie about one of the biggest problems this country faces all for the sake of taking the guns away from law abiding citizens. To what end is unknown, but it is frightening.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-30\",\n \"id\": \"jm8ucbg\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"> However, if the media were to truly address the issue of gun violence in the United States, they would have to admit many facts that correlate largely to minority populated liberal areas; that goes against the current media narrative.\\n\\nAnd what facts are those?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-03\",\n \"id\": \"jmrffci\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jm8ucbg\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"realistic_dreamer42\",\n \"body\": \" I also don't live in the US, but in a Southern African ex-colony that gets in the news a lot for government oppression etc. This country does have strict gun laws and the police generally don't carry guns, but please don't use this as an excuse to 'prove' gun control opponents and claim that the country I am from would be different if there were no gun controls, as bad as Zimbabwe is it'd likely be even worse if there weren't gun controls. \\n\\nI grew up around guns and though I discovered I have a nature that doesn't do well with murdering wildlife (what I did kill when I was young is now a burden on me) I am, unfortunately, naturally talented with a long rifle and 12 gauge and when I did hunt there was no pleasure or enjoyment in it for me so I did it in a psychologically 'cold' state and suffered afterward for it (no shaky hands 'buck fever', talented stalking ability and dislike for causing suffering made me lethal and capable of making point to point instant kills that'd make a trained sniper sit up and pay attention to my unfortunate skill). After my Father passed (suicide by gun), I made no effort to take over his guns and allowed the police to take my guns as well, so I haven't had guns in my home for twenty years. \\n\\nI reflect now, that due to stresses in my personal life, had I had guns - I would either have ended up in jail for shooting some of my neighbors dogs, or I would have taken my life by gun. Whichever came first. So for me, personally, even though I could have, having guns would have been a bad idea - but I recognized that and self regulated. \\n\\nInterestingly though, I was unfortunate to find myself trapped in bad 'elitist' private schools where teachers and the entire system were exploiting, damaging, the children in horrifying ways which proved impossible to bring to light and I was obliged as a child to strategize using guns (I had access to!) to murder some predatory teachers and bring the hidden problem out in the open - of course it would have cost me my life, but the point is I was on the margin of becoming a school 'mass' shooter as a solution to a real world problem and I'm a profoundly talented strategist that goes calm in intense situations so it is likely I would have done an awful lot of damage before I got taken down which would have taken hours given the response times in the arena I was in. \\n\\nOf course I never did it and if I had gone the violent route there were more effective ways available to me (explosive devices, poisons etc) - but through consideration of guns as a solution I came to understand the problem with guns, they get a power over people, it is as if the 'want' to be used and it is just too easy for guns to be used as a quick solution in an 'in the moment' circumstance (like shooting my neighbors dog on the night I finally can't take it anymore). \\n\\nI don't consider the argument for and against guns to really be about guns - it is about social environment and the pressures contained within. If people have realistic protection from the kind of threat that may cause them to need to consider retaliation, then having no gun control is going to be dangerous. Getting illegal weapons is always possible, but at least there is a time period for reconsideration between getting overly stressed and snapping and going and seeking a weapon - having guns immediately available just makes it too easy. \\n\\nIn addition, people appear to have become confused about the realities of what happens when bullets start flying - I noticed that when the US NRA and anti-gun control advocates make arguments about supposedly sensible civilians and police bearing arms to protect society, they tend to make 'perfect' scenario arguments that assume that 'bad guy/gal become public danger, the good guy/gal citizens get their guns out and shoot the baddies' - in the real world, very few people are going to be accurate or circumspect. Furthermore sidearms (which I'm useless with, they're cool to hold and play with, but not really effective) and are only really accurate to use at suicide distances. Every bullet in the air is another bullet that can harm innocent bystanders and people who think they are brave and heroic and would carry guns out of a need to 'protect' society tend to be the same people who would panic and start spraying bullets around - personally I wouldn't want to be carrying a gun, because I know I would never survive harming an innocent (and the 'bad' guys probably qualify as being socially sick, which my personality treats as 'innocent though dangerous'). \\n\\nFurther interestingly, I worked as a contractor for private security companies in Iraq and Afghanistan for about five years over a decade ago (desk jockey and strategic management roles so I didn't carry guns, though I could have, left that to the security operatives excepting for one contract where I kept an AK beside my bed - the zone I was in was too exposed, I had no choice). So I got to be in an environment where pretty much everybody carried guns with high expectation that they may need to use them - what caught me most is the effect on the people I worked with who did end up in firefights and put insurgents down, it hurt them, *badly.* Could see it in their eyes, their body language, hear it in their voices - terrible, terrible pain. And these were trained ex-military operatives of high standard in justifiable shootings in a war zone and taking a life tore them to pieces and gave them a cancer on their soul that will never wash out. \\n\\n*But my personal take on the gun control argument in the US - it's pointless, you're not going to stop people carrying guns in the US as is the tradition of the country or prevent mass shootings through politics or making new gun control laws or having endless barneys between the NRA and gun control advocates. Stop wasting your time on it and give the time toward overarching solutions to the social problems of the human community, institutional abuse and clearing up the confusion gangs of sickening, false and dangerous politicians, teachers, preachers, mental health functionaries and other exploitive business creatures playing with the life of the human community and your gun argument will resolve itself by extension.*\\n\\nIf the US spent even a little of the time it spends arguing about unwinnable arguments like gun control on attempting to understand the truths about countries it interferes with in a shallow self serving manner, like Zimbabwe, then my country would probably be in a much better place rather than suffering from being infected with other countries failures. I wouldn't take US citizens guns away, *I'd block the muzzle on your politicians' mouth guns, take away your* ***money*** *ammunition, depose your gunpowder corporations and put a safety catch on your International exploitation.*\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-31\",\n \"id\": \"jmb1f9h\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Annual_Ad_1536\",\n \"body\": \"They aren't changing their minds because nobody's offered any innovative proposals. They just repeat the same thing every year.\\n\\nHere's what would instantly change their minds.\\n\\n1. (secretly) replace all gun inventory with networked smart weapons.\\n2. Inform the public that to curb issues with older guns, the government will buy back every gun for $40,000 each.\\n3. The gun rights supporters will then all buy the new weapons. Realizing that they are more badass than the guns they previously had, they will initially be pissed, but eventually will be happier with the new ones than the old ones.\\n\\nWham bam, no more mass shootings with legal guns.\\n\\nI should mention, a small contingent of conservatives will now just buy illegal guns, but the point of the question was convincing gun rights supporters of anti-gun violence policy, and this pretty much does that.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-03\",\n \"id\": \"jmps8ae\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Specific-Trouble1599\",\n \"body\": \"632 people were killed in “mass shootings” (more than 4 in one place/shooting) in the US in 2022. 10,000 (1000 children) people are killed in drunk driving accidents. Are they going to ban all alcohol? Of course not!\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-18\",\n \"id\": \"jolc55l\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"IcyCharacter6527\",\n \"body\": \"You are right, but I believe it to be more of a macho-fetish thing. Like expensive cars etc. Makes them feel like they have power, are someone.\\n\\nThe other \\\"reasons\\\" are just make-believe.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-21\",\n \"id\": \"joxsijk\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"AnotherLoudAsshole\",\n \"body\": \"Incorrect. \\n\\nI am an American gun maker who is devoted to firearms rights as if it is my religion. I say that without any irony. \\n\\nWhat it would take to change my mind is unbiased statistics and for the last two centuries of human history to not be filled with people murdered by governments shortly after disarming. *You don't have those arguments, because those arguments are not aligned with reality.*\\n\\nIf you're really interested in changing your view, how about you ask yourself \\\"what would it take for me to realize that my opinions on firearms might be based on propagandistic bullshit?\\\"\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-28\",\n \"id\": \"jpufyt5\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Better-Strategy-3846\",\n \"body\": \"Could be worse we could be dunce...to say we know about something that goes on in another country while also admitting that we don't live there like someone second none of what was said there is true The gun crime is actually horribly cherry picked data to make it go in their favor in argument third shootings happen every few years or a couple of months as in 8 to 9 months at shortest third It's constitutionally protected if you had any common sense you would know that's how our country is run by the Constitution It is above all... And first We like having our rights and we're not going to live like any other s***** countries around the world like Mexico Canada Australia Britain London... All communist control to where the police are even a part of the government in corrupt that in our livelihood was almost stolen from us back then and the only thing that saved us was guns Oh and what happened what did the government try to do that we permanently kept guns in our culture.... Tried to steal them from us so they could take over our land 🤯\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-01\",\n \"id\": \"jq9bzr6\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Slight-Ad7863\",\n \"body\": \"I JUST CAME HERE TO MENTION THAT I JUST PURCHASED AN EXTENDED CLIP, SO THAT IF ANYONE WANTS TO FEEL SMART, THEY CAN REMIND ME THAT IT US A MAGAZINE, AND ASK ME WHY I AM YELLING.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-01\",\n \"id\": \"jqacrkc\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Joegannonlct\",\n \"body\": \"There really isn't. These people are INSANE. Some of them truly want no rules, regulations, or common sense.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-05\",\n \"id\": \"jqpwnd5\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Better-Strategy-3846\",\n \"body\": \"Because it's not it's the person who does it I mean are we going to call cars if they hit someone or ever used as a weapon assault vehicles 😂.... The gun didn't pick itself up and find someone to cause bodily harm to did it... Now it might have had the action to kill but it was not it itself that caused it It was a person to holding it... Also fun fact The recent gun laws don't really work that well especially in places like Chicago is because there's no punishment for breaking into cars and stealing guns or people's houses 🤦♂️ some of those states are stupid in my opinion for putting in legislation that lets criminals break the law get guns when they're not supposed to have them even though they say gun laws and gun control works.... Also why aren't criminals punished for breaking into steal a weapon to commit extreme harm with why is there no extra prison sentence although I guess I'm pretty stupid for saying that because they don't really punish them in those states anyway 🤔....\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-25\",\n \"id\": \"jtdsrmh\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Better-Strategy-3846\",\n \"body\": \"Kind of like there's no argument that would prove sheep ding dongs that say killing a baby is okay but owning a gun isn't... Yeah sounds real stupid when you try to compare murdering a newborn that wasn't conceived by RAPE or any other disgusting thing... Or the almost as gross incest... But yeah you want to own a gun you're apparently the bad guy... And left us always wonder why they're the butt of every joke and made fun of 😐... You can't pretend to be on the moral high ground and then blatantly throw it to the side because your argument isn't convenient to using anymore... Its like are you trying to gas light people or something I might be an ass but at least I'm honest... Also I don't think I'll be taking any advice that's supposed to be intelligent from individuals who voted for a guy who gave automatic weapons to civilians in another country and most of our tax money and criminals and an entire terrorist organization 🤣\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-08\",\n \"id\": \"jvappir\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"wholelottaslatttt\",\n \"body\": \"How will gun control work if criminals can 3D print guns and ammo while regular citizens are restricted to protecting themselves? Should be common sense but it’s no longer common nowadays.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-09\",\n \"id\": \"jvj1vrs\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"safarisam94\",\n \"body\": \"First off, gun control already exists in the USA. Most gun owners own semi-automatic guns; fully-automatic guns require a special permit to own. In addition, you have to be 18 to purchase, and felons cannot own a gun. These are already forms of gun control — what you’re advocating for is ADDITIONAL gun control. \\n\\nAccording to the FBI, gun violence results in approximately 10K deaths per year. https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-8.xls Even if we make the assumption that additional gun control would be 100% preventative of all gun-deaths caused by violent crime, it would only reduce US deaths per by 10K per year.\\nWe would save more lives in the USA by reallocating the resources used to enforce additional gun control to the FDA, to increase regulation on unhealthy food products and food production practices in the USA. The estimated number of annual deaths attributable to obesity among US adults is approximately 280000 based on HRs from all subjects and 325000 based on HRs from only nonsmokers and never-smokers.” https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10546692/\\nEven if stricter FDA regulations only reduced obesity-related deaths by 10%, there would still be x3 more annual lives saved in the US from FDA’s increased food regulation than from a 100% violent-gun-death preventative.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-09-30\",\n \"id\": \"k2vrjg5\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"MBSV2020\",\n \"body\": \">Regardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. \\n\\nThat is because it is a black and white issue. The purpose of 2A is to ensure the government cannot disarm the people. This is to protect the people's ability to stand up to a tyrannical government. Gun Control means the government is disarming the people. \\n\\n​\\n\\n>Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nThere is a lot that contain change around guns. Gun control is not a solution. Criminals, by definition, do not follow the law. Gun control regulates the law abiding.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-10-02\",\n \"id\": \"k37e1pc\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"How did you find this thread?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-10-02\",\n \"id\": \"k37en7n\",\n \"parent_id\": \"k37e1pc\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Teachers-Petty\",\n \"body\": \"Here's a cute, and somehow scary short film. It's only 5 minutes long, but it points out that the US is crazy about safety except when it comes to guns. Viewer discretion is advised.\\nhttps://youtu.be/t7NK7W2NPVo?si=s2U4VMvSmwD6fQTw\",\n \"date\": \"2023-10-09\",\n \"id\": \"k439e3e\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"jcgonzmo\",\n \"body\": \"I see some comments here throwing around religious beliefs as if that is a factor in going against gun control. In which part of the bible does it says anything about guns? Pro or against gun control has nothing to do with religion.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-11-01\",\n \"id\": \"k7eo6r2\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"InvaderJoshua94\",\n \"body\": \"Yet we are not the only heavily armed nation of civilians in the industrialized world and those other nations have less gun violence, yet we have such statistics so its not the guns. There is a much worse cause in this nation and that is constant prohibition's on substances causing criminals to be empowered, and a lack of socialized healthcare making mental healthcare something people can't afford or are afraid to get because of overreaching red flag laws. \\r \\n\\r \\nPoliticians are the cause not the guns. They are purposely making the perfect storm to de-arm the citizens of the 2A that was built into the constitution to defend them from the politicians. And unfortunately it seems a large stupid portion of the citizens are going along with it. The politicians did the same thing with the NFA in response to the last prohibition they created on alcohol back in the day. WAKE THE F UP AMERICA!!!!\",\n \"date\": \"2023-11-09\",\n \"id\": \"k8j17ex\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"InvaderJoshua94\",\n \"body\": \"Yet we are not the only heavily armed nation of civilians in the industrialized world and those other nations have less gun violence, yet we have such statistics so its not the guns. There is a much worse cause in this nation and that is constant prohibition's on substances causing criminals to be empowered, and a lack of socialized healthcare making mental healthcare something people can't afford or are afraid to get because of overreaching red flag laws. \\r \\n\\r \\nPoliticians are the cause not the guns. They are purposely making the perfect storm to de-arm the citizens of the 2A that was built into the constitution to defend them from the politicians. And unfortunately it seems a large stupid portion of the citizens are going along with it. The politicians did the same thing with the NFA in response to the last prohibition they created on alcohol back in the day.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-11-09\",\n \"id\": \"k8j1i13\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Bulrat\",\n \"body\": \"I belive \\\"both sides\\\" will be much more willing to listen to eachother id the arguments posed were rationa and logical.\\n\\nlets look at the \\\"ASSAULT WEAPON\\\" debate.....this is a debate ONLY about how a weapon looks not how it actually works.\\n\\nan Assault rifle is capable of FULL AUTOMATIC FIRE, meaning or rather called \\\"select fire\\\" and full auto IS illegal.\\n\\nso if FULL AUTO is illegal then it is no point in making a law banning what is already illegal.\\n\\nA Ruger mini-14 and a AR-15 does the same thing, with the same amount of damage and lethality (and ease of use for the average person) but only the AR-15 is being looked at...becuse it LOOKS LIKE the assault rifles used by the military.\\n\\nI always found the Subaru Impreaza to be the perfect example of how \\\"silly\\\" this debat is.\\n\\nWe have the Subaru Impreza Rally Car, and the \\\"normal street\\\" car......while they look very much the same, remove all decals and paint them both blue, you wull have a hard time telling them appart, but they are wastly differnt under the chassis.....the trally car has features the stret car does not.\\n\\nSo if someone then takes the Rally car and begins to drive insanely and all over, then it makes no sense to BAN the regular car.......or?\\n\\n​\\n\\nOr lets look to perhaps the most talked about and documneted school shooting tragedy. at COLOUMBINE...and then lets ask ourselves this question. HOW would an \\\"assault weapon look alike but not actual assault weapon\\\" ban have prevented that shooting.\\n\\nthe weapons involved were thses: Tech-9 (SEMI AUTO, not full auto), A Hi-point Carbine, basically a Hi-point handgun with added stock. and a SHOTGUN from savage arms.....\\n\\nit would not in any way have helped.\\n\\n​\\n\\nNow lets ask this......if people began to hit eachother in the head with hammers, is the problem the hammer or the people using them?\\n\\nor better yet, this analogy: you enter an EMPTY room, on the floor is a basketball...is there danger in the room? NO\\n\\nYou enter a EMPTY room and there is Pistol on the floor, is there any danger in the room? NO\\n\\nyou enter an EMPTY room, and soon after another PERSON enters the same room, is there danger here...YES\\n\\nso unless anyone can find any inicdents of a gun comming to life a gun is an item, it is metal, composits and wood...it is NOT someone with a mind, a will and can take any actions....\\n\\npeople can and people do.......\\n\\nso any such debate is simply a dumb one, unless it is actually debated within the same frame of knowledge and useage, not becuse it looks a certain way.\\n\\ni have 2 rifles, one with a \\\"psitol grip\\\" and one without, they are noth the same calibre, and they are both equally deadly, the grip does not affect the properties of the bullet fired in any way.....\",\n \"date\": \"2023-11-13\",\n \"id\": \"k949a5a\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Nicholaspayneinct\",\n \"body\": \"You are right there never was and never will be a debate ,Debate is only possible when people have open minds. American gun nuttery is more of a cult which of course precludes anything that looks like debate. This issue will likely be settled by the eventual funerals of the gun nuts.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-11-17\",\n \"id\": \"k9pxgx3\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Jimbo-McDroid-Face\",\n \"body\": \"Most ppl who live in “western English speaking countries” lack the cultural and historical context to understand. \\nThe US declared independence from England and fought a war to be independent. Canada, Australia and NZ were all told to become independent. Likened to being kicked out of their parents basement. \\nAnother part of our history is the fact that the American Industrial Revolution heavily involved the design and manufacturing of firearms. In more recent history, most other countries do not have to grapple with the issue of drug related gang violence. If not for the gang violence in America, our gun violence rates would be similar to most other counties. \\nBut most notably, the US has a 2nd Amendment, which was written as the first amendment AFTER the 1st Amendment. The founders seem to have thought that it was rather important to codify that right explicitly.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-11-21\",\n \"id\": \"ka8927s\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Anonon_990\",\n \"body\": \"I dont live in the US but because I live in a western, English speaking country, I see a lot of American cultural debates. Afaik, the debate around guns is almost unique because no other country has Americas gun culture. Countries in civil wars aren't as saturated with guns as America. Therefore I don't think the rules of normal debates apply to guns in America. A tweet from a few years back argued that Sandy Hook \\\"marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over\\\". I think this is right and the \\\"debate\\\" is mostly over, if it ever really existed.\\n\\nRegardless of any level of gun violence or any argument that's made, gun control opponents refuse to budge and view it as anything other than a black and white issue. Regardless of how many suicides, murders, accidental deaths or mass shootings there are, the idea that anything should change around guns in America is completely rejected.\\n\\nI don't think this is the fault of gun control supporters in America. I just think that their opponents have a religious level of belief in guns and won't budge regardless of how many deaths there are.\\n\\nI'll CMV if there's any real evidence of many gun control opponents changing their minds over time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-05-28\",\n \"id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 36,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: There is no argument that would convince gun control opponents that America's gun culture is a problem\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/13u71ft/cmv_there_is_no_argument_that_would_convince_gun/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"OldReputation865\",\n \"body\": \"\\\"Americans Gun Culture is a problem\\\" How so?? What causes mass shootings? I'm sure it isn't our culture liking guns mass shootings happen because bad mentally insane people gain ownership of firearms and how do we stop this? Well threes many ways but one way is arming more good people with guns according to the CDC guns save around 3 million lives annually and stop 2.5 million crimes per year so really, it's a good thing people won't give up their guns.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-11-22\",\n \"id\": \"kabfn8t\",\n \"parent_id\": \"13u71ft\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ]\n]","isConversational":false},"2":{"kind":"string","value":"challenge"}}},{"rowIdx":44,"cells":{"0":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"author":"CEO_Of_Rejection_99","body":"This is something I've had a very hard time coming to terms with, and it's the reason the majority of the emails I've been spamming my therapist and my father are how long I should wait to follow up after someone has left my message on \"read.\" I get slightly shocked when they inevitably say to \"wait a few days before following up,\" because part of me EXPECTS them to further instill in me that my friendship with that person is ruined and I should never text them again. I don't mean being left on \"read\" after the natural end of a text conversation. I mean being left on \"read\" in the MIDDLE of a text conversation, which subsequently ends the conversation. When they inevitably say to wait a few days before texting, I get slightly taken aback since I barely have a toolbox when it comes to being left on \"read\" over text, and I really think a mindset change around being left on \"read\" would address many of my anxieties around texting. My apologies if this sounds very messy.\n\nHere's my (slightly flawed) thought process: I immediately think texting between two people only falls in two categories: both people are texting each other every day, and both of them never reach out to one another at all. If I send someone a text message and they read it without responding, I immediately interpret that as \"don't talk to me ever again.\"\n\nHere's my reasoning: I fear that being left on read would be a leadup to me getting blocked on social media and eventually losing the relationship/existing connection. People say \"if the other person wants to text you back, she will\" and \"if she doesn't text back, she's not interested, so move on\", particularly in respect to pursuing romantic relationships. (I don't know how this applies to strictly platonic friendships, however, so correct me if I'm wrong.) People also say not to constantly spam text messages to another person or follow up immediately after the previous message was left on read. Therefore, I should never follow up with another text message at all, since that would make me look desperate for a relationship, and that would increase my chances of getting blocked.\n\nThis is why I tend to simply not reach out to people for weeks/months at a time if they leave me on \"read.\" I feel that it's better to simply not message at all than message too early or message immediately after the previous message and come off as desperate.\n\nI have a few social incidents to back this up. The first one was about 4 years ago. I was in class when a group of girls told me they were going to a beach about an hour away form town. They even showed me the apartment complex they would be staying at. I later begged my parents to take me to that same beach during spring break since they had a beach house there. Once there, I messaged them a bunch of times on Snapchat desperately trying to arrange a meetup point with them. All the messages were left on \"opened.\" I later randomly encountered them on the beach, but it didn't last long. I would later realize they were never actually my friends, and eventually unfriended them from my Snapchat account. I believed that, since they left my messages on \"opened,\" they were not my friends. Therefore, I worry that if someone leaves a message on \"opened\" one time (even if they're just busy or forgot to respond), that's a slippery slope towards them not being an actual friend anymore.\n\nThe second one was about 3 years ago. I was trying to pursue a relationship with someone, and it was clearly not going well since it was mentally draining. One day, I was with my friends during lunch period. They all knew I had a crush on the girl, whether because I told them directly or they heard it from someone else whom I also told directly. They took my phone and used it to try to start a videocall to her on Snapchat. She didn't pick up. I then sent a message saying \"That was not me, that was [my friend],\" which was left on \"opened.\" The next day, I sent a picture of myself to her on Snapchat as a \"snap.\" That was also left on \"opened.\" A few days later, I found out that she blocked me. Since I was left on \"opened\" before I was \"blocked,\" I fear that being left on \"read\" one time would automatically be a prelude to getting blocked, even if the other person was just busy or forgot to respond.\n\nPlease change this view. This is seriously interfering with my current friendships, especially if I encounter a situation where the other person doesn't respond to a message I sent. Whenever I see the read recipt, the person's chat bubble dropping to the bottom of the chat window on Facebook Messenger, or simply a lack of response over text message, I immediately go into panic mode and start sorting through the worst case scenarios of \"what if they hate me\" and make plans to \"repair\" the friendship, even if there's nothing actually wrong with it. It's given me so much anxiety and I haven't had the tools to address it. This is why I feel that I should NEVER follow up to a text conversation at all after the person doesn't respond to my message; I feel that even following up after a few weeks would make me look desperate.\n\nAlright Reddit, time to say the line. CHANGE. MY. VIEW!!!!!!!!!!\n\nEdit: My apologies for the lack of responses! I was asleep. Oh dear, I guess I answered my own question lol...","date":"2023-06-06","id":"14288j9","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: You should NEVER send a follow up text to another person after they leave you on read","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/14288j9/cmv_you_should_never_send_a_follow_up_text_to/"},{"author":"Ure2048","body":"Talk to your therapist more they are literally trained to deal with this. Don’t value the opinion of random strangers on the internet more than your therapist. \n\nThat aside, as someone who has had this issue and dealt with it with a therapist. I feel tbe most obvious issue is:\n\noverthinking. \n\nLet me give you an example. We are acquaintances, we chatted a few time haven’t hanged out much yet though. You text me “hey would you want to hangout tonight? I’d love to hangout sometime and I’m free!” \n\nYou see I read the message. But no response. Later that night you see me post on Instagram stories that I’m out partying with some friends. \n\nYou think to yourself oh okay they have time to post on stories but not respond to me and they clearly don’t want to hangout with me and picked these people over me. \n\nCould this all be true? Yea it could be. \n\nBut you know what could also be true? \n\nThat when I got your message I was waiting on a friend to pick me up for a night we already had planned, I start to text you back saying “hey Id love to hangout but I actually have plans with another friend already maybe we can next weekend?” But before I finish typing my friend calls saying they are outside waiting for me so I grab my stuff and head out. We have a great night I post on stories but otherwise don’t really use my phone. \n\nI also sleep in the next day and had to rush to work and still haven’t really been on my phone. Throughout all this I haven’t even realized I didn’t respond to your text and thought I did. \n\n\nYou have zero way to know which one of these is the truth and if neither are. Trying to guess which one is true is a waste of time and energy. You are drastically better off just letting it be not thinking about it and following up if you don’t hear back in a few days without out any expectations or assumptions (and people can pick up on your expectations and assumptions when they are as strong as you present here). \n\nWhy follow up? Because you never know if it was simply the later and I actually will be happy to be reminded of your text a few days ago. \n\nAgain I say this all with the caveat that this comes from my experience with therapy on this subject and you really should just keep seeking therapy.","date":"2023-06-06","id":"jn3l6w1","parent_id":"14288j9","score":6,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"CEO_Of_Rejection_99","body":"This is a great answer and I really appreciate giving an outside perspective as to how the *other* person would view the situation.\n\n>You think to yourself oh okay they have time to post on stories but not respond to me and they clearly don’t want to hangout with me and picked these people over me.\n\nI see this explanation a lot on dating advice forums; if the other person doesn't respond to your message but is active on social media, they're not interested, and if they are interested, they will reach out to you. While this logic may not be entirely incorrect, I think it can become oversimplified, especially if it's applied outside of a romantic context.\n\nIf I send you a message and you don't respond and I see you post on social media of you going to a party, I might immediately think \"Oh no, u/Ure2048 has time to party with his friends but doesn't have time to respond to my message, therefore he doesn't like me,\" even if the situation may be different on your end and you simply forget to respond.\n\nI seriously believe a lot of modern beliefs and notions about texting are either incorrect or just way too oversimplified.\n\n>Why follow up? Because you never know if it was simply the later and I actually will be happy to be reminded of your text a few days ago.\n\nPerhaps following up may even be a really good choice in some cases. Even though I may instinctively worry the other person hates me, that may not be the case and they may even be happy to hear back from me.\n\nAnd yes, I'll continue working this through with my therapist.\n\n!delta","date":"2023-06-06","id":"jn5j868","parent_id":"jn3l6w1","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"DeltaBot","body":"Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/Ure2048 ([5∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/Ure2048)).\n\n^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)","date":"2023-06-06","id":"jn5jbh3","parent_id":"jn5j868","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],"string":"[\n {\n \"author\": \"CEO_Of_Rejection_99\",\n \"body\": \"This is something I've had a very hard time coming to terms with, and it's the reason the majority of the emails I've been spamming my therapist and my father are how long I should wait to follow up after someone has left my message on \\\"read.\\\" I get slightly shocked when they inevitably say to \\\"wait a few days before following up,\\\" because part of me EXPECTS them to further instill in me that my friendship with that person is ruined and I should never text them again. I don't mean being left on \\\"read\\\" after the natural end of a text conversation. I mean being left on \\\"read\\\" in the MIDDLE of a text conversation, which subsequently ends the conversation. When they inevitably say to wait a few days before texting, I get slightly taken aback since I barely have a toolbox when it comes to being left on \\\"read\\\" over text, and I really think a mindset change around being left on \\\"read\\\" would address many of my anxieties around texting. My apologies if this sounds very messy.\\n\\nHere's my (slightly flawed) thought process: I immediately think texting between two people only falls in two categories: both people are texting each other every day, and both of them never reach out to one another at all. If I send someone a text message and they read it without responding, I immediately interpret that as \\\"don't talk to me ever again.\\\"\\n\\nHere's my reasoning: I fear that being left on read would be a leadup to me getting blocked on social media and eventually losing the relationship/existing connection. People say \\\"if the other person wants to text you back, she will\\\" and \\\"if she doesn't text back, she's not interested, so move on\\\", particularly in respect to pursuing romantic relationships. (I don't know how this applies to strictly platonic friendships, however, so correct me if I'm wrong.) People also say not to constantly spam text messages to another person or follow up immediately after the previous message was left on read. Therefore, I should never follow up with another text message at all, since that would make me look desperate for a relationship, and that would increase my chances of getting blocked.\\n\\nThis is why I tend to simply not reach out to people for weeks/months at a time if they leave me on \\\"read.\\\" I feel that it's better to simply not message at all than message too early or message immediately after the previous message and come off as desperate.\\n\\nI have a few social incidents to back this up. The first one was about 4 years ago. I was in class when a group of girls told me they were going to a beach about an hour away form town. They even showed me the apartment complex they would be staying at. I later begged my parents to take me to that same beach during spring break since they had a beach house there. Once there, I messaged them a bunch of times on Snapchat desperately trying to arrange a meetup point with them. All the messages were left on \\\"opened.\\\" I later randomly encountered them on the beach, but it didn't last long. I would later realize they were never actually my friends, and eventually unfriended them from my Snapchat account. I believed that, since they left my messages on \\\"opened,\\\" they were not my friends. Therefore, I worry that if someone leaves a message on \\\"opened\\\" one time (even if they're just busy or forgot to respond), that's a slippery slope towards them not being an actual friend anymore.\\n\\nThe second one was about 3 years ago. I was trying to pursue a relationship with someone, and it was clearly not going well since it was mentally draining. One day, I was with my friends during lunch period. They all knew I had a crush on the girl, whether because I told them directly or they heard it from someone else whom I also told directly. They took my phone and used it to try to start a videocall to her on Snapchat. She didn't pick up. I then sent a message saying \\\"That was not me, that was [my friend],\\\" which was left on \\\"opened.\\\" The next day, I sent a picture of myself to her on Snapchat as a \\\"snap.\\\" That was also left on \\\"opened.\\\" A few days later, I found out that she blocked me. Since I was left on \\\"opened\\\" before I was \\\"blocked,\\\" I fear that being left on \\\"read\\\" one time would automatically be a prelude to getting blocked, even if the other person was just busy or forgot to respond.\\n\\nPlease change this view. This is seriously interfering with my current friendships, especially if I encounter a situation where the other person doesn't respond to a message I sent. Whenever I see the read recipt, the person's chat bubble dropping to the bottom of the chat window on Facebook Messenger, or simply a lack of response over text message, I immediately go into panic mode and start sorting through the worst case scenarios of \\\"what if they hate me\\\" and make plans to \\\"repair\\\" the friendship, even if there's nothing actually wrong with it. It's given me so much anxiety and I haven't had the tools to address it. This is why I feel that I should NEVER follow up to a text conversation at all after the person doesn't respond to my message; I feel that even following up after a few weeks would make me look desperate.\\n\\nAlright Reddit, time to say the line. CHANGE. MY. VIEW!!!!!!!!!!\\n\\nEdit: My apologies for the lack of responses! I was asleep. Oh dear, I guess I answered my own question lol...\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-06\",\n \"id\": \"14288j9\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: You should NEVER send a follow up text to another person after they leave you on read\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/14288j9/cmv_you_should_never_send_a_follow_up_text_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Ure2048\",\n \"body\": \"Talk to your therapist more they are literally trained to deal with this. Don’t value the opinion of random strangers on the internet more than your therapist. \\n\\nThat aside, as someone who has had this issue and dealt with it with a therapist. I feel tbe most obvious issue is:\\n\\noverthinking. \\n\\nLet me give you an example. We are acquaintances, we chatted a few time haven’t hanged out much yet though. You text me “hey would you want to hangout tonight? I’d love to hangout sometime and I’m free!” \\n\\nYou see I read the message. But no response. Later that night you see me post on Instagram stories that I’m out partying with some friends. \\n\\nYou think to yourself oh okay they have time to post on stories but not respond to me and they clearly don’t want to hangout with me and picked these people over me. \\n\\nCould this all be true? Yea it could be. \\n\\nBut you know what could also be true? \\n\\nThat when I got your message I was waiting on a friend to pick me up for a night we already had planned, I start to text you back saying “hey Id love to hangout but I actually have plans with another friend already maybe we can next weekend?” But before I finish typing my friend calls saying they are outside waiting for me so I grab my stuff and head out. We have a great night I post on stories but otherwise don’t really use my phone. \\n\\nI also sleep in the next day and had to rush to work and still haven’t really been on my phone. Throughout all this I haven’t even realized I didn’t respond to your text and thought I did. \\n\\n\\nYou have zero way to know which one of these is the truth and if neither are. Trying to guess which one is true is a waste of time and energy. You are drastically better off just letting it be not thinking about it and following up if you don’t hear back in a few days without out any expectations or assumptions (and people can pick up on your expectations and assumptions when they are as strong as you present here). \\n\\nWhy follow up? Because you never know if it was simply the later and I actually will be happy to be reminded of your text a few days ago. \\n\\nAgain I say this all with the caveat that this comes from my experience with therapy on this subject and you really should just keep seeking therapy.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-06\",\n \"id\": \"jn3l6w1\",\n \"parent_id\": \"14288j9\",\n \"score\": 6,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CEO_Of_Rejection_99\",\n \"body\": \"This is a great answer and I really appreciate giving an outside perspective as to how the *other* person would view the situation.\\n\\n>You think to yourself oh okay they have time to post on stories but not respond to me and they clearly don’t want to hangout with me and picked these people over me.\\n\\nI see this explanation a lot on dating advice forums; if the other person doesn't respond to your message but is active on social media, they're not interested, and if they are interested, they will reach out to you. While this logic may not be entirely incorrect, I think it can become oversimplified, especially if it's applied outside of a romantic context.\\n\\nIf I send you a message and you don't respond and I see you post on social media of you going to a party, I might immediately think \\\"Oh no, u/Ure2048 has time to party with his friends but doesn't have time to respond to my message, therefore he doesn't like me,\\\" even if the situation may be different on your end and you simply forget to respond.\\n\\nI seriously believe a lot of modern beliefs and notions about texting are either incorrect or just way too oversimplified.\\n\\n>Why follow up? Because you never know if it was simply the later and I actually will be happy to be reminded of your text a few days ago.\\n\\nPerhaps following up may even be a really good choice in some cases. Even though I may instinctively worry the other person hates me, that may not be the case and they may even be happy to hear back from me.\\n\\nAnd yes, I'll continue working this through with my therapist.\\n\\n!delta\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-06\",\n \"id\": \"jn5j868\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jn3l6w1\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"DeltaBot\",\n \"body\": \"Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/Ure2048 ([5∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/Ure2048)).\\n\\n^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-06\",\n \"id\": \"jn5jbh3\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jn5j868\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n]","isConversational":false},"1":{"kind":"list like","value":[[{"author":"CEO_Of_Rejection_99","body":"This is something I've had a very hard time coming to terms with, and it's the reason the majority of the emails I've been spamming my therapist and my father are how long I should wait to follow up after someone has left my message on \"read.\" I get slightly shocked when they inevitably say to \"wait a few days before following up,\" because part of me EXPECTS them to further instill in me that my friendship with that person is ruined and I should never text them again. I don't mean being left on \"read\" after the natural end of a text conversation. I mean being left on \"read\" in the MIDDLE of a text conversation, which subsequently ends the conversation. When they inevitably say to wait a few days before texting, I get slightly taken aback since I barely have a toolbox when it comes to being left on \"read\" over text, and I really think a mindset change around being left on \"read\" would address many of my anxieties around texting. My apologies if this sounds very messy.\n\nHere's my (slightly flawed) thought process: I immediately think texting between two people only falls in two categories: both people are texting each other every day, and both of them never reach out to one another at all. If I send someone a text message and they read it without responding, I immediately interpret that as \"don't talk to me ever again.\"\n\nHere's my reasoning: I fear that being left on read would be a leadup to me getting blocked on social media and eventually losing the relationship/existing connection. People say \"if the other person wants to text you back, she will\" and \"if she doesn't text back, she's not interested, so move on\", particularly in respect to pursuing romantic relationships. (I don't know how this applies to strictly platonic friendships, however, so correct me if I'm wrong.) People also say not to constantly spam text messages to another person or follow up immediately after the previous message was left on read. Therefore, I should never follow up with another text message at all, since that would make me look desperate for a relationship, and that would increase my chances of getting blocked.\n\nThis is why I tend to simply not reach out to people for weeks/months at a time if they leave me on \"read.\" I feel that it's better to simply not message at all than message too early or message immediately after the previous message and come off as desperate.\n\nI have a few social incidents to back this up. The first one was about 4 years ago. I was in class when a group of girls told me they were going to a beach about an hour away form town. They even showed me the apartment complex they would be staying at. I later begged my parents to take me to that same beach during spring break since they had a beach house there. Once there, I messaged them a bunch of times on Snapchat desperately trying to arrange a meetup point with them. All the messages were left on \"opened.\" I later randomly encountered them on the beach, but it didn't last long. I would later realize they were never actually my friends, and eventually unfriended them from my Snapchat account. I believed that, since they left my messages on \"opened,\" they were not my friends. Therefore, I worry that if someone leaves a message on \"opened\" one time (even if they're just busy or forgot to respond), that's a slippery slope towards them not being an actual friend anymore.\n\nThe second one was about 3 years ago. I was trying to pursue a relationship with someone, and it was clearly not going well since it was mentally draining. One day, I was with my friends during lunch period. They all knew I had a crush on the girl, whether because I told them directly or they heard it from someone else whom I also told directly. They took my phone and used it to try to start a videocall to her on Snapchat. She didn't pick up. I then sent a message saying \"That was not me, that was [my friend],\" which was left on \"opened.\" The next day, I sent a picture of myself to her on Snapchat as a \"snap.\" That was also left on \"opened.\" A few days later, I found out that she blocked me. Since I was left on \"opened\" before I was \"blocked,\" I fear that being left on \"read\" one time would automatically be a prelude to getting blocked, even if the other person was just busy or forgot to respond.\n\nPlease change this view. This is seriously interfering with my current friendships, especially if I encounter a situation where the other person doesn't respond to a message I sent. Whenever I see the read recipt, the person's chat bubble dropping to the bottom of the chat window on Facebook Messenger, or simply a lack of response over text message, I immediately go into panic mode and start sorting through the worst case scenarios of \"what if they hate me\" and make plans to \"repair\" the friendship, even if there's nothing actually wrong with it. It's given me so much anxiety and I haven't had the tools to address it. This is why I feel that I should NEVER follow up to a text conversation at all after the person doesn't respond to my message; I feel that even following up after a few weeks would make me look desperate.\n\nAlright Reddit, time to say the line. CHANGE. MY. VIEW!!!!!!!!!!\n\nEdit: My apologies for the lack of responses! I was asleep. Oh dear, I guess I answered my own question lol...","date":"2023-06-06","id":"14288j9","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: You should NEVER send a follow up text to another person after they leave you on read","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/14288j9/cmv_you_should_never_send_a_follow_up_text_to/"},{"author":"Diangelo_Bell","body":"This one is easy: \n\n\nMisinterpretation is common: Consider that there could be various reasons for not responding immediately, such as being busy, distracted, or simply needing time to formulate a thoughtful reply.\r \n\r \nCommunication styles differ: Everyone has different communication styles and preferences. Some people might prefer to take their time to respond, while others might be more prompt. It doesn't necessarily reflect their level of interest in the friendship or relationship. \r \n\r \nLife gets in the way: People have their own lives and responsibilities that can sometimes take priority over responding to messages. It's crucial to recognize that someone not responding promptly doesn't automatically mean they dislike you or want to end the friendship.\r \n\r \nOpen and honest communication: Discussing how you both prefer to communicate and addressing any concerns can lead to a better understanding and reduce anxiety surrounding being left on \"read.\"\r \n\r \nBuilding self-confidence: It's important to work on building self-confidence and not relying solely on others' responses for validation. Remember that your worth isn't determined by someone's reply or lack thereof.","date":"2023-06-06","id":"jn3fp4c","parent_id":"14288j9","score":11,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"CEO_Of_Rejection_99","body":"This is something I've had a very hard time coming to terms with, and it's the reason the majority of the emails I've been spamming my therapist and my father are how long I should wait to follow up after someone has left my message on \"read.\" I get slightly shocked when they inevitably say to \"wait a few days before following up,\" because part of me EXPECTS them to further instill in me that my friendship with that person is ruined and I should never text them again. I don't mean being left on \"read\" after the natural end of a text conversation. I mean being left on \"read\" in the MIDDLE of a text conversation, which subsequently ends the conversation. When they inevitably say to wait a few days before texting, I get slightly taken aback since I barely have a toolbox when it comes to being left on \"read\" over text, and I really think a mindset change around being left on \"read\" would address many of my anxieties around texting. My apologies if this sounds very messy.\n\nHere's my (slightly flawed) thought process: I immediately think texting between two people only falls in two categories: both people are texting each other every day, and both of them never reach out to one another at all. If I send someone a text message and they read it without responding, I immediately interpret that as \"don't talk to me ever again.\"\n\nHere's my reasoning: I fear that being left on read would be a leadup to me getting blocked on social media and eventually losing the relationship/existing connection. People say \"if the other person wants to text you back, she will\" and \"if she doesn't text back, she's not interested, so move on\", particularly in respect to pursuing romantic relationships. (I don't know how this applies to strictly platonic friendships, however, so correct me if I'm wrong.) People also say not to constantly spam text messages to another person or follow up immediately after the previous message was left on read. Therefore, I should never follow up with another text message at all, since that would make me look desperate for a relationship, and that would increase my chances of getting blocked.\n\nThis is why I tend to simply not reach out to people for weeks/months at a time if they leave me on \"read.\" I feel that it's better to simply not message at all than message too early or message immediately after the previous message and come off as desperate.\n\nI have a few social incidents to back this up. The first one was about 4 years ago. I was in class when a group of girls told me they were going to a beach about an hour away form town. They even showed me the apartment complex they would be staying at. I later begged my parents to take me to that same beach during spring break since they had a beach house there. Once there, I messaged them a bunch of times on Snapchat desperately trying to arrange a meetup point with them. All the messages were left on \"opened.\" I later randomly encountered them on the beach, but it didn't last long. I would later realize they were never actually my friends, and eventually unfriended them from my Snapchat account. I believed that, since they left my messages on \"opened,\" they were not my friends. Therefore, I worry that if someone leaves a message on \"opened\" one time (even if they're just busy or forgot to respond), that's a slippery slope towards them not being an actual friend anymore.\n\nThe second one was about 3 years ago. I was trying to pursue a relationship with someone, and it was clearly not going well since it was mentally draining. One day, I was with my friends during lunch period. They all knew I had a crush on the girl, whether because I told them directly or they heard it from someone else whom I also told directly. They took my phone and used it to try to start a videocall to her on Snapchat. She didn't pick up. I then sent a message saying \"That was not me, that was [my friend],\" which was left on \"opened.\" The next day, I sent a picture of myself to her on Snapchat as a \"snap.\" That was also left on \"opened.\" A few days later, I found out that she blocked me. Since I was left on \"opened\" before I was \"blocked,\" I fear that being left on \"read\" one time would automatically be a prelude to getting blocked, even if the other person was just busy or forgot to respond.\n\nPlease change this view. This is seriously interfering with my current friendships, especially if I encounter a situation where the other person doesn't respond to a message I sent. Whenever I see the read recipt, the person's chat bubble dropping to the bottom of the chat window on Facebook Messenger, or simply a lack of response over text message, I immediately go into panic mode and start sorting through the worst case scenarios of \"what if they hate me\" and make plans to \"repair\" the friendship, even if there's nothing actually wrong with it. It's given me so much anxiety and I haven't had the tools to address it. This is why I feel that I should NEVER follow up to a text conversation at all after the person doesn't respond to my message; I feel that even following up after a few weeks would make me look desperate.\n\nAlright Reddit, time to say the line. CHANGE. MY. VIEW!!!!!!!!!!\n\nEdit: My apologies for the lack of responses! I was asleep. Oh dear, I guess I answered my own question lol...","date":"2023-06-06","id":"14288j9","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: You should NEVER send a follow up text to another person after they leave you on read","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/14288j9/cmv_you_should_never_send_a_follow_up_text_to/"},{"author":"AleristheSeeker","body":"Your basic stance of assumption is malice or, at the very least, negativity.\n\nMy first thought when someone doesn't reply to my message would be \"oh, something must have come up and/or they must have forgotten\" - because that is exactly why I don't follow up messages. \n\nThis is somewhat known as [Hanlon's razor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor):\n\n>\"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.\"\n\nWhile I wouldn't necessarily say \"stupidity\" as that is quite the harsh word, I would say something like \"incompetence\", such as someone forgetting, not realizing urgency or just not thinking about the impact.","date":"2023-06-06","id":"jn3guie","parent_id":"14288j9","score":21,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"noobcs50","body":"This sounds more like [fundamental attribution error](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error)","date":"2023-06-06","id":"jn5ezxr","parent_id":"jn3guie","score":4,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"CEO_Of_Rejection_99","body":"This is something I've had a very hard time coming to terms with, and it's the reason the majority of the emails I've been spamming my therapist and my father are how long I should wait to follow up after someone has left my message on \"read.\" I get slightly shocked when they inevitably say to \"wait a few days before following up,\" because part of me EXPECTS them to further instill in me that my friendship with that person is ruined and I should never text them again. I don't mean being left on \"read\" after the natural end of a text conversation. I mean being left on \"read\" in the MIDDLE of a text conversation, which subsequently ends the conversation. When they inevitably say to wait a few days before texting, I get slightly taken aback since I barely have a toolbox when it comes to being left on \"read\" over text, and I really think a mindset change around being left on \"read\" would address many of my anxieties around texting. My apologies if this sounds very messy.\n\nHere's my (slightly flawed) thought process: I immediately think texting between two people only falls in two categories: both people are texting each other every day, and both of them never reach out to one another at all. If I send someone a text message and they read it without responding, I immediately interpret that as \"don't talk to me ever again.\"\n\nHere's my reasoning: I fear that being left on read would be a leadup to me getting blocked on social media and eventually losing the relationship/existing connection. People say \"if the other person wants to text you back, she will\" and \"if she doesn't text back, she's not interested, so move on\", particularly in respect to pursuing romantic relationships. (I don't know how this applies to strictly platonic friendships, however, so correct me if I'm wrong.) People also say not to constantly spam text messages to another person or follow up immediately after the previous message was left on read. Therefore, I should never follow up with another text message at all, since that would make me look desperate for a relationship, and that would increase my chances of getting blocked.\n\nThis is why I tend to simply not reach out to people for weeks/months at a time if they leave me on \"read.\" I feel that it's better to simply not message at all than message too early or message immediately after the previous message and come off as desperate.\n\nI have a few social incidents to back this up. The first one was about 4 years ago. I was in class when a group of girls told me they were going to a beach about an hour away form town. They even showed me the apartment complex they would be staying at. I later begged my parents to take me to that same beach during spring break since they had a beach house there. Once there, I messaged them a bunch of times on Snapchat desperately trying to arrange a meetup point with them. All the messages were left on \"opened.\" I later randomly encountered them on the beach, but it didn't last long. I would later realize they were never actually my friends, and eventually unfriended them from my Snapchat account. I believed that, since they left my messages on \"opened,\" they were not my friends. Therefore, I worry that if someone leaves a message on \"opened\" one time (even if they're just busy or forgot to respond), that's a slippery slope towards them not being an actual friend anymore.\n\nThe second one was about 3 years ago. I was trying to pursue a relationship with someone, and it was clearly not going well since it was mentally draining. One day, I was with my friends during lunch period. They all knew I had a crush on the girl, whether because I told them directly or they heard it from someone else whom I also told directly. They took my phone and used it to try to start a videocall to her on Snapchat. She didn't pick up. I then sent a message saying \"That was not me, that was [my friend],\" which was left on \"opened.\" The next day, I sent a picture of myself to her on Snapchat as a \"snap.\" That was also left on \"opened.\" A few days later, I found out that she blocked me. Since I was left on \"opened\" before I was \"blocked,\" I fear that being left on \"read\" one time would automatically be a prelude to getting blocked, even if the other person was just busy or forgot to respond.\n\nPlease change this view. This is seriously interfering with my current friendships, especially if I encounter a situation where the other person doesn't respond to a message I sent. Whenever I see the read recipt, the person's chat bubble dropping to the bottom of the chat window on Facebook Messenger, or simply a lack of response over text message, I immediately go into panic mode and start sorting through the worst case scenarios of \"what if they hate me\" and make plans to \"repair\" the friendship, even if there's nothing actually wrong with it. It's given me so much anxiety and I haven't had the tools to address it. This is why I feel that I should NEVER follow up to a text conversation at all after the person doesn't respond to my message; I feel that even following up after a few weeks would make me look desperate.\n\nAlright Reddit, time to say the line. CHANGE. MY. VIEW!!!!!!!!!!\n\nEdit: My apologies for the lack of responses! I was asleep. Oh dear, I guess I answered my own question lol...","date":"2023-06-06","id":"14288j9","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: You should NEVER send a follow up text to another person after they leave you on read","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/14288j9/cmv_you_should_never_send_a_follow_up_text_to/"},{"author":"KokonutMonkey","body":"I don't see why having a blanket view here is necessary. \n\nPeople have stuff going on, people forget things. And while I'm probably aging myself here, I expect people to call me if something is important and vice versa. \n\nAnd there's plenty of reasons we may want to follow-up even if someone leaves you on read. \n\nNamely updates: \n\n-On my way. Should be there at 17:00. \n\n-Me again. Trains are delayed. Should be there 20min late. Sorry bro. \n\nOR. \n\n-Hey man. Thinking of catching a ball game on Sat. Keen? \n\n-Ah, cancel that. Missus just reminded me we're supposed to go to her sisters for something. Next time, eh? \n\n\nOR. \n\n-Yo. Where you at? \n\n-Hey. We're going ahead to the bar. Should be there awhile. \n\n---","date":"2023-06-06","id":"jn3mrmn","parent_id":"14288j9","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"CEO_Of_Rejection_99","body":"This is something I've had a very hard time coming to terms with, and it's the reason the majority of the emails I've been spamming my therapist and my father are how long I should wait to follow up after someone has left my message on \"read.\" I get slightly shocked when they inevitably say to \"wait a few days before following up,\" because part of me EXPECTS them to further instill in me that my friendship with that person is ruined and I should never text them again. I don't mean being left on \"read\" after the natural end of a text conversation. I mean being left on \"read\" in the MIDDLE of a text conversation, which subsequently ends the conversation. When they inevitably say to wait a few days before texting, I get slightly taken aback since I barely have a toolbox when it comes to being left on \"read\" over text, and I really think a mindset change around being left on \"read\" would address many of my anxieties around texting. My apologies if this sounds very messy.\n\nHere's my (slightly flawed) thought process: I immediately think texting between two people only falls in two categories: both people are texting each other every day, and both of them never reach out to one another at all. If I send someone a text message and they read it without responding, I immediately interpret that as \"don't talk to me ever again.\"\n\nHere's my reasoning: I fear that being left on read would be a leadup to me getting blocked on social media and eventually losing the relationship/existing connection. People say \"if the other person wants to text you back, she will\" and \"if she doesn't text back, she's not interested, so move on\", particularly in respect to pursuing romantic relationships. (I don't know how this applies to strictly platonic friendships, however, so correct me if I'm wrong.) People also say not to constantly spam text messages to another person or follow up immediately after the previous message was left on read. Therefore, I should never follow up with another text message at all, since that would make me look desperate for a relationship, and that would increase my chances of getting blocked.\n\nThis is why I tend to simply not reach out to people for weeks/months at a time if they leave me on \"read.\" I feel that it's better to simply not message at all than message too early or message immediately after the previous message and come off as desperate.\n\nI have a few social incidents to back this up. The first one was about 4 years ago. I was in class when a group of girls told me they were going to a beach about an hour away form town. They even showed me the apartment complex they would be staying at. I later begged my parents to take me to that same beach during spring break since they had a beach house there. Once there, I messaged them a bunch of times on Snapchat desperately trying to arrange a meetup point with them. All the messages were left on \"opened.\" I later randomly encountered them on the beach, but it didn't last long. I would later realize they were never actually my friends, and eventually unfriended them from my Snapchat account. I believed that, since they left my messages on \"opened,\" they were not my friends. Therefore, I worry that if someone leaves a message on \"opened\" one time (even if they're just busy or forgot to respond), that's a slippery slope towards them not being an actual friend anymore.\n\nThe second one was about 3 years ago. I was trying to pursue a relationship with someone, and it was clearly not going well since it was mentally draining. One day, I was with my friends during lunch period. They all knew I had a crush on the girl, whether because I told them directly or they heard it from someone else whom I also told directly. They took my phone and used it to try to start a videocall to her on Snapchat. She didn't pick up. I then sent a message saying \"That was not me, that was [my friend],\" which was left on \"opened.\" The next day, I sent a picture of myself to her on Snapchat as a \"snap.\" That was also left on \"opened.\" A few days later, I found out that she blocked me. Since I was left on \"opened\" before I was \"blocked,\" I fear that being left on \"read\" one time would automatically be a prelude to getting blocked, even if the other person was just busy or forgot to respond.\n\nPlease change this view. This is seriously interfering with my current friendships, especially if I encounter a situation where the other person doesn't respond to a message I sent. Whenever I see the read recipt, the person's chat bubble dropping to the bottom of the chat window on Facebook Messenger, or simply a lack of response over text message, I immediately go into panic mode and start sorting through the worst case scenarios of \"what if they hate me\" and make plans to \"repair\" the friendship, even if there's nothing actually wrong with it. It's given me so much anxiety and I haven't had the tools to address it. This is why I feel that I should NEVER follow up to a text conversation at all after the person doesn't respond to my message; I feel that even following up after a few weeks would make me look desperate.\n\nAlright Reddit, time to say the line. CHANGE. MY. VIEW!!!!!!!!!!\n\nEdit: My apologies for the lack of responses! I was asleep. Oh dear, I guess I answered my own question lol...","date":"2023-06-06","id":"14288j9","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: You should NEVER send a follow up text to another person after they leave you on read","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/14288j9/cmv_you_should_never_send_a_follow_up_text_to/"},{"author":"Deft_one","body":"It's contextual. Making a universal rule surrounding something so nuanced and specific is flawed, so your view should change.","date":"2023-06-06","id":"jn3umk1","parent_id":"14288j9","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"CEO_Of_Rejection_99","body":"This is something I've had a very hard time coming to terms with, and it's the reason the majority of the emails I've been spamming my therapist and my father are how long I should wait to follow up after someone has left my message on \"read.\" I get slightly shocked when they inevitably say to \"wait a few days before following up,\" because part of me EXPECTS them to further instill in me that my friendship with that person is ruined and I should never text them again. I don't mean being left on \"read\" after the natural end of a text conversation. I mean being left on \"read\" in the MIDDLE of a text conversation, which subsequently ends the conversation. When they inevitably say to wait a few days before texting, I get slightly taken aback since I barely have a toolbox when it comes to being left on \"read\" over text, and I really think a mindset change around being left on \"read\" would address many of my anxieties around texting. My apologies if this sounds very messy.\n\nHere's my (slightly flawed) thought process: I immediately think texting between two people only falls in two categories: both people are texting each other every day, and both of them never reach out to one another at all. If I send someone a text message and they read it without responding, I immediately interpret that as \"don't talk to me ever again.\"\n\nHere's my reasoning: I fear that being left on read would be a leadup to me getting blocked on social media and eventually losing the relationship/existing connection. People say \"if the other person wants to text you back, she will\" and \"if she doesn't text back, she's not interested, so move on\", particularly in respect to pursuing romantic relationships. (I don't know how this applies to strictly platonic friendships, however, so correct me if I'm wrong.) People also say not to constantly spam text messages to another person or follow up immediately after the previous message was left on read. Therefore, I should never follow up with another text message at all, since that would make me look desperate for a relationship, and that would increase my chances of getting blocked.\n\nThis is why I tend to simply not reach out to people for weeks/months at a time if they leave me on \"read.\" I feel that it's better to simply not message at all than message too early or message immediately after the previous message and come off as desperate.\n\nI have a few social incidents to back this up. The first one was about 4 years ago. I was in class when a group of girls told me they were going to a beach about an hour away form town. They even showed me the apartment complex they would be staying at. I later begged my parents to take me to that same beach during spring break since they had a beach house there. Once there, I messaged them a bunch of times on Snapchat desperately trying to arrange a meetup point with them. All the messages were left on \"opened.\" I later randomly encountered them on the beach, but it didn't last long. I would later realize they were never actually my friends, and eventually unfriended them from my Snapchat account. I believed that, since they left my messages on \"opened,\" they were not my friends. Therefore, I worry that if someone leaves a message on \"opened\" one time (even if they're just busy or forgot to respond), that's a slippery slope towards them not being an actual friend anymore.\n\nThe second one was about 3 years ago. I was trying to pursue a relationship with someone, and it was clearly not going well since it was mentally draining. One day, I was with my friends during lunch period. They all knew I had a crush on the girl, whether because I told them directly or they heard it from someone else whom I also told directly. They took my phone and used it to try to start a videocall to her on Snapchat. She didn't pick up. I then sent a message saying \"That was not me, that was [my friend],\" which was left on \"opened.\" The next day, I sent a picture of myself to her on Snapchat as a \"snap.\" That was also left on \"opened.\" A few days later, I found out that she blocked me. Since I was left on \"opened\" before I was \"blocked,\" I fear that being left on \"read\" one time would automatically be a prelude to getting blocked, even if the other person was just busy or forgot to respond.\n\nPlease change this view. This is seriously interfering with my current friendships, especially if I encounter a situation where the other person doesn't respond to a message I sent. Whenever I see the read recipt, the person's chat bubble dropping to the bottom of the chat window on Facebook Messenger, or simply a lack of response over text message, I immediately go into panic mode and start sorting through the worst case scenarios of \"what if they hate me\" and make plans to \"repair\" the friendship, even if there's nothing actually wrong with it. It's given me so much anxiety and I haven't had the tools to address it. This is why I feel that I should NEVER follow up to a text conversation at all after the person doesn't respond to my message; I feel that even following up after a few weeks would make me look desperate.\n\nAlright Reddit, time to say the line. CHANGE. MY. VIEW!!!!!!!!!!\n\nEdit: My apologies for the lack of responses! I was asleep. Oh dear, I guess I answered my own question lol...","date":"2023-06-06","id":"14288j9","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: You should NEVER send a follow up text to another person after they leave you on read","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/14288j9/cmv_you_should_never_send_a_follow_up_text_to/"},{"author":"expectothedoctor","body":"My advice is to stop texting people back immediately. When you yourself start prolonging texting back or forget about replying, you can start to imagine other reasons other people might not be texting your back. I think you only hold this view because you yourself reply to people immediately and never leave them hanging.","date":"2023-06-06","id":"jn3wgpc","parent_id":"14288j9","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"CEO_Of_Rejection_99","body":"This is something I've had a very hard time coming to terms with, and it's the reason the majority of the emails I've been spamming my therapist and my father are how long I should wait to follow up after someone has left my message on \"read.\" I get slightly shocked when they inevitably say to \"wait a few days before following up,\" because part of me EXPECTS them to further instill in me that my friendship with that person is ruined and I should never text them again. I don't mean being left on \"read\" after the natural end of a text conversation. I mean being left on \"read\" in the MIDDLE of a text conversation, which subsequently ends the conversation. When they inevitably say to wait a few days before texting, I get slightly taken aback since I barely have a toolbox when it comes to being left on \"read\" over text, and I really think a mindset change around being left on \"read\" would address many of my anxieties around texting. My apologies if this sounds very messy.\n\nHere's my (slightly flawed) thought process: I immediately think texting between two people only falls in two categories: both people are texting each other every day, and both of them never reach out to one another at all. If I send someone a text message and they read it without responding, I immediately interpret that as \"don't talk to me ever again.\"\n\nHere's my reasoning: I fear that being left on read would be a leadup to me getting blocked on social media and eventually losing the relationship/existing connection. People say \"if the other person wants to text you back, she will\" and \"if she doesn't text back, she's not interested, so move on\", particularly in respect to pursuing romantic relationships. (I don't know how this applies to strictly platonic friendships, however, so correct me if I'm wrong.) People also say not to constantly spam text messages to another person or follow up immediately after the previous message was left on read. Therefore, I should never follow up with another text message at all, since that would make me look desperate for a relationship, and that would increase my chances of getting blocked.\n\nThis is why I tend to simply not reach out to people for weeks/months at a time if they leave me on \"read.\" I feel that it's better to simply not message at all than message too early or message immediately after the previous message and come off as desperate.\n\nI have a few social incidents to back this up. The first one was about 4 years ago. I was in class when a group of girls told me they were going to a beach about an hour away form town. They even showed me the apartment complex they would be staying at. I later begged my parents to take me to that same beach during spring break since they had a beach house there. Once there, I messaged them a bunch of times on Snapchat desperately trying to arrange a meetup point with them. All the messages were left on \"opened.\" I later randomly encountered them on the beach, but it didn't last long. I would later realize they were never actually my friends, and eventually unfriended them from my Snapchat account. I believed that, since they left my messages on \"opened,\" they were not my friends. Therefore, I worry that if someone leaves a message on \"opened\" one time (even if they're just busy or forgot to respond), that's a slippery slope towards them not being an actual friend anymore.\n\nThe second one was about 3 years ago. I was trying to pursue a relationship with someone, and it was clearly not going well since it was mentally draining. One day, I was with my friends during lunch period. They all knew I had a crush on the girl, whether because I told them directly or they heard it from someone else whom I also told directly. They took my phone and used it to try to start a videocall to her on Snapchat. She didn't pick up. I then sent a message saying \"That was not me, that was [my friend],\" which was left on \"opened.\" The next day, I sent a picture of myself to her on Snapchat as a \"snap.\" That was also left on \"opened.\" A few days later, I found out that she blocked me. Since I was left on \"opened\" before I was \"blocked,\" I fear that being left on \"read\" one time would automatically be a prelude to getting blocked, even if the other person was just busy or forgot to respond.\n\nPlease change this view. This is seriously interfering with my current friendships, especially if I encounter a situation where the other person doesn't respond to a message I sent. Whenever I see the read recipt, the person's chat bubble dropping to the bottom of the chat window on Facebook Messenger, or simply a lack of response over text message, I immediately go into panic mode and start sorting through the worst case scenarios of \"what if they hate me\" and make plans to \"repair\" the friendship, even if there's nothing actually wrong with it. It's given me so much anxiety and I haven't had the tools to address it. This is why I feel that I should NEVER follow up to a text conversation at all after the person doesn't respond to my message; I feel that even following up after a few weeks would make me look desperate.\n\nAlright Reddit, time to say the line. CHANGE. MY. VIEW!!!!!!!!!!\n\nEdit: My apologies for the lack of responses! I was asleep. Oh dear, I guess I answered my own question lol...","date":"2023-06-06","id":"14288j9","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: You should NEVER send a follow up text to another person after they leave you on read","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/14288j9/cmv_you_should_never_send_a_follow_up_text_to/"},{"author":"Gnostromo","body":"It is easier to read a message than reply. I might be in a meeting or hanging with friends and read \"your\" message. But I can't respond because that would be rude to start typing in the middle of all that. So we get busy with work or fun and next thing i know I have forgotten all about the text message and it's not high lighted anymore since I read it so it is out of sight out of mind. \n\nAlso sometimes people don't know what to say every time so they say nothing","date":"2023-06-06","id":"jn3zke8","parent_id":"14288j9","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"CEO_Of_Rejection_99","body":"This is something I've had a very hard time coming to terms with, and it's the reason the majority of the emails I've been spamming my therapist and my father are how long I should wait to follow up after someone has left my message on \"read.\" I get slightly shocked when they inevitably say to \"wait a few days before following up,\" because part of me EXPECTS them to further instill in me that my friendship with that person is ruined and I should never text them again. I don't mean being left on \"read\" after the natural end of a text conversation. I mean being left on \"read\" in the MIDDLE of a text conversation, which subsequently ends the conversation. When they inevitably say to wait a few days before texting, I get slightly taken aback since I barely have a toolbox when it comes to being left on \"read\" over text, and I really think a mindset change around being left on \"read\" would address many of my anxieties around texting. My apologies if this sounds very messy.\n\nHere's my (slightly flawed) thought process: I immediately think texting between two people only falls in two categories: both people are texting each other every day, and both of them never reach out to one another at all. If I send someone a text message and they read it without responding, I immediately interpret that as \"don't talk to me ever again.\"\n\nHere's my reasoning: I fear that being left on read would be a leadup to me getting blocked on social media and eventually losing the relationship/existing connection. People say \"if the other person wants to text you back, she will\" and \"if she doesn't text back, she's not interested, so move on\", particularly in respect to pursuing romantic relationships. (I don't know how this applies to strictly platonic friendships, however, so correct me if I'm wrong.) People also say not to constantly spam text messages to another person or follow up immediately after the previous message was left on read. Therefore, I should never follow up with another text message at all, since that would make me look desperate for a relationship, and that would increase my chances of getting blocked.\n\nThis is why I tend to simply not reach out to people for weeks/months at a time if they leave me on \"read.\" I feel that it's better to simply not message at all than message too early or message immediately after the previous message and come off as desperate.\n\nI have a few social incidents to back this up. The first one was about 4 years ago. I was in class when a group of girls told me they were going to a beach about an hour away form town. They even showed me the apartment complex they would be staying at. I later begged my parents to take me to that same beach during spring break since they had a beach house there. Once there, I messaged them a bunch of times on Snapchat desperately trying to arrange a meetup point with them. All the messages were left on \"opened.\" I later randomly encountered them on the beach, but it didn't last long. I would later realize they were never actually my friends, and eventually unfriended them from my Snapchat account. I believed that, since they left my messages on \"opened,\" they were not my friends. Therefore, I worry that if someone leaves a message on \"opened\" one time (even if they're just busy or forgot to respond), that's a slippery slope towards them not being an actual friend anymore.\n\nThe second one was about 3 years ago. I was trying to pursue a relationship with someone, and it was clearly not going well since it was mentally draining. One day, I was with my friends during lunch period. They all knew I had a crush on the girl, whether because I told them directly or they heard it from someone else whom I also told directly. They took my phone and used it to try to start a videocall to her on Snapchat. She didn't pick up. I then sent a message saying \"That was not me, that was [my friend],\" which was left on \"opened.\" The next day, I sent a picture of myself to her on Snapchat as a \"snap.\" That was also left on \"opened.\" A few days later, I found out that she blocked me. Since I was left on \"opened\" before I was \"blocked,\" I fear that being left on \"read\" one time would automatically be a prelude to getting blocked, even if the other person was just busy or forgot to respond.\n\nPlease change this view. This is seriously interfering with my current friendships, especially if I encounter a situation where the other person doesn't respond to a message I sent. Whenever I see the read recipt, the person's chat bubble dropping to the bottom of the chat window on Facebook Messenger, or simply a lack of response over text message, I immediately go into panic mode and start sorting through the worst case scenarios of \"what if they hate me\" and make plans to \"repair\" the friendship, even if there's nothing actually wrong with it. It's given me so much anxiety and I haven't had the tools to address it. This is why I feel that I should NEVER follow up to a text conversation at all after the person doesn't respond to my message; I feel that even following up after a few weeks would make me look desperate.\n\nAlright Reddit, time to say the line. CHANGE. MY. VIEW!!!!!!!!!!\n\nEdit: My apologies for the lack of responses! I was asleep. Oh dear, I guess I answered my own question lol...","date":"2023-06-06","id":"14288j9","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: You should NEVER send a follow up text to another person after they leave you on read","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/14288j9/cmv_you_should_never_send_a_follow_up_text_to/"},{"author":"spiteful-vengeance","body":"I don't know if I want to refute OPs argument or just take them out for a day and explain how to chill out a bit and the long lasting positive effect it will have on their life.\n\nThere is some serious overthinking going on here.","date":"2023-06-06","id":"jn41sjb","parent_id":"14288j9","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"CEO_Of_Rejection_99","body":"This is something I've had a very hard time coming to terms with, and it's the reason the majority of the emails I've been spamming my therapist and my father are how long I should wait to follow up after someone has left my message on \"read.\" I get slightly shocked when they inevitably say to \"wait a few days before following up,\" because part of me EXPECTS them to further instill in me that my friendship with that person is ruined and I should never text them again. I don't mean being left on \"read\" after the natural end of a text conversation. I mean being left on \"read\" in the MIDDLE of a text conversation, which subsequently ends the conversation. When they inevitably say to wait a few days before texting, I get slightly taken aback since I barely have a toolbox when it comes to being left on \"read\" over text, and I really think a mindset change around being left on \"read\" would address many of my anxieties around texting. My apologies if this sounds very messy.\n\nHere's my (slightly flawed) thought process: I immediately think texting between two people only falls in two categories: both people are texting each other every day, and both of them never reach out to one another at all. If I send someone a text message and they read it without responding, I immediately interpret that as \"don't talk to me ever again.\"\n\nHere's my reasoning: I fear that being left on read would be a leadup to me getting blocked on social media and eventually losing the relationship/existing connection. People say \"if the other person wants to text you back, she will\" and \"if she doesn't text back, she's not interested, so move on\", particularly in respect to pursuing romantic relationships. (I don't know how this applies to strictly platonic friendships, however, so correct me if I'm wrong.) People also say not to constantly spam text messages to another person or follow up immediately after the previous message was left on read. Therefore, I should never follow up with another text message at all, since that would make me look desperate for a relationship, and that would increase my chances of getting blocked.\n\nThis is why I tend to simply not reach out to people for weeks/months at a time if they leave me on \"read.\" I feel that it's better to simply not message at all than message too early or message immediately after the previous message and come off as desperate.\n\nI have a few social incidents to back this up. The first one was about 4 years ago. I was in class when a group of girls told me they were going to a beach about an hour away form town. They even showed me the apartment complex they would be staying at. I later begged my parents to take me to that same beach during spring break since they had a beach house there. Once there, I messaged them a bunch of times on Snapchat desperately trying to arrange a meetup point with them. All the messages were left on \"opened.\" I later randomly encountered them on the beach, but it didn't last long. I would later realize they were never actually my friends, and eventually unfriended them from my Snapchat account. I believed that, since they left my messages on \"opened,\" they were not my friends. Therefore, I worry that if someone leaves a message on \"opened\" one time (even if they're just busy or forgot to respond), that's a slippery slope towards them not being an actual friend anymore.\n\nThe second one was about 3 years ago. I was trying to pursue a relationship with someone, and it was clearly not going well since it was mentally draining. One day, I was with my friends during lunch period. They all knew I had a crush on the girl, whether because I told them directly or they heard it from someone else whom I also told directly. They took my phone and used it to try to start a videocall to her on Snapchat. She didn't pick up. I then sent a message saying \"That was not me, that was [my friend],\" which was left on \"opened.\" The next day, I sent a picture of myself to her on Snapchat as a \"snap.\" That was also left on \"opened.\" A few days later, I found out that she blocked me. Since I was left on \"opened\" before I was \"blocked,\" I fear that being left on \"read\" one time would automatically be a prelude to getting blocked, even if the other person was just busy or forgot to respond.\n\nPlease change this view. This is seriously interfering with my current friendships, especially if I encounter a situation where the other person doesn't respond to a message I sent. Whenever I see the read recipt, the person's chat bubble dropping to the bottom of the chat window on Facebook Messenger, or simply a lack of response over text message, I immediately go into panic mode and start sorting through the worst case scenarios of \"what if they hate me\" and make plans to \"repair\" the friendship, even if there's nothing actually wrong with it. It's given me so much anxiety and I haven't had the tools to address it. This is why I feel that I should NEVER follow up to a text conversation at all after the person doesn't respond to my message; I feel that even following up after a few weeks would make me look desperate.\n\nAlright Reddit, time to say the line. CHANGE. MY. VIEW!!!!!!!!!!\n\nEdit: My apologies for the lack of responses! I was asleep. Oh dear, I guess I answered my own question lol...","date":"2023-06-06","id":"14288j9","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: You should NEVER send a follow up text to another person after they leave you on read","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/14288j9/cmv_you_should_never_send_a_follow_up_text_to/"},{"author":"DJ_HouseShoes","body":"Two is my limit. One unanswered text is normal and two isn't terrible if you still don't hear back in a reasonable amount of time. But a third makes me feel like an asshole. Especially if they answer, because then you can't help but think you badgered them into a response.\n\nSo the most I will send without getting a response is two texts messages.","date":"2023-06-06","id":"jn4a48b","parent_id":"14288j9","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"CEO_Of_Rejection_99","body":"This is something I've had a very hard time coming to terms with, and it's the reason the majority of the emails I've been spamming my therapist and my father are how long I should wait to follow up after someone has left my message on \"read.\" I get slightly shocked when they inevitably say to \"wait a few days before following up,\" because part of me EXPECTS them to further instill in me that my friendship with that person is ruined and I should never text them again. I don't mean being left on \"read\" after the natural end of a text conversation. I mean being left on \"read\" in the MIDDLE of a text conversation, which subsequently ends the conversation. When they inevitably say to wait a few days before texting, I get slightly taken aback since I barely have a toolbox when it comes to being left on \"read\" over text, and I really think a mindset change around being left on \"read\" would address many of my anxieties around texting. My apologies if this sounds very messy.\n\nHere's my (slightly flawed) thought process: I immediately think texting between two people only falls in two categories: both people are texting each other every day, and both of them never reach out to one another at all. If I send someone a text message and they read it without responding, I immediately interpret that as \"don't talk to me ever again.\"\n\nHere's my reasoning: I fear that being left on read would be a leadup to me getting blocked on social media and eventually losing the relationship/existing connection. People say \"if the other person wants to text you back, she will\" and \"if she doesn't text back, she's not interested, so move on\", particularly in respect to pursuing romantic relationships. (I don't know how this applies to strictly platonic friendships, however, so correct me if I'm wrong.) People also say not to constantly spam text messages to another person or follow up immediately after the previous message was left on read. Therefore, I should never follow up with another text message at all, since that would make me look desperate for a relationship, and that would increase my chances of getting blocked.\n\nThis is why I tend to simply not reach out to people for weeks/months at a time if they leave me on \"read.\" I feel that it's better to simply not message at all than message too early or message immediately after the previous message and come off as desperate.\n\nI have a few social incidents to back this up. The first one was about 4 years ago. I was in class when a group of girls told me they were going to a beach about an hour away form town. They even showed me the apartment complex they would be staying at. I later begged my parents to take me to that same beach during spring break since they had a beach house there. Once there, I messaged them a bunch of times on Snapchat desperately trying to arrange a meetup point with them. All the messages were left on \"opened.\" I later randomly encountered them on the beach, but it didn't last long. I would later realize they were never actually my friends, and eventually unfriended them from my Snapchat account. I believed that, since they left my messages on \"opened,\" they were not my friends. Therefore, I worry that if someone leaves a message on \"opened\" one time (even if they're just busy or forgot to respond), that's a slippery slope towards them not being an actual friend anymore.\n\nThe second one was about 3 years ago. I was trying to pursue a relationship with someone, and it was clearly not going well since it was mentally draining. One day, I was with my friends during lunch period. They all knew I had a crush on the girl, whether because I told them directly or they heard it from someone else whom I also told directly. They took my phone and used it to try to start a videocall to her on Snapchat. She didn't pick up. I then sent a message saying \"That was not me, that was [my friend],\" which was left on \"opened.\" The next day, I sent a picture of myself to her on Snapchat as a \"snap.\" That was also left on \"opened.\" A few days later, I found out that she blocked me. Since I was left on \"opened\" before I was \"blocked,\" I fear that being left on \"read\" one time would automatically be a prelude to getting blocked, even if the other person was just busy or forgot to respond.\n\nPlease change this view. This is seriously interfering with my current friendships, especially if I encounter a situation where the other person doesn't respond to a message I sent. Whenever I see the read recipt, the person's chat bubble dropping to the bottom of the chat window on Facebook Messenger, or simply a lack of response over text message, I immediately go into panic mode and start sorting through the worst case scenarios of \"what if they hate me\" and make plans to \"repair\" the friendship, even if there's nothing actually wrong with it. It's given me so much anxiety and I haven't had the tools to address it. This is why I feel that I should NEVER follow up to a text conversation at all after the person doesn't respond to my message; I feel that even following up after a few weeks would make me look desperate.\n\nAlright Reddit, time to say the line. CHANGE. MY. VIEW!!!!!!!!!!\n\nEdit: My apologies for the lack of responses! I was asleep. Oh dear, I guess I answered my own question lol...","date":"2023-06-06","id":"14288j9","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: You should NEVER send a follow up text to another person after they leave you on read","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/14288j9/cmv_you_should_never_send_a_follow_up_text_to/"},{"author":"Soft-Butterscotch128","body":"It seems like your main fear is that responding would then cause this person to block you and my question to that is...so what? Why would you want to even pretend to be friends with someone who isn't going to communicate with you instead of focusing that time on the people who do enjoy speaking to you.\n\nAlso it seems much less like the issue is following up but rather being overbearing.","date":"2023-06-06","id":"jn5a9et","parent_id":"14288j9","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"CEO_Of_Rejection_99","body":"This is something I've had a very hard time coming to terms with, and it's the reason the majority of the emails I've been spamming my therapist and my father are how long I should wait to follow up after someone has left my message on \"read.\" I get slightly shocked when they inevitably say to \"wait a few days before following up,\" because part of me EXPECTS them to further instill in me that my friendship with that person is ruined and I should never text them again. I don't mean being left on \"read\" after the natural end of a text conversation. I mean being left on \"read\" in the MIDDLE of a text conversation, which subsequently ends the conversation. When they inevitably say to wait a few days before texting, I get slightly taken aback since I barely have a toolbox when it comes to being left on \"read\" over text, and I really think a mindset change around being left on \"read\" would address many of my anxieties around texting. My apologies if this sounds very messy.\n\nHere's my (slightly flawed) thought process: I immediately think texting between two people only falls in two categories: both people are texting each other every day, and both of them never reach out to one another at all. If I send someone a text message and they read it without responding, I immediately interpret that as \"don't talk to me ever again.\"\n\nHere's my reasoning: I fear that being left on read would be a leadup to me getting blocked on social media and eventually losing the relationship/existing connection. People say \"if the other person wants to text you back, she will\" and \"if she doesn't text back, she's not interested, so move on\", particularly in respect to pursuing romantic relationships. (I don't know how this applies to strictly platonic friendships, however, so correct me if I'm wrong.) People also say not to constantly spam text messages to another person or follow up immediately after the previous message was left on read. Therefore, I should never follow up with another text message at all, since that would make me look desperate for a relationship, and that would increase my chances of getting blocked.\n\nThis is why I tend to simply not reach out to people for weeks/months at a time if they leave me on \"read.\" I feel that it's better to simply not message at all than message too early or message immediately after the previous message and come off as desperate.\n\nI have a few social incidents to back this up. The first one was about 4 years ago. I was in class when a group of girls told me they were going to a beach about an hour away form town. They even showed me the apartment complex they would be staying at. I later begged my parents to take me to that same beach during spring break since they had a beach house there. Once there, I messaged them a bunch of times on Snapchat desperately trying to arrange a meetup point with them. All the messages were left on \"opened.\" I later randomly encountered them on the beach, but it didn't last long. I would later realize they were never actually my friends, and eventually unfriended them from my Snapchat account. I believed that, since they left my messages on \"opened,\" they were not my friends. Therefore, I worry that if someone leaves a message on \"opened\" one time (even if they're just busy or forgot to respond), that's a slippery slope towards them not being an actual friend anymore.\n\nThe second one was about 3 years ago. I was trying to pursue a relationship with someone, and it was clearly not going well since it was mentally draining. One day, I was with my friends during lunch period. They all knew I had a crush on the girl, whether because I told them directly or they heard it from someone else whom I also told directly. They took my phone and used it to try to start a videocall to her on Snapchat. She didn't pick up. I then sent a message saying \"That was not me, that was [my friend],\" which was left on \"opened.\" The next day, I sent a picture of myself to her on Snapchat as a \"snap.\" That was also left on \"opened.\" A few days later, I found out that she blocked me. Since I was left on \"opened\" before I was \"blocked,\" I fear that being left on \"read\" one time would automatically be a prelude to getting blocked, even if the other person was just busy or forgot to respond.\n\nPlease change this view. This is seriously interfering with my current friendships, especially if I encounter a situation where the other person doesn't respond to a message I sent. Whenever I see the read recipt, the person's chat bubble dropping to the bottom of the chat window on Facebook Messenger, or simply a lack of response over text message, I immediately go into panic mode and start sorting through the worst case scenarios of \"what if they hate me\" and make plans to \"repair\" the friendship, even if there's nothing actually wrong with it. It's given me so much anxiety and I haven't had the tools to address it. This is why I feel that I should NEVER follow up to a text conversation at all after the person doesn't respond to my message; I feel that even following up after a few weeks would make me look desperate.\n\nAlright Reddit, time to say the line. CHANGE. MY. VIEW!!!!!!!!!!\n\nEdit: My apologies for the lack of responses! I was asleep. Oh dear, I guess I answered my own question lol...","date":"2023-06-06","id":"14288j9","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: You should NEVER send a follow up text to another person after they leave you on read","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/14288j9/cmv_you_should_never_send_a_follow_up_text_to/"},{"author":"Writeloves","body":"Counterpoint: I have ADHD and sometimes forget I didn’t actually reply. A follow-up text can help remind my defective brain that you exist and still want to talk to me. \n\nWithout that follow-up, there is a chance of 1) vaguely being under the impression you left ME on read but never remembering to actually look at that conversation until it’s too late or 2) realizing I waited to long to respond and feeling to awkward/guilty to respond until you “reset” the timer with your follow-up. \n\nTHAT SAID! Everything in context. I have some tips if you want them? They were taking to long to edit so I’ll comment them below.","date":"2023-06-06","id":"jn5op3g","parent_id":"14288j9","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Writeloves","body":"Hi u/CEO_of_rejection_99\n\nThe two experiences you mentioned are relatively common, but still suck major balls. I’ve been there. You went overboard, weirded some people out, and they stopped associating with you. However, the lesson you took from those experiences is less common. \n\nI’m getting big nuerodivergent vibes (autism spectrum or maybe just social anxiety?) from the general rejection sensitivity and rapid escalation of:\n\n> People also say not to constantly spam text messages to another person or follow up immediately after the previous message was left on read. Therefore, I should never follow up with another text message at all, since that would make me look desperate for a relationship, and that would increase my chances of getting blocked.\n\nThat “less is good so none is better” might feel logical given your experiences, but unfortunately the world does not operate in binary. Everything in moderation. Everything in context. (Yes, this does make it much harder to master. Fuck us, right?) \n\nA trusted proof-reader can help. Someone who knows you well, has good social skills, and is willing to act as an interpreter.\n\nCreating some less severe ground rules can also help. Things like “I can send one follow up the next day but it has to be from a pre-drafted list.”\n\nIt can also be helpful to be upfront and blunt about how you think. Example conversation between you and someone who gets it:\n\n*Hi Name! I’m trying to improve my communication. I tend to overthink when conversations are cut off suddenly. If you need a break but still want to continue the convo later, can you text “ttyl”?* \n\n* Okay, I’ll try to remember to do that :)\n\n*Awesome, thank you! Follow-up question, when that happens, do you prefer to be the one to reach out or do you like a follow-up text at some point? A bit weirdly specific I know. You can change your answer later.*\n\n* Hmmm, how about “gtg” means “I have to go now but I’ll text you back later” and “ttyl” is more of a goodbye where either of us could text later? \n\n*I like that, thank you! Could you specify what “later” means though? I sort of only have two text modes, every day or never.* \n\n* Huh, I usually don’t reach out unless there is something specific I want to talk about. I think later should mean the next day or whenever we have something to say to each other, whichever comes second. If it’s not working we can let each other know and update it. I can be a bit forgetful so apologies in advance.\n\n*That sounds even better! Though I’m a little worried about what might happen if you forget. I don’t want to annoy you with a barrage of texts*\n\n* I’m glad you like it! I have friends with anxiety so I’ve done this once or twice. How about we split the difference on the forgetfulness? If I forget to get back to you after gtg, you can text me twice the next day and I promise I won’t be annoyed as long as you promise not to be annoyed at how long I took to answer.\n\n*Sounds like a deal! ttyl?*\n\n* Ttyl :)\n\nGen Z glossery: ttyl = talk to you later & gtg = got to go\n\nExample Convo 2: \n\n* Hi Name! I’m working on initiating more with friends but I want to make sure I’m not annoying anyone. Would you mind it if I checked in with you once a week/month or so? I know we’ve both got things going on so it would mostly just be saying hi :) \n\n*Actually I’m kind of busy, I don’t know if I have time to talk every week.*\n\n* I understand. Do you mind if I text you if something in particular pops up? If not no worries. \n\n*That should be fine! I still like hearing from you, just have a lot of things going on.* \n\nYou can text that person about a specific thing at a later date. If they respond enthusiastically (even if they can’t have a long convo) they probably are just busy. If they ignore you or only give one lukewarm response like *Sorry, I have a lot going on.* they probably aren’t interested. Say you understand and move on. They can text you if they want to talk. \n\nThis doesn’t work for everyone, but it can help filter out people who aren’t compatible with you and ease that anxiety.","date":"2023-06-06","id":"jn5tiyp","parent_id":"jn5op3g","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}]],"string":"[\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"CEO_Of_Rejection_99\",\n \"body\": \"This is something I've had a very hard time coming to terms with, and it's the reason the majority of the emails I've been spamming my therapist and my father are how long I should wait to follow up after someone has left my message on \\\"read.\\\" I get slightly shocked when they inevitably say to \\\"wait a few days before following up,\\\" because part of me EXPECTS them to further instill in me that my friendship with that person is ruined and I should never text them again. I don't mean being left on \\\"read\\\" after the natural end of a text conversation. I mean being left on \\\"read\\\" in the MIDDLE of a text conversation, which subsequently ends the conversation. When they inevitably say to wait a few days before texting, I get slightly taken aback since I barely have a toolbox when it comes to being left on \\\"read\\\" over text, and I really think a mindset change around being left on \\\"read\\\" would address many of my anxieties around texting. My apologies if this sounds very messy.\\n\\nHere's my (slightly flawed) thought process: I immediately think texting between two people only falls in two categories: both people are texting each other every day, and both of them never reach out to one another at all. If I send someone a text message and they read it without responding, I immediately interpret that as \\\"don't talk to me ever again.\\\"\\n\\nHere's my reasoning: I fear that being left on read would be a leadup to me getting blocked on social media and eventually losing the relationship/existing connection. People say \\\"if the other person wants to text you back, she will\\\" and \\\"if she doesn't text back, she's not interested, so move on\\\", particularly in respect to pursuing romantic relationships. (I don't know how this applies to strictly platonic friendships, however, so correct me if I'm wrong.) People also say not to constantly spam text messages to another person or follow up immediately after the previous message was left on read. Therefore, I should never follow up with another text message at all, since that would make me look desperate for a relationship, and that would increase my chances of getting blocked.\\n\\nThis is why I tend to simply not reach out to people for weeks/months at a time if they leave me on \\\"read.\\\" I feel that it's better to simply not message at all than message too early or message immediately after the previous message and come off as desperate.\\n\\nI have a few social incidents to back this up. The first one was about 4 years ago. I was in class when a group of girls told me they were going to a beach about an hour away form town. They even showed me the apartment complex they would be staying at. I later begged my parents to take me to that same beach during spring break since they had a beach house there. Once there, I messaged them a bunch of times on Snapchat desperately trying to arrange a meetup point with them. All the messages were left on \\\"opened.\\\" I later randomly encountered them on the beach, but it didn't last long. I would later realize they were never actually my friends, and eventually unfriended them from my Snapchat account. I believed that, since they left my messages on \\\"opened,\\\" they were not my friends. Therefore, I worry that if someone leaves a message on \\\"opened\\\" one time (even if they're just busy or forgot to respond), that's a slippery slope towards them not being an actual friend anymore.\\n\\nThe second one was about 3 years ago. I was trying to pursue a relationship with someone, and it was clearly not going well since it was mentally draining. One day, I was with my friends during lunch period. They all knew I had a crush on the girl, whether because I told them directly or they heard it from someone else whom I also told directly. They took my phone and used it to try to start a videocall to her on Snapchat. She didn't pick up. I then sent a message saying \\\"That was not me, that was [my friend],\\\" which was left on \\\"opened.\\\" The next day, I sent a picture of myself to her on Snapchat as a \\\"snap.\\\" That was also left on \\\"opened.\\\" A few days later, I found out that she blocked me. Since I was left on \\\"opened\\\" before I was \\\"blocked,\\\" I fear that being left on \\\"read\\\" one time would automatically be a prelude to getting blocked, even if the other person was just busy or forgot to respond.\\n\\nPlease change this view. This is seriously interfering with my current friendships, especially if I encounter a situation where the other person doesn't respond to a message I sent. Whenever I see the read recipt, the person's chat bubble dropping to the bottom of the chat window on Facebook Messenger, or simply a lack of response over text message, I immediately go into panic mode and start sorting through the worst case scenarios of \\\"what if they hate me\\\" and make plans to \\\"repair\\\" the friendship, even if there's nothing actually wrong with it. It's given me so much anxiety and I haven't had the tools to address it. This is why I feel that I should NEVER follow up to a text conversation at all after the person doesn't respond to my message; I feel that even following up after a few weeks would make me look desperate.\\n\\nAlright Reddit, time to say the line. CHANGE. MY. VIEW!!!!!!!!!!\\n\\nEdit: My apologies for the lack of responses! I was asleep. Oh dear, I guess I answered my own question lol...\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-06\",\n \"id\": \"14288j9\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: You should NEVER send a follow up text to another person after they leave you on read\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/14288j9/cmv_you_should_never_send_a_follow_up_text_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Diangelo_Bell\",\n \"body\": \"This one is easy: \\n\\n\\nMisinterpretation is common: Consider that there could be various reasons for not responding immediately, such as being busy, distracted, or simply needing time to formulate a thoughtful reply.\\r \\n\\r \\nCommunication styles differ: Everyone has different communication styles and preferences. Some people might prefer to take their time to respond, while others might be more prompt. It doesn't necessarily reflect their level of interest in the friendship or relationship. \\r \\n\\r \\nLife gets in the way: People have their own lives and responsibilities that can sometimes take priority over responding to messages. It's crucial to recognize that someone not responding promptly doesn't automatically mean they dislike you or want to end the friendship.\\r \\n\\r \\nOpen and honest communication: Discussing how you both prefer to communicate and addressing any concerns can lead to a better understanding and reduce anxiety surrounding being left on \\\"read.\\\"\\r \\n\\r \\nBuilding self-confidence: It's important to work on building self-confidence and not relying solely on others' responses for validation. Remember that your worth isn't determined by someone's reply or lack thereof.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-06\",\n \"id\": \"jn3fp4c\",\n \"parent_id\": \"14288j9\",\n \"score\": 11,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"CEO_Of_Rejection_99\",\n \"body\": \"This is something I've had a very hard time coming to terms with, and it's the reason the majority of the emails I've been spamming my therapist and my father are how long I should wait to follow up after someone has left my message on \\\"read.\\\" I get slightly shocked when they inevitably say to \\\"wait a few days before following up,\\\" because part of me EXPECTS them to further instill in me that my friendship with that person is ruined and I should never text them again. I don't mean being left on \\\"read\\\" after the natural end of a text conversation. I mean being left on \\\"read\\\" in the MIDDLE of a text conversation, which subsequently ends the conversation. When they inevitably say to wait a few days before texting, I get slightly taken aback since I barely have a toolbox when it comes to being left on \\\"read\\\" over text, and I really think a mindset change around being left on \\\"read\\\" would address many of my anxieties around texting. My apologies if this sounds very messy.\\n\\nHere's my (slightly flawed) thought process: I immediately think texting between two people only falls in two categories: both people are texting each other every day, and both of them never reach out to one another at all. If I send someone a text message and they read it without responding, I immediately interpret that as \\\"don't talk to me ever again.\\\"\\n\\nHere's my reasoning: I fear that being left on read would be a leadup to me getting blocked on social media and eventually losing the relationship/existing connection. People say \\\"if the other person wants to text you back, she will\\\" and \\\"if she doesn't text back, she's not interested, so move on\\\", particularly in respect to pursuing romantic relationships. (I don't know how this applies to strictly platonic friendships, however, so correct me if I'm wrong.) People also say not to constantly spam text messages to another person or follow up immediately after the previous message was left on read. Therefore, I should never follow up with another text message at all, since that would make me look desperate for a relationship, and that would increase my chances of getting blocked.\\n\\nThis is why I tend to simply not reach out to people for weeks/months at a time if they leave me on \\\"read.\\\" I feel that it's better to simply not message at all than message too early or message immediately after the previous message and come off as desperate.\\n\\nI have a few social incidents to back this up. The first one was about 4 years ago. I was in class when a group of girls told me they were going to a beach about an hour away form town. They even showed me the apartment complex they would be staying at. I later begged my parents to take me to that same beach during spring break since they had a beach house there. Once there, I messaged them a bunch of times on Snapchat desperately trying to arrange a meetup point with them. All the messages were left on \\\"opened.\\\" I later randomly encountered them on the beach, but it didn't last long. I would later realize they were never actually my friends, and eventually unfriended them from my Snapchat account. I believed that, since they left my messages on \\\"opened,\\\" they were not my friends. Therefore, I worry that if someone leaves a message on \\\"opened\\\" one time (even if they're just busy or forgot to respond), that's a slippery slope towards them not being an actual friend anymore.\\n\\nThe second one was about 3 years ago. I was trying to pursue a relationship with someone, and it was clearly not going well since it was mentally draining. One day, I was with my friends during lunch period. They all knew I had a crush on the girl, whether because I told them directly or they heard it from someone else whom I also told directly. They took my phone and used it to try to start a videocall to her on Snapchat. She didn't pick up. I then sent a message saying \\\"That was not me, that was [my friend],\\\" which was left on \\\"opened.\\\" The next day, I sent a picture of myself to her on Snapchat as a \\\"snap.\\\" That was also left on \\\"opened.\\\" A few days later, I found out that she blocked me. Since I was left on \\\"opened\\\" before I was \\\"blocked,\\\" I fear that being left on \\\"read\\\" one time would automatically be a prelude to getting blocked, even if the other person was just busy or forgot to respond.\\n\\nPlease change this view. This is seriously interfering with my current friendships, especially if I encounter a situation where the other person doesn't respond to a message I sent. Whenever I see the read recipt, the person's chat bubble dropping to the bottom of the chat window on Facebook Messenger, or simply a lack of response over text message, I immediately go into panic mode and start sorting through the worst case scenarios of \\\"what if they hate me\\\" and make plans to \\\"repair\\\" the friendship, even if there's nothing actually wrong with it. It's given me so much anxiety and I haven't had the tools to address it. This is why I feel that I should NEVER follow up to a text conversation at all after the person doesn't respond to my message; I feel that even following up after a few weeks would make me look desperate.\\n\\nAlright Reddit, time to say the line. CHANGE. MY. VIEW!!!!!!!!!!\\n\\nEdit: My apologies for the lack of responses! I was asleep. Oh dear, I guess I answered my own question lol...\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-06\",\n \"id\": \"14288j9\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: You should NEVER send a follow up text to another person after they leave you on read\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/14288j9/cmv_you_should_never_send_a_follow_up_text_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"AleristheSeeker\",\n \"body\": \"Your basic stance of assumption is malice or, at the very least, negativity.\\n\\nMy first thought when someone doesn't reply to my message would be \\\"oh, something must have come up and/or they must have forgotten\\\" - because that is exactly why I don't follow up messages. \\n\\nThis is somewhat known as [Hanlon's razor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor):\\n\\n>\\\"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.\\\"\\n\\nWhile I wouldn't necessarily say \\\"stupidity\\\" as that is quite the harsh word, I would say something like \\\"incompetence\\\", such as someone forgetting, not realizing urgency or just not thinking about the impact.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-06\",\n \"id\": \"jn3guie\",\n \"parent_id\": \"14288j9\",\n \"score\": 21,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"noobcs50\",\n \"body\": \"This sounds more like [fundamental attribution error](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error)\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-06\",\n \"id\": \"jn5ezxr\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jn3guie\",\n \"score\": 4,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"CEO_Of_Rejection_99\",\n \"body\": \"This is something I've had a very hard time coming to terms with, and it's the reason the majority of the emails I've been spamming my therapist and my father are how long I should wait to follow up after someone has left my message on \\\"read.\\\" I get slightly shocked when they inevitably say to \\\"wait a few days before following up,\\\" because part of me EXPECTS them to further instill in me that my friendship with that person is ruined and I should never text them again. I don't mean being left on \\\"read\\\" after the natural end of a text conversation. I mean being left on \\\"read\\\" in the MIDDLE of a text conversation, which subsequently ends the conversation. When they inevitably say to wait a few days before texting, I get slightly taken aback since I barely have a toolbox when it comes to being left on \\\"read\\\" over text, and I really think a mindset change around being left on \\\"read\\\" would address many of my anxieties around texting. My apologies if this sounds very messy.\\n\\nHere's my (slightly flawed) thought process: I immediately think texting between two people only falls in two categories: both people are texting each other every day, and both of them never reach out to one another at all. If I send someone a text message and they read it without responding, I immediately interpret that as \\\"don't talk to me ever again.\\\"\\n\\nHere's my reasoning: I fear that being left on read would be a leadup to me getting blocked on social media and eventually losing the relationship/existing connection. People say \\\"if the other person wants to text you back, she will\\\" and \\\"if she doesn't text back, she's not interested, so move on\\\", particularly in respect to pursuing romantic relationships. (I don't know how this applies to strictly platonic friendships, however, so correct me if I'm wrong.) People also say not to constantly spam text messages to another person or follow up immediately after the previous message was left on read. Therefore, I should never follow up with another text message at all, since that would make me look desperate for a relationship, and that would increase my chances of getting blocked.\\n\\nThis is why I tend to simply not reach out to people for weeks/months at a time if they leave me on \\\"read.\\\" I feel that it's better to simply not message at all than message too early or message immediately after the previous message and come off as desperate.\\n\\nI have a few social incidents to back this up. The first one was about 4 years ago. I was in class when a group of girls told me they were going to a beach about an hour away form town. They even showed me the apartment complex they would be staying at. I later begged my parents to take me to that same beach during spring break since they had a beach house there. Once there, I messaged them a bunch of times on Snapchat desperately trying to arrange a meetup point with them. All the messages were left on \\\"opened.\\\" I later randomly encountered them on the beach, but it didn't last long. I would later realize they were never actually my friends, and eventually unfriended them from my Snapchat account. I believed that, since they left my messages on \\\"opened,\\\" they were not my friends. Therefore, I worry that if someone leaves a message on \\\"opened\\\" one time (even if they're just busy or forgot to respond), that's a slippery slope towards them not being an actual friend anymore.\\n\\nThe second one was about 3 years ago. I was trying to pursue a relationship with someone, and it was clearly not going well since it was mentally draining. One day, I was with my friends during lunch period. They all knew I had a crush on the girl, whether because I told them directly or they heard it from someone else whom I also told directly. They took my phone and used it to try to start a videocall to her on Snapchat. She didn't pick up. I then sent a message saying \\\"That was not me, that was [my friend],\\\" which was left on \\\"opened.\\\" The next day, I sent a picture of myself to her on Snapchat as a \\\"snap.\\\" That was also left on \\\"opened.\\\" A few days later, I found out that she blocked me. Since I was left on \\\"opened\\\" before I was \\\"blocked,\\\" I fear that being left on \\\"read\\\" one time would automatically be a prelude to getting blocked, even if the other person was just busy or forgot to respond.\\n\\nPlease change this view. This is seriously interfering with my current friendships, especially if I encounter a situation where the other person doesn't respond to a message I sent. Whenever I see the read recipt, the person's chat bubble dropping to the bottom of the chat window on Facebook Messenger, or simply a lack of response over text message, I immediately go into panic mode and start sorting through the worst case scenarios of \\\"what if they hate me\\\" and make plans to \\\"repair\\\" the friendship, even if there's nothing actually wrong with it. It's given me so much anxiety and I haven't had the tools to address it. This is why I feel that I should NEVER follow up to a text conversation at all after the person doesn't respond to my message; I feel that even following up after a few weeks would make me look desperate.\\n\\nAlright Reddit, time to say the line. CHANGE. MY. VIEW!!!!!!!!!!\\n\\nEdit: My apologies for the lack of responses! I was asleep. Oh dear, I guess I answered my own question lol...\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-06\",\n \"id\": \"14288j9\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: You should NEVER send a follow up text to another person after they leave you on read\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/14288j9/cmv_you_should_never_send_a_follow_up_text_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"KokonutMonkey\",\n \"body\": \"I don't see why having a blanket view here is necessary. \\n\\nPeople have stuff going on, people forget things. And while I'm probably aging myself here, I expect people to call me if something is important and vice versa. \\n\\nAnd there's plenty of reasons we may want to follow-up even if someone leaves you on read. \\n\\nNamely updates: \\n\\n-On my way. Should be there at 17:00. \\n\\n-Me again. Trains are delayed. Should be there 20min late. Sorry bro. \\n\\nOR. \\n\\n-Hey man. Thinking of catching a ball game on Sat. Keen? \\n\\n-Ah, cancel that. Missus just reminded me we're supposed to go to her sisters for something. Next time, eh? \\n\\n\\nOR. \\n\\n-Yo. Where you at? \\n\\n-Hey. We're going ahead to the bar. Should be there awhile. \\n\\n---\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-06\",\n \"id\": \"jn3mrmn\",\n \"parent_id\": \"14288j9\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"CEO_Of_Rejection_99\",\n \"body\": \"This is something I've had a very hard time coming to terms with, and it's the reason the majority of the emails I've been spamming my therapist and my father are how long I should wait to follow up after someone has left my message on \\\"read.\\\" I get slightly shocked when they inevitably say to \\\"wait a few days before following up,\\\" because part of me EXPECTS them to further instill in me that my friendship with that person is ruined and I should never text them again. I don't mean being left on \\\"read\\\" after the natural end of a text conversation. I mean being left on \\\"read\\\" in the MIDDLE of a text conversation, which subsequently ends the conversation. When they inevitably say to wait a few days before texting, I get slightly taken aback since I barely have a toolbox when it comes to being left on \\\"read\\\" over text, and I really think a mindset change around being left on \\\"read\\\" would address many of my anxieties around texting. My apologies if this sounds very messy.\\n\\nHere's my (slightly flawed) thought process: I immediately think texting between two people only falls in two categories: both people are texting each other every day, and both of them never reach out to one another at all. If I send someone a text message and they read it without responding, I immediately interpret that as \\\"don't talk to me ever again.\\\"\\n\\nHere's my reasoning: I fear that being left on read would be a leadup to me getting blocked on social media and eventually losing the relationship/existing connection. People say \\\"if the other person wants to text you back, she will\\\" and \\\"if she doesn't text back, she's not interested, so move on\\\", particularly in respect to pursuing romantic relationships. (I don't know how this applies to strictly platonic friendships, however, so correct me if I'm wrong.) People also say not to constantly spam text messages to another person or follow up immediately after the previous message was left on read. Therefore, I should never follow up with another text message at all, since that would make me look desperate for a relationship, and that would increase my chances of getting blocked.\\n\\nThis is why I tend to simply not reach out to people for weeks/months at a time if they leave me on \\\"read.\\\" I feel that it's better to simply not message at all than message too early or message immediately after the previous message and come off as desperate.\\n\\nI have a few social incidents to back this up. The first one was about 4 years ago. I was in class when a group of girls told me they were going to a beach about an hour away form town. They even showed me the apartment complex they would be staying at. I later begged my parents to take me to that same beach during spring break since they had a beach house there. Once there, I messaged them a bunch of times on Snapchat desperately trying to arrange a meetup point with them. All the messages were left on \\\"opened.\\\" I later randomly encountered them on the beach, but it didn't last long. I would later realize they were never actually my friends, and eventually unfriended them from my Snapchat account. I believed that, since they left my messages on \\\"opened,\\\" they were not my friends. Therefore, I worry that if someone leaves a message on \\\"opened\\\" one time (even if they're just busy or forgot to respond), that's a slippery slope towards them not being an actual friend anymore.\\n\\nThe second one was about 3 years ago. I was trying to pursue a relationship with someone, and it was clearly not going well since it was mentally draining. One day, I was with my friends during lunch period. They all knew I had a crush on the girl, whether because I told them directly or they heard it from someone else whom I also told directly. They took my phone and used it to try to start a videocall to her on Snapchat. She didn't pick up. I then sent a message saying \\\"That was not me, that was [my friend],\\\" which was left on \\\"opened.\\\" The next day, I sent a picture of myself to her on Snapchat as a \\\"snap.\\\" That was also left on \\\"opened.\\\" A few days later, I found out that she blocked me. Since I was left on \\\"opened\\\" before I was \\\"blocked,\\\" I fear that being left on \\\"read\\\" one time would automatically be a prelude to getting blocked, even if the other person was just busy or forgot to respond.\\n\\nPlease change this view. This is seriously interfering with my current friendships, especially if I encounter a situation where the other person doesn't respond to a message I sent. Whenever I see the read recipt, the person's chat bubble dropping to the bottom of the chat window on Facebook Messenger, or simply a lack of response over text message, I immediately go into panic mode and start sorting through the worst case scenarios of \\\"what if they hate me\\\" and make plans to \\\"repair\\\" the friendship, even if there's nothing actually wrong with it. It's given me so much anxiety and I haven't had the tools to address it. This is why I feel that I should NEVER follow up to a text conversation at all after the person doesn't respond to my message; I feel that even following up after a few weeks would make me look desperate.\\n\\nAlright Reddit, time to say the line. CHANGE. MY. VIEW!!!!!!!!!!\\n\\nEdit: My apologies for the lack of responses! I was asleep. Oh dear, I guess I answered my own question lol...\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-06\",\n \"id\": \"14288j9\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: You should NEVER send a follow up text to another person after they leave you on read\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/14288j9/cmv_you_should_never_send_a_follow_up_text_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Deft_one\",\n \"body\": \"It's contextual. Making a universal rule surrounding something so nuanced and specific is flawed, so your view should change.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-06\",\n \"id\": \"jn3umk1\",\n \"parent_id\": \"14288j9\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"CEO_Of_Rejection_99\",\n \"body\": \"This is something I've had a very hard time coming to terms with, and it's the reason the majority of the emails I've been spamming my therapist and my father are how long I should wait to follow up after someone has left my message on \\\"read.\\\" I get slightly shocked when they inevitably say to \\\"wait a few days before following up,\\\" because part of me EXPECTS them to further instill in me that my friendship with that person is ruined and I should never text them again. I don't mean being left on \\\"read\\\" after the natural end of a text conversation. I mean being left on \\\"read\\\" in the MIDDLE of a text conversation, which subsequently ends the conversation. When they inevitably say to wait a few days before texting, I get slightly taken aback since I barely have a toolbox when it comes to being left on \\\"read\\\" over text, and I really think a mindset change around being left on \\\"read\\\" would address many of my anxieties around texting. My apologies if this sounds very messy.\\n\\nHere's my (slightly flawed) thought process: I immediately think texting between two people only falls in two categories: both people are texting each other every day, and both of them never reach out to one another at all. If I send someone a text message and they read it without responding, I immediately interpret that as \\\"don't talk to me ever again.\\\"\\n\\nHere's my reasoning: I fear that being left on read would be a leadup to me getting blocked on social media and eventually losing the relationship/existing connection. People say \\\"if the other person wants to text you back, she will\\\" and \\\"if she doesn't text back, she's not interested, so move on\\\", particularly in respect to pursuing romantic relationships. (I don't know how this applies to strictly platonic friendships, however, so correct me if I'm wrong.) People also say not to constantly spam text messages to another person or follow up immediately after the previous message was left on read. Therefore, I should never follow up with another text message at all, since that would make me look desperate for a relationship, and that would increase my chances of getting blocked.\\n\\nThis is why I tend to simply not reach out to people for weeks/months at a time if they leave me on \\\"read.\\\" I feel that it's better to simply not message at all than message too early or message immediately after the previous message and come off as desperate.\\n\\nI have a few social incidents to back this up. The first one was about 4 years ago. I was in class when a group of girls told me they were going to a beach about an hour away form town. They even showed me the apartment complex they would be staying at. I later begged my parents to take me to that same beach during spring break since they had a beach house there. Once there, I messaged them a bunch of times on Snapchat desperately trying to arrange a meetup point with them. All the messages were left on \\\"opened.\\\" I later randomly encountered them on the beach, but it didn't last long. I would later realize they were never actually my friends, and eventually unfriended them from my Snapchat account. I believed that, since they left my messages on \\\"opened,\\\" they were not my friends. Therefore, I worry that if someone leaves a message on \\\"opened\\\" one time (even if they're just busy or forgot to respond), that's a slippery slope towards them not being an actual friend anymore.\\n\\nThe second one was about 3 years ago. I was trying to pursue a relationship with someone, and it was clearly not going well since it was mentally draining. One day, I was with my friends during lunch period. They all knew I had a crush on the girl, whether because I told them directly or they heard it from someone else whom I also told directly. They took my phone and used it to try to start a videocall to her on Snapchat. She didn't pick up. I then sent a message saying \\\"That was not me, that was [my friend],\\\" which was left on \\\"opened.\\\" The next day, I sent a picture of myself to her on Snapchat as a \\\"snap.\\\" That was also left on \\\"opened.\\\" A few days later, I found out that she blocked me. Since I was left on \\\"opened\\\" before I was \\\"blocked,\\\" I fear that being left on \\\"read\\\" one time would automatically be a prelude to getting blocked, even if the other person was just busy or forgot to respond.\\n\\nPlease change this view. This is seriously interfering with my current friendships, especially if I encounter a situation where the other person doesn't respond to a message I sent. Whenever I see the read recipt, the person's chat bubble dropping to the bottom of the chat window on Facebook Messenger, or simply a lack of response over text message, I immediately go into panic mode and start sorting through the worst case scenarios of \\\"what if they hate me\\\" and make plans to \\\"repair\\\" the friendship, even if there's nothing actually wrong with it. It's given me so much anxiety and I haven't had the tools to address it. This is why I feel that I should NEVER follow up to a text conversation at all after the person doesn't respond to my message; I feel that even following up after a few weeks would make me look desperate.\\n\\nAlright Reddit, time to say the line. CHANGE. MY. VIEW!!!!!!!!!!\\n\\nEdit: My apologies for the lack of responses! I was asleep. Oh dear, I guess I answered my own question lol...\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-06\",\n \"id\": \"14288j9\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: You should NEVER send a follow up text to another person after they leave you on read\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/14288j9/cmv_you_should_never_send_a_follow_up_text_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"expectothedoctor\",\n \"body\": \"My advice is to stop texting people back immediately. When you yourself start prolonging texting back or forget about replying, you can start to imagine other reasons other people might not be texting your back. I think you only hold this view because you yourself reply to people immediately and never leave them hanging.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-06\",\n \"id\": \"jn3wgpc\",\n \"parent_id\": \"14288j9\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"CEO_Of_Rejection_99\",\n \"body\": \"This is something I've had a very hard time coming to terms with, and it's the reason the majority of the emails I've been spamming my therapist and my father are how long I should wait to follow up after someone has left my message on \\\"read.\\\" I get slightly shocked when they inevitably say to \\\"wait a few days before following up,\\\" because part of me EXPECTS them to further instill in me that my friendship with that person is ruined and I should never text them again. I don't mean being left on \\\"read\\\" after the natural end of a text conversation. I mean being left on \\\"read\\\" in the MIDDLE of a text conversation, which subsequently ends the conversation. When they inevitably say to wait a few days before texting, I get slightly taken aback since I barely have a toolbox when it comes to being left on \\\"read\\\" over text, and I really think a mindset change around being left on \\\"read\\\" would address many of my anxieties around texting. My apologies if this sounds very messy.\\n\\nHere's my (slightly flawed) thought process: I immediately think texting between two people only falls in two categories: both people are texting each other every day, and both of them never reach out to one another at all. If I send someone a text message and they read it without responding, I immediately interpret that as \\\"don't talk to me ever again.\\\"\\n\\nHere's my reasoning: I fear that being left on read would be a leadup to me getting blocked on social media and eventually losing the relationship/existing connection. People say \\\"if the other person wants to text you back, she will\\\" and \\\"if she doesn't text back, she's not interested, so move on\\\", particularly in respect to pursuing romantic relationships. (I don't know how this applies to strictly platonic friendships, however, so correct me if I'm wrong.) People also say not to constantly spam text messages to another person or follow up immediately after the previous message was left on read. Therefore, I should never follow up with another text message at all, since that would make me look desperate for a relationship, and that would increase my chances of getting blocked.\\n\\nThis is why I tend to simply not reach out to people for weeks/months at a time if they leave me on \\\"read.\\\" I feel that it's better to simply not message at all than message too early or message immediately after the previous message and come off as desperate.\\n\\nI have a few social incidents to back this up. The first one was about 4 years ago. I was in class when a group of girls told me they were going to a beach about an hour away form town. They even showed me the apartment complex they would be staying at. I later begged my parents to take me to that same beach during spring break since they had a beach house there. Once there, I messaged them a bunch of times on Snapchat desperately trying to arrange a meetup point with them. All the messages were left on \\\"opened.\\\" I later randomly encountered them on the beach, but it didn't last long. I would later realize they were never actually my friends, and eventually unfriended them from my Snapchat account. I believed that, since they left my messages on \\\"opened,\\\" they were not my friends. Therefore, I worry that if someone leaves a message on \\\"opened\\\" one time (even if they're just busy or forgot to respond), that's a slippery slope towards them not being an actual friend anymore.\\n\\nThe second one was about 3 years ago. I was trying to pursue a relationship with someone, and it was clearly not going well since it was mentally draining. One day, I was with my friends during lunch period. They all knew I had a crush on the girl, whether because I told them directly or they heard it from someone else whom I also told directly. They took my phone and used it to try to start a videocall to her on Snapchat. She didn't pick up. I then sent a message saying \\\"That was not me, that was [my friend],\\\" which was left on \\\"opened.\\\" The next day, I sent a picture of myself to her on Snapchat as a \\\"snap.\\\" That was also left on \\\"opened.\\\" A few days later, I found out that she blocked me. Since I was left on \\\"opened\\\" before I was \\\"blocked,\\\" I fear that being left on \\\"read\\\" one time would automatically be a prelude to getting blocked, even if the other person was just busy or forgot to respond.\\n\\nPlease change this view. This is seriously interfering with my current friendships, especially if I encounter a situation where the other person doesn't respond to a message I sent. Whenever I see the read recipt, the person's chat bubble dropping to the bottom of the chat window on Facebook Messenger, or simply a lack of response over text message, I immediately go into panic mode and start sorting through the worst case scenarios of \\\"what if they hate me\\\" and make plans to \\\"repair\\\" the friendship, even if there's nothing actually wrong with it. It's given me so much anxiety and I haven't had the tools to address it. This is why I feel that I should NEVER follow up to a text conversation at all after the person doesn't respond to my message; I feel that even following up after a few weeks would make me look desperate.\\n\\nAlright Reddit, time to say the line. CHANGE. MY. VIEW!!!!!!!!!!\\n\\nEdit: My apologies for the lack of responses! I was asleep. Oh dear, I guess I answered my own question lol...\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-06\",\n \"id\": \"14288j9\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: You should NEVER send a follow up text to another person after they leave you on read\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/14288j9/cmv_you_should_never_send_a_follow_up_text_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Gnostromo\",\n \"body\": \"It is easier to read a message than reply. I might be in a meeting or hanging with friends and read \\\"your\\\" message. But I can't respond because that would be rude to start typing in the middle of all that. So we get busy with work or fun and next thing i know I have forgotten all about the text message and it's not high lighted anymore since I read it so it is out of sight out of mind. \\n\\nAlso sometimes people don't know what to say every time so they say nothing\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-06\",\n \"id\": \"jn3zke8\",\n \"parent_id\": \"14288j9\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"CEO_Of_Rejection_99\",\n \"body\": \"This is something I've had a very hard time coming to terms with, and it's the reason the majority of the emails I've been spamming my therapist and my father are how long I should wait to follow up after someone has left my message on \\\"read.\\\" I get slightly shocked when they inevitably say to \\\"wait a few days before following up,\\\" because part of me EXPECTS them to further instill in me that my friendship with that person is ruined and I should never text them again. I don't mean being left on \\\"read\\\" after the natural end of a text conversation. I mean being left on \\\"read\\\" in the MIDDLE of a text conversation, which subsequently ends the conversation. When they inevitably say to wait a few days before texting, I get slightly taken aback since I barely have a toolbox when it comes to being left on \\\"read\\\" over text, and I really think a mindset change around being left on \\\"read\\\" would address many of my anxieties around texting. My apologies if this sounds very messy.\\n\\nHere's my (slightly flawed) thought process: I immediately think texting between two people only falls in two categories: both people are texting each other every day, and both of them never reach out to one another at all. If I send someone a text message and they read it without responding, I immediately interpret that as \\\"don't talk to me ever again.\\\"\\n\\nHere's my reasoning: I fear that being left on read would be a leadup to me getting blocked on social media and eventually losing the relationship/existing connection. People say \\\"if the other person wants to text you back, she will\\\" and \\\"if she doesn't text back, she's not interested, so move on\\\", particularly in respect to pursuing romantic relationships. (I don't know how this applies to strictly platonic friendships, however, so correct me if I'm wrong.) People also say not to constantly spam text messages to another person or follow up immediately after the previous message was left on read. Therefore, I should never follow up with another text message at all, since that would make me look desperate for a relationship, and that would increase my chances of getting blocked.\\n\\nThis is why I tend to simply not reach out to people for weeks/months at a time if they leave me on \\\"read.\\\" I feel that it's better to simply not message at all than message too early or message immediately after the previous message and come off as desperate.\\n\\nI have a few social incidents to back this up. The first one was about 4 years ago. I was in class when a group of girls told me they were going to a beach about an hour away form town. They even showed me the apartment complex they would be staying at. I later begged my parents to take me to that same beach during spring break since they had a beach house there. Once there, I messaged them a bunch of times on Snapchat desperately trying to arrange a meetup point with them. All the messages were left on \\\"opened.\\\" I later randomly encountered them on the beach, but it didn't last long. I would later realize they were never actually my friends, and eventually unfriended them from my Snapchat account. I believed that, since they left my messages on \\\"opened,\\\" they were not my friends. Therefore, I worry that if someone leaves a message on \\\"opened\\\" one time (even if they're just busy or forgot to respond), that's a slippery slope towards them not being an actual friend anymore.\\n\\nThe second one was about 3 years ago. I was trying to pursue a relationship with someone, and it was clearly not going well since it was mentally draining. One day, I was with my friends during lunch period. They all knew I had a crush on the girl, whether because I told them directly or they heard it from someone else whom I also told directly. They took my phone and used it to try to start a videocall to her on Snapchat. She didn't pick up. I then sent a message saying \\\"That was not me, that was [my friend],\\\" which was left on \\\"opened.\\\" The next day, I sent a picture of myself to her on Snapchat as a \\\"snap.\\\" That was also left on \\\"opened.\\\" A few days later, I found out that she blocked me. Since I was left on \\\"opened\\\" before I was \\\"blocked,\\\" I fear that being left on \\\"read\\\" one time would automatically be a prelude to getting blocked, even if the other person was just busy or forgot to respond.\\n\\nPlease change this view. This is seriously interfering with my current friendships, especially if I encounter a situation where the other person doesn't respond to a message I sent. Whenever I see the read recipt, the person's chat bubble dropping to the bottom of the chat window on Facebook Messenger, or simply a lack of response over text message, I immediately go into panic mode and start sorting through the worst case scenarios of \\\"what if they hate me\\\" and make plans to \\\"repair\\\" the friendship, even if there's nothing actually wrong with it. It's given me so much anxiety and I haven't had the tools to address it. This is why I feel that I should NEVER follow up to a text conversation at all after the person doesn't respond to my message; I feel that even following up after a few weeks would make me look desperate.\\n\\nAlright Reddit, time to say the line. CHANGE. MY. VIEW!!!!!!!!!!\\n\\nEdit: My apologies for the lack of responses! I was asleep. Oh dear, I guess I answered my own question lol...\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-06\",\n \"id\": \"14288j9\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: You should NEVER send a follow up text to another person after they leave you on read\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/14288j9/cmv_you_should_never_send_a_follow_up_text_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"spiteful-vengeance\",\n \"body\": \"I don't know if I want to refute OPs argument or just take them out for a day and explain how to chill out a bit and the long lasting positive effect it will have on their life.\\n\\nThere is some serious overthinking going on here.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-06\",\n \"id\": \"jn41sjb\",\n \"parent_id\": \"14288j9\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"CEO_Of_Rejection_99\",\n \"body\": \"This is something I've had a very hard time coming to terms with, and it's the reason the majority of the emails I've been spamming my therapist and my father are how long I should wait to follow up after someone has left my message on \\\"read.\\\" I get slightly shocked when they inevitably say to \\\"wait a few days before following up,\\\" because part of me EXPECTS them to further instill in me that my friendship with that person is ruined and I should never text them again. I don't mean being left on \\\"read\\\" after the natural end of a text conversation. I mean being left on \\\"read\\\" in the MIDDLE of a text conversation, which subsequently ends the conversation. When they inevitably say to wait a few days before texting, I get slightly taken aback since I barely have a toolbox when it comes to being left on \\\"read\\\" over text, and I really think a mindset change around being left on \\\"read\\\" would address many of my anxieties around texting. My apologies if this sounds very messy.\\n\\nHere's my (slightly flawed) thought process: I immediately think texting between two people only falls in two categories: both people are texting each other every day, and both of them never reach out to one another at all. If I send someone a text message and they read it without responding, I immediately interpret that as \\\"don't talk to me ever again.\\\"\\n\\nHere's my reasoning: I fear that being left on read would be a leadup to me getting blocked on social media and eventually losing the relationship/existing connection. People say \\\"if the other person wants to text you back, she will\\\" and \\\"if she doesn't text back, she's not interested, so move on\\\", particularly in respect to pursuing romantic relationships. (I don't know how this applies to strictly platonic friendships, however, so correct me if I'm wrong.) People also say not to constantly spam text messages to another person or follow up immediately after the previous message was left on read. Therefore, I should never follow up with another text message at all, since that would make me look desperate for a relationship, and that would increase my chances of getting blocked.\\n\\nThis is why I tend to simply not reach out to people for weeks/months at a time if they leave me on \\\"read.\\\" I feel that it's better to simply not message at all than message too early or message immediately after the previous message and come off as desperate.\\n\\nI have a few social incidents to back this up. The first one was about 4 years ago. I was in class when a group of girls told me they were going to a beach about an hour away form town. They even showed me the apartment complex they would be staying at. I later begged my parents to take me to that same beach during spring break since they had a beach house there. Once there, I messaged them a bunch of times on Snapchat desperately trying to arrange a meetup point with them. All the messages were left on \\\"opened.\\\" I later randomly encountered them on the beach, but it didn't last long. I would later realize they were never actually my friends, and eventually unfriended them from my Snapchat account. I believed that, since they left my messages on \\\"opened,\\\" they were not my friends. Therefore, I worry that if someone leaves a message on \\\"opened\\\" one time (even if they're just busy or forgot to respond), that's a slippery slope towards them not being an actual friend anymore.\\n\\nThe second one was about 3 years ago. I was trying to pursue a relationship with someone, and it was clearly not going well since it was mentally draining. One day, I was with my friends during lunch period. They all knew I had a crush on the girl, whether because I told them directly or they heard it from someone else whom I also told directly. They took my phone and used it to try to start a videocall to her on Snapchat. She didn't pick up. I then sent a message saying \\\"That was not me, that was [my friend],\\\" which was left on \\\"opened.\\\" The next day, I sent a picture of myself to her on Snapchat as a \\\"snap.\\\" That was also left on \\\"opened.\\\" A few days later, I found out that she blocked me. Since I was left on \\\"opened\\\" before I was \\\"blocked,\\\" I fear that being left on \\\"read\\\" one time would automatically be a prelude to getting blocked, even if the other person was just busy or forgot to respond.\\n\\nPlease change this view. This is seriously interfering with my current friendships, especially if I encounter a situation where the other person doesn't respond to a message I sent. Whenever I see the read recipt, the person's chat bubble dropping to the bottom of the chat window on Facebook Messenger, or simply a lack of response over text message, I immediately go into panic mode and start sorting through the worst case scenarios of \\\"what if they hate me\\\" and make plans to \\\"repair\\\" the friendship, even if there's nothing actually wrong with it. It's given me so much anxiety and I haven't had the tools to address it. This is why I feel that I should NEVER follow up to a text conversation at all after the person doesn't respond to my message; I feel that even following up after a few weeks would make me look desperate.\\n\\nAlright Reddit, time to say the line. CHANGE. MY. VIEW!!!!!!!!!!\\n\\nEdit: My apologies for the lack of responses! I was asleep. Oh dear, I guess I answered my own question lol...\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-06\",\n \"id\": \"14288j9\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: You should NEVER send a follow up text to another person after they leave you on read\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/14288j9/cmv_you_should_never_send_a_follow_up_text_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"DJ_HouseShoes\",\n \"body\": \"Two is my limit. One unanswered text is normal and two isn't terrible if you still don't hear back in a reasonable amount of time. But a third makes me feel like an asshole. Especially if they answer, because then you can't help but think you badgered them into a response.\\n\\nSo the most I will send without getting a response is two texts messages.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-06\",\n \"id\": \"jn4a48b\",\n \"parent_id\": \"14288j9\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"CEO_Of_Rejection_99\",\n \"body\": \"This is something I've had a very hard time coming to terms with, and it's the reason the majority of the emails I've been spamming my therapist and my father are how long I should wait to follow up after someone has left my message on \\\"read.\\\" I get slightly shocked when they inevitably say to \\\"wait a few days before following up,\\\" because part of me EXPECTS them to further instill in me that my friendship with that person is ruined and I should never text them again. I don't mean being left on \\\"read\\\" after the natural end of a text conversation. I mean being left on \\\"read\\\" in the MIDDLE of a text conversation, which subsequently ends the conversation. When they inevitably say to wait a few days before texting, I get slightly taken aback since I barely have a toolbox when it comes to being left on \\\"read\\\" over text, and I really think a mindset change around being left on \\\"read\\\" would address many of my anxieties around texting. My apologies if this sounds very messy.\\n\\nHere's my (slightly flawed) thought process: I immediately think texting between two people only falls in two categories: both people are texting each other every day, and both of them never reach out to one another at all. If I send someone a text message and they read it without responding, I immediately interpret that as \\\"don't talk to me ever again.\\\"\\n\\nHere's my reasoning: I fear that being left on read would be a leadup to me getting blocked on social media and eventually losing the relationship/existing connection. People say \\\"if the other person wants to text you back, she will\\\" and \\\"if she doesn't text back, she's not interested, so move on\\\", particularly in respect to pursuing romantic relationships. (I don't know how this applies to strictly platonic friendships, however, so correct me if I'm wrong.) People also say not to constantly spam text messages to another person or follow up immediately after the previous message was left on read. Therefore, I should never follow up with another text message at all, since that would make me look desperate for a relationship, and that would increase my chances of getting blocked.\\n\\nThis is why I tend to simply not reach out to people for weeks/months at a time if they leave me on \\\"read.\\\" I feel that it's better to simply not message at all than message too early or message immediately after the previous message and come off as desperate.\\n\\nI have a few social incidents to back this up. The first one was about 4 years ago. I was in class when a group of girls told me they were going to a beach about an hour away form town. They even showed me the apartment complex they would be staying at. I later begged my parents to take me to that same beach during spring break since they had a beach house there. Once there, I messaged them a bunch of times on Snapchat desperately trying to arrange a meetup point with them. All the messages were left on \\\"opened.\\\" I later randomly encountered them on the beach, but it didn't last long. I would later realize they were never actually my friends, and eventually unfriended them from my Snapchat account. I believed that, since they left my messages on \\\"opened,\\\" they were not my friends. Therefore, I worry that if someone leaves a message on \\\"opened\\\" one time (even if they're just busy or forgot to respond), that's a slippery slope towards them not being an actual friend anymore.\\n\\nThe second one was about 3 years ago. I was trying to pursue a relationship with someone, and it was clearly not going well since it was mentally draining. One day, I was with my friends during lunch period. They all knew I had a crush on the girl, whether because I told them directly or they heard it from someone else whom I also told directly. They took my phone and used it to try to start a videocall to her on Snapchat. She didn't pick up. I then sent a message saying \\\"That was not me, that was [my friend],\\\" which was left on \\\"opened.\\\" The next day, I sent a picture of myself to her on Snapchat as a \\\"snap.\\\" That was also left on \\\"opened.\\\" A few days later, I found out that she blocked me. Since I was left on \\\"opened\\\" before I was \\\"blocked,\\\" I fear that being left on \\\"read\\\" one time would automatically be a prelude to getting blocked, even if the other person was just busy or forgot to respond.\\n\\nPlease change this view. This is seriously interfering with my current friendships, especially if I encounter a situation where the other person doesn't respond to a message I sent. Whenever I see the read recipt, the person's chat bubble dropping to the bottom of the chat window on Facebook Messenger, or simply a lack of response over text message, I immediately go into panic mode and start sorting through the worst case scenarios of \\\"what if they hate me\\\" and make plans to \\\"repair\\\" the friendship, even if there's nothing actually wrong with it. It's given me so much anxiety and I haven't had the tools to address it. This is why I feel that I should NEVER follow up to a text conversation at all after the person doesn't respond to my message; I feel that even following up after a few weeks would make me look desperate.\\n\\nAlright Reddit, time to say the line. CHANGE. MY. VIEW!!!!!!!!!!\\n\\nEdit: My apologies for the lack of responses! I was asleep. Oh dear, I guess I answered my own question lol...\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-06\",\n \"id\": \"14288j9\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: You should NEVER send a follow up text to another person after they leave you on read\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/14288j9/cmv_you_should_never_send_a_follow_up_text_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Soft-Butterscotch128\",\n \"body\": \"It seems like your main fear is that responding would then cause this person to block you and my question to that is...so what? Why would you want to even pretend to be friends with someone who isn't going to communicate with you instead of focusing that time on the people who do enjoy speaking to you.\\n\\nAlso it seems much less like the issue is following up but rather being overbearing.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-06\",\n \"id\": \"jn5a9et\",\n \"parent_id\": \"14288j9\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"CEO_Of_Rejection_99\",\n \"body\": \"This is something I've had a very hard time coming to terms with, and it's the reason the majority of the emails I've been spamming my therapist and my father are how long I should wait to follow up after someone has left my message on \\\"read.\\\" I get slightly shocked when they inevitably say to \\\"wait a few days before following up,\\\" because part of me EXPECTS them to further instill in me that my friendship with that person is ruined and I should never text them again. I don't mean being left on \\\"read\\\" after the natural end of a text conversation. I mean being left on \\\"read\\\" in the MIDDLE of a text conversation, which subsequently ends the conversation. When they inevitably say to wait a few days before texting, I get slightly taken aback since I barely have a toolbox when it comes to being left on \\\"read\\\" over text, and I really think a mindset change around being left on \\\"read\\\" would address many of my anxieties around texting. My apologies if this sounds very messy.\\n\\nHere's my (slightly flawed) thought process: I immediately think texting between two people only falls in two categories: both people are texting each other every day, and both of them never reach out to one another at all. If I send someone a text message and they read it without responding, I immediately interpret that as \\\"don't talk to me ever again.\\\"\\n\\nHere's my reasoning: I fear that being left on read would be a leadup to me getting blocked on social media and eventually losing the relationship/existing connection. People say \\\"if the other person wants to text you back, she will\\\" and \\\"if she doesn't text back, she's not interested, so move on\\\", particularly in respect to pursuing romantic relationships. (I don't know how this applies to strictly platonic friendships, however, so correct me if I'm wrong.) People also say not to constantly spam text messages to another person or follow up immediately after the previous message was left on read. Therefore, I should never follow up with another text message at all, since that would make me look desperate for a relationship, and that would increase my chances of getting blocked.\\n\\nThis is why I tend to simply not reach out to people for weeks/months at a time if they leave me on \\\"read.\\\" I feel that it's better to simply not message at all than message too early or message immediately after the previous message and come off as desperate.\\n\\nI have a few social incidents to back this up. The first one was about 4 years ago. I was in class when a group of girls told me they were going to a beach about an hour away form town. They even showed me the apartment complex they would be staying at. I later begged my parents to take me to that same beach during spring break since they had a beach house there. Once there, I messaged them a bunch of times on Snapchat desperately trying to arrange a meetup point with them. All the messages were left on \\\"opened.\\\" I later randomly encountered them on the beach, but it didn't last long. I would later realize they were never actually my friends, and eventually unfriended them from my Snapchat account. I believed that, since they left my messages on \\\"opened,\\\" they were not my friends. Therefore, I worry that if someone leaves a message on \\\"opened\\\" one time (even if they're just busy or forgot to respond), that's a slippery slope towards them not being an actual friend anymore.\\n\\nThe second one was about 3 years ago. I was trying to pursue a relationship with someone, and it was clearly not going well since it was mentally draining. One day, I was with my friends during lunch period. They all knew I had a crush on the girl, whether because I told them directly or they heard it from someone else whom I also told directly. They took my phone and used it to try to start a videocall to her on Snapchat. She didn't pick up. I then sent a message saying \\\"That was not me, that was [my friend],\\\" which was left on \\\"opened.\\\" The next day, I sent a picture of myself to her on Snapchat as a \\\"snap.\\\" That was also left on \\\"opened.\\\" A few days later, I found out that she blocked me. Since I was left on \\\"opened\\\" before I was \\\"blocked,\\\" I fear that being left on \\\"read\\\" one time would automatically be a prelude to getting blocked, even if the other person was just busy or forgot to respond.\\n\\nPlease change this view. This is seriously interfering with my current friendships, especially if I encounter a situation where the other person doesn't respond to a message I sent. Whenever I see the read recipt, the person's chat bubble dropping to the bottom of the chat window on Facebook Messenger, or simply a lack of response over text message, I immediately go into panic mode and start sorting through the worst case scenarios of \\\"what if they hate me\\\" and make plans to \\\"repair\\\" the friendship, even if there's nothing actually wrong with it. It's given me so much anxiety and I haven't had the tools to address it. This is why I feel that I should NEVER follow up to a text conversation at all after the person doesn't respond to my message; I feel that even following up after a few weeks would make me look desperate.\\n\\nAlright Reddit, time to say the line. CHANGE. MY. VIEW!!!!!!!!!!\\n\\nEdit: My apologies for the lack of responses! I was asleep. Oh dear, I guess I answered my own question lol...\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-06\",\n \"id\": \"14288j9\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: You should NEVER send a follow up text to another person after they leave you on read\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/14288j9/cmv_you_should_never_send_a_follow_up_text_to/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Writeloves\",\n \"body\": \"Counterpoint: I have ADHD and sometimes forget I didn’t actually reply. A follow-up text can help remind my defective brain that you exist and still want to talk to me. \\n\\nWithout that follow-up, there is a chance of 1) vaguely being under the impression you left ME on read but never remembering to actually look at that conversation until it’s too late or 2) realizing I waited to long to respond and feeling to awkward/guilty to respond until you “reset” the timer with your follow-up. \\n\\nTHAT SAID! Everything in context. I have some tips if you want them? They were taking to long to edit so I’ll comment them below.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-06\",\n \"id\": \"jn5op3g\",\n \"parent_id\": \"14288j9\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Writeloves\",\n \"body\": \"Hi u/CEO_of_rejection_99\\n\\nThe two experiences you mentioned are relatively common, but still suck major balls. I’ve been there. You went overboard, weirded some people out, and they stopped associating with you. However, the lesson you took from those experiences is less common. \\n\\nI’m getting big nuerodivergent vibes (autism spectrum or maybe just social anxiety?) from the general rejection sensitivity and rapid escalation of:\\n\\n> People also say not to constantly spam text messages to another person or follow up immediately after the previous message was left on read. Therefore, I should never follow up with another text message at all, since that would make me look desperate for a relationship, and that would increase my chances of getting blocked.\\n\\nThat “less is good so none is better” might feel logical given your experiences, but unfortunately the world does not operate in binary. Everything in moderation. Everything in context. (Yes, this does make it much harder to master. Fuck us, right?) \\n\\nA trusted proof-reader can help. Someone who knows you well, has good social skills, and is willing to act as an interpreter.\\n\\nCreating some less severe ground rules can also help. Things like “I can send one follow up the next day but it has to be from a pre-drafted list.”\\n\\nIt can also be helpful to be upfront and blunt about how you think. Example conversation between you and someone who gets it:\\n\\n*Hi Name! I’m trying to improve my communication. I tend to overthink when conversations are cut off suddenly. If you need a break but still want to continue the convo later, can you text “ttyl”?* \\n\\n* Okay, I’ll try to remember to do that :)\\n\\n*Awesome, thank you! Follow-up question, when that happens, do you prefer to be the one to reach out or do you like a follow-up text at some point? A bit weirdly specific I know. You can change your answer later.*\\n\\n* Hmmm, how about “gtg” means “I have to go now but I’ll text you back later” and “ttyl” is more of a goodbye where either of us could text later? \\n\\n*I like that, thank you! Could you specify what “later” means though? I sort of only have two text modes, every day or never.* \\n\\n* Huh, I usually don’t reach out unless there is something specific I want to talk about. I think later should mean the next day or whenever we have something to say to each other, whichever comes second. If it’s not working we can let each other know and update it. I can be a bit forgetful so apologies in advance.\\n\\n*That sounds even better! Though I’m a little worried about what might happen if you forget. I don’t want to annoy you with a barrage of texts*\\n\\n* I’m glad you like it! I have friends with anxiety so I’ve done this once or twice. How about we split the difference on the forgetfulness? If I forget to get back to you after gtg, you can text me twice the next day and I promise I won’t be annoyed as long as you promise not to be annoyed at how long I took to answer.\\n\\n*Sounds like a deal! ttyl?*\\n\\n* Ttyl :)\\n\\nGen Z glossery: ttyl = talk to you later & gtg = got to go\\n\\nExample Convo 2: \\n\\n* Hi Name! I’m working on initiating more with friends but I want to make sure I’m not annoying anyone. Would you mind it if I checked in with you once a week/month or so? I know we’ve both got things going on so it would mostly just be saying hi :) \\n\\n*Actually I’m kind of busy, I don’t know if I have time to talk every week.*\\n\\n* I understand. Do you mind if I text you if something in particular pops up? If not no worries. \\n\\n*That should be fine! I still like hearing from you, just have a lot of things going on.* \\n\\nYou can text that person about a specific thing at a later date. If they respond enthusiastically (even if they can’t have a long convo) they probably are just busy. If they ignore you or only give one lukewarm response like *Sorry, I have a lot going on.* they probably aren’t interested. Say you understand and move on. They can text you if they want to talk. \\n\\nThis doesn’t work for everyone, but it can help filter out people who aren’t compatible with you and ease that anxiety.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-06\",\n \"id\": \"jn5tiyp\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jn5op3g\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ]\n]","isConversational":false},"2":{"kind":"string","value":"moderate"}}},{"rowIdx":45,"cells":{"0":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"author":"CEO_Of_Rejection_99","body":"I noticed a post on a relationship advice subreddit about a coworker who was avoiding the OP, and the top comment said OP should \"check on said friend through a mutual friend.\"\n\nThis unlocked a realization in my head. I feel that I should NEVER ask mutual friends about a specific person or for advice on dealing with that person. Here's my reasoning, and correct me if I'm wrong:\n\nIf you're pursuing a romantic relationship with another person or are attracted to them, you should NEVER tell other people about your crush (at least, if you're not close with them) or otherwise get other people directly involved in the relationship, because it could make things awkward for the other person. In my experience, people tend to get riled up about crushes/potential romantic interests REALLY quickly. I have also unknowingly extended this logic to other interpersonal situations that are outside the strictly romantic realm as well. Therefore, crushes, and other interpersonal situations by extension, shall NEVER be released to your peers, and you have to take care of it by yourself.\n\nI learned this the hard way during my high school crushes. Since I was young and didn't know of any alternative method to seek guidance, I told a lot of my peers (except the actual person I liked) that I had a crush on that person and asked them for advice. To be fair, I wasn't actually close with these people and only told them out of hope that they would leverage their connection with the person to get them to like me back or at least offer some advice as to how to pursue the relationship. This knowledge would eventually spread around and get back to the other person. This made things awkward for the other person and made them feel pressured. Some of these crushes would also later block me on social media.\n\nThis is why I become extremely uncomfortable and get wary of answering my friends if they ask if I have a crush on another person, regardless of whether or not I actually have a potential romantic interest in mind, even if they say they'll keep it confidential. I remember telling some of my peers \"please don't tell anyone else this\" when asking them for advice on my crushes (again, to be fair, I wasn't very close with them), and yet, other people would eventually know. I don't trust *anyone* outside of a very, very select few people to keep information secret. I fear my peers will use it as an opportunity to pry open my romantic life and pursue the relationship or set up the interpersonal situation for me, The other person may believe that I have recruited an army of my friends to try to force them to be with me and make them feel pressured.\n\nI'm also wary of asking mutual friends for advice on dealing with another person since I fear receiving downright bad advice and falling prey to it. I remember during one of my high school crushes, when I asked a lot people for advice (as usual) and listened to advice that fit with my hopes of eventually dating her, while ignoring advice that went against these beliefs. It just so happened that I ended up following advice that was just downright bad, such as obsessing from afar, treating the situation as a competition with other potential romantic interests, and getting other people involved, while I ignored advice that would have actually been useful, such as moving on.\n\nI also fear that asking mutual friends for advice would present me as \"weak\", unconfident, and unable to handle crushes and other non-romantic social situations myself, and therefore someone no one should date or otherwise be close friends with. People usually say the following in terms of pursuing a romantic relationship: why would you do all this work of telling a bunch of people about your crush and trying to recruit an army of friends to build the relationship for you, when you could just go up and bite the bullet by talking to your crush and asking them out? If you spend all your time and energy asking a bunch of people about dealing with your crush, you're just circumventing the problem by obsessing from afar and not getting anywhere, and you could just use that same energy to ask them out. Girls want boys who are confident and therefore can handle crushes. Therefore, if you ask mutual friends for advice on crushes/interpersonal situations, you are not confident and therefore you are not relationship material.\n\nPlease change this view. I feel that this view should be changed I may have a strong network of friends but I believe this view is preventing me from using it to its full potential. I feel like I have to carry a huge burden in interpersonal relationships with little to no guidance and risking messing things up without having outside opinions/judgment to guide me and therefore feeling better not doing anything at all. It just feels like a missing part of my interpersonal relationships/interpersonal situations. It just feels wrong to have a support system that could potentially be useful but also something I refuse to use. I could seek advice from parents/my therapist/random internet strangers on Reddit, but while I don't think they're incorrect and I don't mean this as a personal offense to them, I feel that they're \"out of touch\" from my perspective mainly because they're older than me and may not know me personally or be relatable as much as someone my own age.\n\nAlright Reddit, change my view.","date":"2023-06-08","id":"144i8zs","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: You should NEVER ask mutual friends about a specific person or to check on them","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/144i8zs/cmv_you_should_never_ask_mutual_friends_about_a/"},{"author":"destro23","body":">I also fear that asking mutual friends for advice would present me as \"weak\", unconfident, and unable to handle crushes and other non-romantic social situations myself, and therefore someone no one should date or otherwise be close friends with.\n\nOr, it makes you look like someone who is in touch with their emotions, and who values their interpersonal relationships enough to be vulnerable with the people close to them. This sort of thing is highly desirable in a potential romantic partner since open communication on emotional matters is the key to relationship success. \n\nAlso, if you are able to open up to a wide group of people, you won't dump all of your issues on your romantic partner, thereby overwhelming them.","date":"2023-06-08","id":"jnfuf3v","parent_id":"144i8zs","score":5,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"CEO_Of_Rejection_99","body":">Or, it makes you look like someone who is in touch with their emotions, and who values their interpersonal relationships enough to be vulnerable with the people close to them.\n\nThat's a great point. Perhaps asking for guidance may sometimes show people that I'm vulnerable and value interpersonal relationships enough to want to be better at navigating them, as opposed to just putting on a fake facade and illusion of everything being completely fine.\n\n>Also, if you are able to open up to a wide group of people, you won't dump all of your issues on your romantic partner, thereby overwhelming them.\n\nI still think it wouldn't be ideal to simply tell every single person I know about my issues since the knowledge would spread around and potentially make things awkward, and I don't think anyone here is insinuating that. However, perhaps seeking zero guidance at all could also be just as bad. Perhaps having a group of trusted people to talk to would be better than placing all my issues on a single person.\n\nI'll award a !delta for this, but I would like to ask: where do you draw the line between opening up to a wide group of people and simply making the issue public news?","date":"2023-06-08","id":"jngjkk9","parent_id":"jnfuf3v","score":4,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"DeltaBot","body":"Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/destro23 ([249∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/destro23)).\n\n^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)","date":"2023-06-08","id":"jngjo2v","parent_id":"jngjkk9","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],"string":"[\n {\n \"author\": \"CEO_Of_Rejection_99\",\n \"body\": \"I noticed a post on a relationship advice subreddit about a coworker who was avoiding the OP, and the top comment said OP should \\\"check on said friend through a mutual friend.\\\"\\n\\nThis unlocked a realization in my head. I feel that I should NEVER ask mutual friends about a specific person or for advice on dealing with that person. Here's my reasoning, and correct me if I'm wrong:\\n\\nIf you're pursuing a romantic relationship with another person or are attracted to them, you should NEVER tell other people about your crush (at least, if you're not close with them) or otherwise get other people directly involved in the relationship, because it could make things awkward for the other person. In my experience, people tend to get riled up about crushes/potential romantic interests REALLY quickly. I have also unknowingly extended this logic to other interpersonal situations that are outside the strictly romantic realm as well. Therefore, crushes, and other interpersonal situations by extension, shall NEVER be released to your peers, and you have to take care of it by yourself.\\n\\nI learned this the hard way during my high school crushes. Since I was young and didn't know of any alternative method to seek guidance, I told a lot of my peers (except the actual person I liked) that I had a crush on that person and asked them for advice. To be fair, I wasn't actually close with these people and only told them out of hope that they would leverage their connection with the person to get them to like me back or at least offer some advice as to how to pursue the relationship. This knowledge would eventually spread around and get back to the other person. This made things awkward for the other person and made them feel pressured. Some of these crushes would also later block me on social media.\\n\\nThis is why I become extremely uncomfortable and get wary of answering my friends if they ask if I have a crush on another person, regardless of whether or not I actually have a potential romantic interest in mind, even if they say they'll keep it confidential. I remember telling some of my peers \\\"please don't tell anyone else this\\\" when asking them for advice on my crushes (again, to be fair, I wasn't very close with them), and yet, other people would eventually know. I don't trust *anyone* outside of a very, very select few people to keep information secret. I fear my peers will use it as an opportunity to pry open my romantic life and pursue the relationship or set up the interpersonal situation for me, The other person may believe that I have recruited an army of my friends to try to force them to be with me and make them feel pressured.\\n\\nI'm also wary of asking mutual friends for advice on dealing with another person since I fear receiving downright bad advice and falling prey to it. I remember during one of my high school crushes, when I asked a lot people for advice (as usual) and listened to advice that fit with my hopes of eventually dating her, while ignoring advice that went against these beliefs. It just so happened that I ended up following advice that was just downright bad, such as obsessing from afar, treating the situation as a competition with other potential romantic interests, and getting other people involved, while I ignored advice that would have actually been useful, such as moving on.\\n\\nI also fear that asking mutual friends for advice would present me as \\\"weak\\\", unconfident, and unable to handle crushes and other non-romantic social situations myself, and therefore someone no one should date or otherwise be close friends with. People usually say the following in terms of pursuing a romantic relationship: why would you do all this work of telling a bunch of people about your crush and trying to recruit an army of friends to build the relationship for you, when you could just go up and bite the bullet by talking to your crush and asking them out? If you spend all your time and energy asking a bunch of people about dealing with your crush, you're just circumventing the problem by obsessing from afar and not getting anywhere, and you could just use that same energy to ask them out. Girls want boys who are confident and therefore can handle crushes. Therefore, if you ask mutual friends for advice on crushes/interpersonal situations, you are not confident and therefore you are not relationship material.\\n\\nPlease change this view. I feel that this view should be changed I may have a strong network of friends but I believe this view is preventing me from using it to its full potential. I feel like I have to carry a huge burden in interpersonal relationships with little to no guidance and risking messing things up without having outside opinions/judgment to guide me and therefore feeling better not doing anything at all. It just feels like a missing part of my interpersonal relationships/interpersonal situations. It just feels wrong to have a support system that could potentially be useful but also something I refuse to use. I could seek advice from parents/my therapist/random internet strangers on Reddit, but while I don't think they're incorrect and I don't mean this as a personal offense to them, I feel that they're \\\"out of touch\\\" from my perspective mainly because they're older than me and may not know me personally or be relatable as much as someone my own age.\\n\\nAlright Reddit, change my view.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-08\",\n \"id\": \"144i8zs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: You should NEVER ask mutual friends about a specific person or to check on them\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/144i8zs/cmv_you_should_never_ask_mutual_friends_about_a/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"destro23\",\n \"body\": \">I also fear that asking mutual friends for advice would present me as \\\"weak\\\", unconfident, and unable to handle crushes and other non-romantic social situations myself, and therefore someone no one should date or otherwise be close friends with.\\n\\nOr, it makes you look like someone who is in touch with their emotions, and who values their interpersonal relationships enough to be vulnerable with the people close to them. This sort of thing is highly desirable in a potential romantic partner since open communication on emotional matters is the key to relationship success. \\n\\nAlso, if you are able to open up to a wide group of people, you won't dump all of your issues on your romantic partner, thereby overwhelming them.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-08\",\n \"id\": \"jnfuf3v\",\n \"parent_id\": \"144i8zs\",\n \"score\": 5,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CEO_Of_Rejection_99\",\n \"body\": \">Or, it makes you look like someone who is in touch with their emotions, and who values their interpersonal relationships enough to be vulnerable with the people close to them.\\n\\nThat's a great point. Perhaps asking for guidance may sometimes show people that I'm vulnerable and value interpersonal relationships enough to want to be better at navigating them, as opposed to just putting on a fake facade and illusion of everything being completely fine.\\n\\n>Also, if you are able to open up to a wide group of people, you won't dump all of your issues on your romantic partner, thereby overwhelming them.\\n\\nI still think it wouldn't be ideal to simply tell every single person I know about my issues since the knowledge would spread around and potentially make things awkward, and I don't think anyone here is insinuating that. However, perhaps seeking zero guidance at all could also be just as bad. Perhaps having a group of trusted people to talk to would be better than placing all my issues on a single person.\\n\\nI'll award a !delta for this, but I would like to ask: where do you draw the line between opening up to a wide group of people and simply making the issue public news?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-08\",\n \"id\": \"jngjkk9\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jnfuf3v\",\n \"score\": 4,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"DeltaBot\",\n \"body\": \"Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/destro23 ([249∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/destro23)).\\n\\n^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-08\",\n \"id\": \"jngjo2v\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jngjkk9\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n]","isConversational":false},"1":{"kind":"list like","value":[[{"author":"CEO_Of_Rejection_99","body":"I noticed a post on a relationship advice subreddit about a coworker who was avoiding the OP, and the top comment said OP should \"check on said friend through a mutual friend.\"\n\nThis unlocked a realization in my head. I feel that I should NEVER ask mutual friends about a specific person or for advice on dealing with that person. Here's my reasoning, and correct me if I'm wrong:\n\nIf you're pursuing a romantic relationship with another person or are attracted to them, you should NEVER tell other people about your crush (at least, if you're not close with them) or otherwise get other people directly involved in the relationship, because it could make things awkward for the other person. In my experience, people tend to get riled up about crushes/potential romantic interests REALLY quickly. I have also unknowingly extended this logic to other interpersonal situations that are outside the strictly romantic realm as well. Therefore, crushes, and other interpersonal situations by extension, shall NEVER be released to your peers, and you have to take care of it by yourself.\n\nI learned this the hard way during my high school crushes. Since I was young and didn't know of any alternative method to seek guidance, I told a lot of my peers (except the actual person I liked) that I had a crush on that person and asked them for advice. To be fair, I wasn't actually close with these people and only told them out of hope that they would leverage their connection with the person to get them to like me back or at least offer some advice as to how to pursue the relationship. This knowledge would eventually spread around and get back to the other person. This made things awkward for the other person and made them feel pressured. Some of these crushes would also later block me on social media.\n\nThis is why I become extremely uncomfortable and get wary of answering my friends if they ask if I have a crush on another person, regardless of whether or not I actually have a potential romantic interest in mind, even if they say they'll keep it confidential. I remember telling some of my peers \"please don't tell anyone else this\" when asking them for advice on my crushes (again, to be fair, I wasn't very close with them), and yet, other people would eventually know. I don't trust *anyone* outside of a very, very select few people to keep information secret. I fear my peers will use it as an opportunity to pry open my romantic life and pursue the relationship or set up the interpersonal situation for me, The other person may believe that I have recruited an army of my friends to try to force them to be with me and make them feel pressured.\n\nI'm also wary of asking mutual friends for advice on dealing with another person since I fear receiving downright bad advice and falling prey to it. I remember during one of my high school crushes, when I asked a lot people for advice (as usual) and listened to advice that fit with my hopes of eventually dating her, while ignoring advice that went against these beliefs. It just so happened that I ended up following advice that was just downright bad, such as obsessing from afar, treating the situation as a competition with other potential romantic interests, and getting other people involved, while I ignored advice that would have actually been useful, such as moving on.\n\nI also fear that asking mutual friends for advice would present me as \"weak\", unconfident, and unable to handle crushes and other non-romantic social situations myself, and therefore someone no one should date or otherwise be close friends with. People usually say the following in terms of pursuing a romantic relationship: why would you do all this work of telling a bunch of people about your crush and trying to recruit an army of friends to build the relationship for you, when you could just go up and bite the bullet by talking to your crush and asking them out? If you spend all your time and energy asking a bunch of people about dealing with your crush, you're just circumventing the problem by obsessing from afar and not getting anywhere, and you could just use that same energy to ask them out. Girls want boys who are confident and therefore can handle crushes. Therefore, if you ask mutual friends for advice on crushes/interpersonal situations, you are not confident and therefore you are not relationship material.\n\nPlease change this view. I feel that this view should be changed I may have a strong network of friends but I believe this view is preventing me from using it to its full potential. I feel like I have to carry a huge burden in interpersonal relationships with little to no guidance and risking messing things up without having outside opinions/judgment to guide me and therefore feeling better not doing anything at all. It just feels like a missing part of my interpersonal relationships/interpersonal situations. It just feels wrong to have a support system that could potentially be useful but also something I refuse to use. I could seek advice from parents/my therapist/random internet strangers on Reddit, but while I don't think they're incorrect and I don't mean this as a personal offense to them, I feel that they're \"out of touch\" from my perspective mainly because they're older than me and may not know me personally or be relatable as much as someone my own age.\n\nAlright Reddit, change my view.","date":"2023-06-08","id":"144i8zs","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: You should NEVER ask mutual friends about a specific person or to check on them","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/144i8zs/cmv_you_should_never_ask_mutual_friends_about_a/"},{"author":"RedditUsrnamesRweird","body":"Agreed.\n\n👋🏻 following this to see what kind of numbskulls disagree. Admittedly I only read 1/4 or your comment though as I think I got the picture and am not expecting a quiz after. What a novel..","date":"2023-06-08","id":"jnfmr1g","parent_id":"144i8zs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Znyper","body":"Comment has been removed for breaking Rule 1:\n\n> **Direct responses to a CMV post must challenge at least one aspect of OP’s stated view (however minor), or ask a clarifying question**. Arguments in favor of the view OP is willing to change must be restricted to replies to other comments. [See the wiki page for more information](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules#wiki_rule_1). \n\nIf you would like to appeal, review our appeals process [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/modstandards#wiki_appeal_process), then [message the moderators by clicking this link](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fchangemyview&subject=Rule%201%20Appeal&message=Author%20would%20like%20to%20appeal%20the%20removal%20of%20their%20post%20because\\.\\.\\.) within one week of this notice being posted. **Appeals that do not follow this process will not be heard.** \n\nPlease note that multiple violations will lead to a ban, as explained in our [moderation standards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/modstandards).","date":"2023-06-08","id":"jnftysq","parent_id":"jnfmr1g","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"CEO_Of_Rejection_99","body":"I noticed a post on a relationship advice subreddit about a coworker who was avoiding the OP, and the top comment said OP should \"check on said friend through a mutual friend.\"\n\nThis unlocked a realization in my head. I feel that I should NEVER ask mutual friends about a specific person or for advice on dealing with that person. Here's my reasoning, and correct me if I'm wrong:\n\nIf you're pursuing a romantic relationship with another person or are attracted to them, you should NEVER tell other people about your crush (at least, if you're not close with them) or otherwise get other people directly involved in the relationship, because it could make things awkward for the other person. In my experience, people tend to get riled up about crushes/potential romantic interests REALLY quickly. I have also unknowingly extended this logic to other interpersonal situations that are outside the strictly romantic realm as well. Therefore, crushes, and other interpersonal situations by extension, shall NEVER be released to your peers, and you have to take care of it by yourself.\n\nI learned this the hard way during my high school crushes. Since I was young and didn't know of any alternative method to seek guidance, I told a lot of my peers (except the actual person I liked) that I had a crush on that person and asked them for advice. To be fair, I wasn't actually close with these people and only told them out of hope that they would leverage their connection with the person to get them to like me back or at least offer some advice as to how to pursue the relationship. This knowledge would eventually spread around and get back to the other person. This made things awkward for the other person and made them feel pressured. Some of these crushes would also later block me on social media.\n\nThis is why I become extremely uncomfortable and get wary of answering my friends if they ask if I have a crush on another person, regardless of whether or not I actually have a potential romantic interest in mind, even if they say they'll keep it confidential. I remember telling some of my peers \"please don't tell anyone else this\" when asking them for advice on my crushes (again, to be fair, I wasn't very close with them), and yet, other people would eventually know. I don't trust *anyone* outside of a very, very select few people to keep information secret. I fear my peers will use it as an opportunity to pry open my romantic life and pursue the relationship or set up the interpersonal situation for me, The other person may believe that I have recruited an army of my friends to try to force them to be with me and make them feel pressured.\n\nI'm also wary of asking mutual friends for advice on dealing with another person since I fear receiving downright bad advice and falling prey to it. I remember during one of my high school crushes, when I asked a lot people for advice (as usual) and listened to advice that fit with my hopes of eventually dating her, while ignoring advice that went against these beliefs. It just so happened that I ended up following advice that was just downright bad, such as obsessing from afar, treating the situation as a competition with other potential romantic interests, and getting other people involved, while I ignored advice that would have actually been useful, such as moving on.\n\nI also fear that asking mutual friends for advice would present me as \"weak\", unconfident, and unable to handle crushes and other non-romantic social situations myself, and therefore someone no one should date or otherwise be close friends with. People usually say the following in terms of pursuing a romantic relationship: why would you do all this work of telling a bunch of people about your crush and trying to recruit an army of friends to build the relationship for you, when you could just go up and bite the bullet by talking to your crush and asking them out? If you spend all your time and energy asking a bunch of people about dealing with your crush, you're just circumventing the problem by obsessing from afar and not getting anywhere, and you could just use that same energy to ask them out. Girls want boys who are confident and therefore can handle crushes. Therefore, if you ask mutual friends for advice on crushes/interpersonal situations, you are not confident and therefore you are not relationship material.\n\nPlease change this view. I feel that this view should be changed I may have a strong network of friends but I believe this view is preventing me from using it to its full potential. I feel like I have to carry a huge burden in interpersonal relationships with little to no guidance and risking messing things up without having outside opinions/judgment to guide me and therefore feeling better not doing anything at all. It just feels like a missing part of my interpersonal relationships/interpersonal situations. It just feels wrong to have a support system that could potentially be useful but also something I refuse to use. I could seek advice from parents/my therapist/random internet strangers on Reddit, but while I don't think they're incorrect and I don't mean this as a personal offense to them, I feel that they're \"out of touch\" from my perspective mainly because they're older than me and may not know me personally or be relatable as much as someone my own age.\n\nAlright Reddit, change my view.","date":"2023-06-08","id":"144i8zs","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: You should NEVER ask mutual friends about a specific person or to check on them","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/144i8zs/cmv_you_should_never_ask_mutual_friends_about_a/"},{"author":"Superbooper24","body":"I’m guessing you are talking about like romantic relationships and this opinion is built on ur own personal experiences. Tbh a lot of ur description is a lot of the same and is super long. However, I think it’s okay to ask a mutual friend to be like hey what do you think x would want for a present because I want it to be a surprise or idk seeing if they are okay or something bc they haven’t responded to ur calls or text messages or something.","date":"2023-06-08","id":"jnfnd9w","parent_id":"144i8zs","score":4,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"CEO_Of_Rejection_99","body":"I noticed a post on a relationship advice subreddit about a coworker who was avoiding the OP, and the top comment said OP should \"check on said friend through a mutual friend.\"\n\nThis unlocked a realization in my head. I feel that I should NEVER ask mutual friends about a specific person or for advice on dealing with that person. Here's my reasoning, and correct me if I'm wrong:\n\nIf you're pursuing a romantic relationship with another person or are attracted to them, you should NEVER tell other people about your crush (at least, if you're not close with them) or otherwise get other people directly involved in the relationship, because it could make things awkward for the other person. In my experience, people tend to get riled up about crushes/potential romantic interests REALLY quickly. I have also unknowingly extended this logic to other interpersonal situations that are outside the strictly romantic realm as well. Therefore, crushes, and other interpersonal situations by extension, shall NEVER be released to your peers, and you have to take care of it by yourself.\n\nI learned this the hard way during my high school crushes. Since I was young and didn't know of any alternative method to seek guidance, I told a lot of my peers (except the actual person I liked) that I had a crush on that person and asked them for advice. To be fair, I wasn't actually close with these people and only told them out of hope that they would leverage their connection with the person to get them to like me back or at least offer some advice as to how to pursue the relationship. This knowledge would eventually spread around and get back to the other person. This made things awkward for the other person and made them feel pressured. Some of these crushes would also later block me on social media.\n\nThis is why I become extremely uncomfortable and get wary of answering my friends if they ask if I have a crush on another person, regardless of whether or not I actually have a potential romantic interest in mind, even if they say they'll keep it confidential. I remember telling some of my peers \"please don't tell anyone else this\" when asking them for advice on my crushes (again, to be fair, I wasn't very close with them), and yet, other people would eventually know. I don't trust *anyone* outside of a very, very select few people to keep information secret. I fear my peers will use it as an opportunity to pry open my romantic life and pursue the relationship or set up the interpersonal situation for me, The other person may believe that I have recruited an army of my friends to try to force them to be with me and make them feel pressured.\n\nI'm also wary of asking mutual friends for advice on dealing with another person since I fear receiving downright bad advice and falling prey to it. I remember during one of my high school crushes, when I asked a lot people for advice (as usual) and listened to advice that fit with my hopes of eventually dating her, while ignoring advice that went against these beliefs. It just so happened that I ended up following advice that was just downright bad, such as obsessing from afar, treating the situation as a competition with other potential romantic interests, and getting other people involved, while I ignored advice that would have actually been useful, such as moving on.\n\nI also fear that asking mutual friends for advice would present me as \"weak\", unconfident, and unable to handle crushes and other non-romantic social situations myself, and therefore someone no one should date or otherwise be close friends with. People usually say the following in terms of pursuing a romantic relationship: why would you do all this work of telling a bunch of people about your crush and trying to recruit an army of friends to build the relationship for you, when you could just go up and bite the bullet by talking to your crush and asking them out? If you spend all your time and energy asking a bunch of people about dealing with your crush, you're just circumventing the problem by obsessing from afar and not getting anywhere, and you could just use that same energy to ask them out. Girls want boys who are confident and therefore can handle crushes. Therefore, if you ask mutual friends for advice on crushes/interpersonal situations, you are not confident and therefore you are not relationship material.\n\nPlease change this view. I feel that this view should be changed I may have a strong network of friends but I believe this view is preventing me from using it to its full potential. I feel like I have to carry a huge burden in interpersonal relationships with little to no guidance and risking messing things up without having outside opinions/judgment to guide me and therefore feeling better not doing anything at all. It just feels like a missing part of my interpersonal relationships/interpersonal situations. It just feels wrong to have a support system that could potentially be useful but also something I refuse to use. I could seek advice from parents/my therapist/random internet strangers on Reddit, but while I don't think they're incorrect and I don't mean this as a personal offense to them, I feel that they're \"out of touch\" from my perspective mainly because they're older than me and may not know me personally or be relatable as much as someone my own age.\n\nAlright Reddit, change my view.","date":"2023-06-08","id":"144i8zs","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: You should NEVER ask mutual friends about a specific person or to check on them","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/144i8zs/cmv_you_should_never_ask_mutual_friends_about_a/"},{"author":"Lusamommy","body":"The big thing is trust with the people you tell about your personal life. For example, I've asked close buddies of mine to get me a connection with their friends who I'm not in the same circle as. They didn't go blab about it to everyone on earth, and most importantly, I followed up on it before it had a chance to make it's way around.","date":"2023-06-08","id":"jnfofqp","parent_id":"144i8zs","score":4,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"CEO_Of_Rejection_99","body":"I noticed a post on a relationship advice subreddit about a coworker who was avoiding the OP, and the top comment said OP should \"check on said friend through a mutual friend.\"\n\nThis unlocked a realization in my head. I feel that I should NEVER ask mutual friends about a specific person or for advice on dealing with that person. Here's my reasoning, and correct me if I'm wrong:\n\nIf you're pursuing a romantic relationship with another person or are attracted to them, you should NEVER tell other people about your crush (at least, if you're not close with them) or otherwise get other people directly involved in the relationship, because it could make things awkward for the other person. In my experience, people tend to get riled up about crushes/potential romantic interests REALLY quickly. I have also unknowingly extended this logic to other interpersonal situations that are outside the strictly romantic realm as well. Therefore, crushes, and other interpersonal situations by extension, shall NEVER be released to your peers, and you have to take care of it by yourself.\n\nI learned this the hard way during my high school crushes. Since I was young and didn't know of any alternative method to seek guidance, I told a lot of my peers (except the actual person I liked) that I had a crush on that person and asked them for advice. To be fair, I wasn't actually close with these people and only told them out of hope that they would leverage their connection with the person to get them to like me back or at least offer some advice as to how to pursue the relationship. This knowledge would eventually spread around and get back to the other person. This made things awkward for the other person and made them feel pressured. Some of these crushes would also later block me on social media.\n\nThis is why I become extremely uncomfortable and get wary of answering my friends if they ask if I have a crush on another person, regardless of whether or not I actually have a potential romantic interest in mind, even if they say they'll keep it confidential. I remember telling some of my peers \"please don't tell anyone else this\" when asking them for advice on my crushes (again, to be fair, I wasn't very close with them), and yet, other people would eventually know. I don't trust *anyone* outside of a very, very select few people to keep information secret. I fear my peers will use it as an opportunity to pry open my romantic life and pursue the relationship or set up the interpersonal situation for me, The other person may believe that I have recruited an army of my friends to try to force them to be with me and make them feel pressured.\n\nI'm also wary of asking mutual friends for advice on dealing with another person since I fear receiving downright bad advice and falling prey to it. I remember during one of my high school crushes, when I asked a lot people for advice (as usual) and listened to advice that fit with my hopes of eventually dating her, while ignoring advice that went against these beliefs. It just so happened that I ended up following advice that was just downright bad, such as obsessing from afar, treating the situation as a competition with other potential romantic interests, and getting other people involved, while I ignored advice that would have actually been useful, such as moving on.\n\nI also fear that asking mutual friends for advice would present me as \"weak\", unconfident, and unable to handle crushes and other non-romantic social situations myself, and therefore someone no one should date or otherwise be close friends with. People usually say the following in terms of pursuing a romantic relationship: why would you do all this work of telling a bunch of people about your crush and trying to recruit an army of friends to build the relationship for you, when you could just go up and bite the bullet by talking to your crush and asking them out? If you spend all your time and energy asking a bunch of people about dealing with your crush, you're just circumventing the problem by obsessing from afar and not getting anywhere, and you could just use that same energy to ask them out. Girls want boys who are confident and therefore can handle crushes. Therefore, if you ask mutual friends for advice on crushes/interpersonal situations, you are not confident and therefore you are not relationship material.\n\nPlease change this view. I feel that this view should be changed I may have a strong network of friends but I believe this view is preventing me from using it to its full potential. I feel like I have to carry a huge burden in interpersonal relationships with little to no guidance and risking messing things up without having outside opinions/judgment to guide me and therefore feeling better not doing anything at all. It just feels like a missing part of my interpersonal relationships/interpersonal situations. It just feels wrong to have a support system that could potentially be useful but also something I refuse to use. I could seek advice from parents/my therapist/random internet strangers on Reddit, but while I don't think they're incorrect and I don't mean this as a personal offense to them, I feel that they're \"out of touch\" from my perspective mainly because they're older than me and may not know me personally or be relatable as much as someone my own age.\n\nAlright Reddit, change my view.","date":"2023-06-08","id":"144i8zs","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: You should NEVER ask mutual friends about a specific person or to check on them","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/144i8zs/cmv_you_should_never_ask_mutual_friends_about_a/"},{"author":"Nrdman","body":"This sounds more like you don’t have trust worthy friends. Obviously if you don’t trust someone you shouldn’t tell them something that you don’t want leaked. I see no harm telling a friend that is trustworthy","date":"2023-06-08","id":"jnfql11","parent_id":"144i8zs","score":3,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"CEO_Of_Rejection_99","body":"I noticed a post on a relationship advice subreddit about a coworker who was avoiding the OP, and the top comment said OP should \"check on said friend through a mutual friend.\"\n\nThis unlocked a realization in my head. I feel that I should NEVER ask mutual friends about a specific person or for advice on dealing with that person. Here's my reasoning, and correct me if I'm wrong:\n\nIf you're pursuing a romantic relationship with another person or are attracted to them, you should NEVER tell other people about your crush (at least, if you're not close with them) or otherwise get other people directly involved in the relationship, because it could make things awkward for the other person. In my experience, people tend to get riled up about crushes/potential romantic interests REALLY quickly. I have also unknowingly extended this logic to other interpersonal situations that are outside the strictly romantic realm as well. Therefore, crushes, and other interpersonal situations by extension, shall NEVER be released to your peers, and you have to take care of it by yourself.\n\nI learned this the hard way during my high school crushes. Since I was young and didn't know of any alternative method to seek guidance, I told a lot of my peers (except the actual person I liked) that I had a crush on that person and asked them for advice. To be fair, I wasn't actually close with these people and only told them out of hope that they would leverage their connection with the person to get them to like me back or at least offer some advice as to how to pursue the relationship. This knowledge would eventually spread around and get back to the other person. This made things awkward for the other person and made them feel pressured. Some of these crushes would also later block me on social media.\n\nThis is why I become extremely uncomfortable and get wary of answering my friends if they ask if I have a crush on another person, regardless of whether or not I actually have a potential romantic interest in mind, even if they say they'll keep it confidential. I remember telling some of my peers \"please don't tell anyone else this\" when asking them for advice on my crushes (again, to be fair, I wasn't very close with them), and yet, other people would eventually know. I don't trust *anyone* outside of a very, very select few people to keep information secret. I fear my peers will use it as an opportunity to pry open my romantic life and pursue the relationship or set up the interpersonal situation for me, The other person may believe that I have recruited an army of my friends to try to force them to be with me and make them feel pressured.\n\nI'm also wary of asking mutual friends for advice on dealing with another person since I fear receiving downright bad advice and falling prey to it. I remember during one of my high school crushes, when I asked a lot people for advice (as usual) and listened to advice that fit with my hopes of eventually dating her, while ignoring advice that went against these beliefs. It just so happened that I ended up following advice that was just downright bad, such as obsessing from afar, treating the situation as a competition with other potential romantic interests, and getting other people involved, while I ignored advice that would have actually been useful, such as moving on.\n\nI also fear that asking mutual friends for advice would present me as \"weak\", unconfident, and unable to handle crushes and other non-romantic social situations myself, and therefore someone no one should date or otherwise be close friends with. People usually say the following in terms of pursuing a romantic relationship: why would you do all this work of telling a bunch of people about your crush and trying to recruit an army of friends to build the relationship for you, when you could just go up and bite the bullet by talking to your crush and asking them out? If you spend all your time and energy asking a bunch of people about dealing with your crush, you're just circumventing the problem by obsessing from afar and not getting anywhere, and you could just use that same energy to ask them out. Girls want boys who are confident and therefore can handle crushes. Therefore, if you ask mutual friends for advice on crushes/interpersonal situations, you are not confident and therefore you are not relationship material.\n\nPlease change this view. I feel that this view should be changed I may have a strong network of friends but I believe this view is preventing me from using it to its full potential. I feel like I have to carry a huge burden in interpersonal relationships with little to no guidance and risking messing things up without having outside opinions/judgment to guide me and therefore feeling better not doing anything at all. It just feels like a missing part of my interpersonal relationships/interpersonal situations. It just feels wrong to have a support system that could potentially be useful but also something I refuse to use. I could seek advice from parents/my therapist/random internet strangers on Reddit, but while I don't think they're incorrect and I don't mean this as a personal offense to them, I feel that they're \"out of touch\" from my perspective mainly because they're older than me and may not know me personally or be relatable as much as someone my own age.\n\nAlright Reddit, change my view.","date":"2023-06-08","id":"144i8zs","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: You should NEVER ask mutual friends about a specific person or to check on them","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/144i8zs/cmv_you_should_never_ask_mutual_friends_about_a/"},{"author":"Annual_Ad_1536","body":"You are waayyy wayyy wayyy overthinking this. After college when your friends have a crush on you you don't care. You simply take it as a compliment and if you don't see it working you prepare for how to let them know. \n\n\nIt's not that your friend would see you as weak, or your crush would, if you ask a third party, it shows you are way too invested in something that isn't that important, which shows you don't have a lot going on, which is likely to make the person reject you. \n\n\nA better approach is perhaps to not ask anything, but simply continue being friends and drop hints, you don't need advice. There is no secret bag of tricks. It is about listening well to the other person and sharing more and more memorable experiences with them. Eventually you guys will just want to make out if you like each other.","date":"2023-06-08","id":"jnftfnm","parent_id":"144i8zs","score":21,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"IndependenceAway8724","body":"Exactly. As a full-grown adult, if a friend tried to talk to me about a \"crush\", I wouldn't see it as weak so much as juvenile","date":"2023-06-08","id":"jng0cew","parent_id":"jnftfnm","score":4,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"CEO_Of_Rejection_99","body":"I noticed a post on a relationship advice subreddit about a coworker who was avoiding the OP, and the top comment said OP should \"check on said friend through a mutual friend.\"\n\nThis unlocked a realization in my head. I feel that I should NEVER ask mutual friends about a specific person or for advice on dealing with that person. Here's my reasoning, and correct me if I'm wrong:\n\nIf you're pursuing a romantic relationship with another person or are attracted to them, you should NEVER tell other people about your crush (at least, if you're not close with them) or otherwise get other people directly involved in the relationship, because it could make things awkward for the other person. In my experience, people tend to get riled up about crushes/potential romantic interests REALLY quickly. I have also unknowingly extended this logic to other interpersonal situations that are outside the strictly romantic realm as well. Therefore, crushes, and other interpersonal situations by extension, shall NEVER be released to your peers, and you have to take care of it by yourself.\n\nI learned this the hard way during my high school crushes. Since I was young and didn't know of any alternative method to seek guidance, I told a lot of my peers (except the actual person I liked) that I had a crush on that person and asked them for advice. To be fair, I wasn't actually close with these people and only told them out of hope that they would leverage their connection with the person to get them to like me back or at least offer some advice as to how to pursue the relationship. This knowledge would eventually spread around and get back to the other person. This made things awkward for the other person and made them feel pressured. Some of these crushes would also later block me on social media.\n\nThis is why I become extremely uncomfortable and get wary of answering my friends if they ask if I have a crush on another person, regardless of whether or not I actually have a potential romantic interest in mind, even if they say they'll keep it confidential. I remember telling some of my peers \"please don't tell anyone else this\" when asking them for advice on my crushes (again, to be fair, I wasn't very close with them), and yet, other people would eventually know. I don't trust *anyone* outside of a very, very select few people to keep information secret. I fear my peers will use it as an opportunity to pry open my romantic life and pursue the relationship or set up the interpersonal situation for me, The other person may believe that I have recruited an army of my friends to try to force them to be with me and make them feel pressured.\n\nI'm also wary of asking mutual friends for advice on dealing with another person since I fear receiving downright bad advice and falling prey to it. I remember during one of my high school crushes, when I asked a lot people for advice (as usual) and listened to advice that fit with my hopes of eventually dating her, while ignoring advice that went against these beliefs. It just so happened that I ended up following advice that was just downright bad, such as obsessing from afar, treating the situation as a competition with other potential romantic interests, and getting other people involved, while I ignored advice that would have actually been useful, such as moving on.\n\nI also fear that asking mutual friends for advice would present me as \"weak\", unconfident, and unable to handle crushes and other non-romantic social situations myself, and therefore someone no one should date or otherwise be close friends with. People usually say the following in terms of pursuing a romantic relationship: why would you do all this work of telling a bunch of people about your crush and trying to recruit an army of friends to build the relationship for you, when you could just go up and bite the bullet by talking to your crush and asking them out? If you spend all your time and energy asking a bunch of people about dealing with your crush, you're just circumventing the problem by obsessing from afar and not getting anywhere, and you could just use that same energy to ask them out. Girls want boys who are confident and therefore can handle crushes. Therefore, if you ask mutual friends for advice on crushes/interpersonal situations, you are not confident and therefore you are not relationship material.\n\nPlease change this view. I feel that this view should be changed I may have a strong network of friends but I believe this view is preventing me from using it to its full potential. I feel like I have to carry a huge burden in interpersonal relationships with little to no guidance and risking messing things up without having outside opinions/judgment to guide me and therefore feeling better not doing anything at all. It just feels like a missing part of my interpersonal relationships/interpersonal situations. It just feels wrong to have a support system that could potentially be useful but also something I refuse to use. I could seek advice from parents/my therapist/random internet strangers on Reddit, but while I don't think they're incorrect and I don't mean this as a personal offense to them, I feel that they're \"out of touch\" from my perspective mainly because they're older than me and may not know me personally or be relatable as much as someone my own age.\n\nAlright Reddit, change my view.","date":"2023-06-08","id":"144i8zs","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: You should NEVER ask mutual friends about a specific person or to check on them","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/144i8zs/cmv_you_should_never_ask_mutual_friends_about_a/"},{"author":"cbdqs","body":"I think you misinterpreted the advice. If you don't know someone and are scared of them then you can ask a friend who knows them better than you do about them. That's all. If you are more scared of the intermediate person then don't involve them! If you can't think of anyone you already know who knows them this advice is not helpful.","date":"2023-06-08","id":"jnfvo42","parent_id":"144i8zs","score":3,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"CEO_Of_Rejection_99","body":"I noticed a post on a relationship advice subreddit about a coworker who was avoiding the OP, and the top comment said OP should \"check on said friend through a mutual friend.\"\n\nThis unlocked a realization in my head. I feel that I should NEVER ask mutual friends about a specific person or for advice on dealing with that person. Here's my reasoning, and correct me if I'm wrong:\n\nIf you're pursuing a romantic relationship with another person or are attracted to them, you should NEVER tell other people about your crush (at least, if you're not close with them) or otherwise get other people directly involved in the relationship, because it could make things awkward for the other person. In my experience, people tend to get riled up about crushes/potential romantic interests REALLY quickly. I have also unknowingly extended this logic to other interpersonal situations that are outside the strictly romantic realm as well. Therefore, crushes, and other interpersonal situations by extension, shall NEVER be released to your peers, and you have to take care of it by yourself.\n\nI learned this the hard way during my high school crushes. Since I was young and didn't know of any alternative method to seek guidance, I told a lot of my peers (except the actual person I liked) that I had a crush on that person and asked them for advice. To be fair, I wasn't actually close with these people and only told them out of hope that they would leverage their connection with the person to get them to like me back or at least offer some advice as to how to pursue the relationship. This knowledge would eventually spread around and get back to the other person. This made things awkward for the other person and made them feel pressured. Some of these crushes would also later block me on social media.\n\nThis is why I become extremely uncomfortable and get wary of answering my friends if they ask if I have a crush on another person, regardless of whether or not I actually have a potential romantic interest in mind, even if they say they'll keep it confidential. I remember telling some of my peers \"please don't tell anyone else this\" when asking them for advice on my crushes (again, to be fair, I wasn't very close with them), and yet, other people would eventually know. I don't trust *anyone* outside of a very, very select few people to keep information secret. I fear my peers will use it as an opportunity to pry open my romantic life and pursue the relationship or set up the interpersonal situation for me, The other person may believe that I have recruited an army of my friends to try to force them to be with me and make them feel pressured.\n\nI'm also wary of asking mutual friends for advice on dealing with another person since I fear receiving downright bad advice and falling prey to it. I remember during one of my high school crushes, when I asked a lot people for advice (as usual) and listened to advice that fit with my hopes of eventually dating her, while ignoring advice that went against these beliefs. It just so happened that I ended up following advice that was just downright bad, such as obsessing from afar, treating the situation as a competition with other potential romantic interests, and getting other people involved, while I ignored advice that would have actually been useful, such as moving on.\n\nI also fear that asking mutual friends for advice would present me as \"weak\", unconfident, and unable to handle crushes and other non-romantic social situations myself, and therefore someone no one should date or otherwise be close friends with. People usually say the following in terms of pursuing a romantic relationship: why would you do all this work of telling a bunch of people about your crush and trying to recruit an army of friends to build the relationship for you, when you could just go up and bite the bullet by talking to your crush and asking them out? If you spend all your time and energy asking a bunch of people about dealing with your crush, you're just circumventing the problem by obsessing from afar and not getting anywhere, and you could just use that same energy to ask them out. Girls want boys who are confident and therefore can handle crushes. Therefore, if you ask mutual friends for advice on crushes/interpersonal situations, you are not confident and therefore you are not relationship material.\n\nPlease change this view. I feel that this view should be changed I may have a strong network of friends but I believe this view is preventing me from using it to its full potential. I feel like I have to carry a huge burden in interpersonal relationships with little to no guidance and risking messing things up without having outside opinions/judgment to guide me and therefore feeling better not doing anything at all. It just feels like a missing part of my interpersonal relationships/interpersonal situations. It just feels wrong to have a support system that could potentially be useful but also something I refuse to use. I could seek advice from parents/my therapist/random internet strangers on Reddit, but while I don't think they're incorrect and I don't mean this as a personal offense to them, I feel that they're \"out of touch\" from my perspective mainly because they're older than me and may not know me personally or be relatable as much as someone my own age.\n\nAlright Reddit, change my view.","date":"2023-06-08","id":"144i8zs","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: You should NEVER ask mutual friends about a specific person or to check on them","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/144i8zs/cmv_you_should_never_ask_mutual_friends_about_a/"},{"author":"dantheman91","body":"If I made friend A upset, can I not ask friend B to check on friend A, where you doing so would make them more upset?","date":"2023-06-08","id":"jnfwyxu","parent_id":"144i8zs","score":3,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"CEO_Of_Rejection_99","body":"I noticed a post on a relationship advice subreddit about a coworker who was avoiding the OP, and the top comment said OP should \"check on said friend through a mutual friend.\"\n\nThis unlocked a realization in my head. I feel that I should NEVER ask mutual friends about a specific person or for advice on dealing with that person. Here's my reasoning, and correct me if I'm wrong:\n\nIf you're pursuing a romantic relationship with another person or are attracted to them, you should NEVER tell other people about your crush (at least, if you're not close with them) or otherwise get other people directly involved in the relationship, because it could make things awkward for the other person. In my experience, people tend to get riled up about crushes/potential romantic interests REALLY quickly. I have also unknowingly extended this logic to other interpersonal situations that are outside the strictly romantic realm as well. Therefore, crushes, and other interpersonal situations by extension, shall NEVER be released to your peers, and you have to take care of it by yourself.\n\nI learned this the hard way during my high school crushes. Since I was young and didn't know of any alternative method to seek guidance, I told a lot of my peers (except the actual person I liked) that I had a crush on that person and asked them for advice. To be fair, I wasn't actually close with these people and only told them out of hope that they would leverage their connection with the person to get them to like me back or at least offer some advice as to how to pursue the relationship. This knowledge would eventually spread around and get back to the other person. This made things awkward for the other person and made them feel pressured. Some of these crushes would also later block me on social media.\n\nThis is why I become extremely uncomfortable and get wary of answering my friends if they ask if I have a crush on another person, regardless of whether or not I actually have a potential romantic interest in mind, even if they say they'll keep it confidential. I remember telling some of my peers \"please don't tell anyone else this\" when asking them for advice on my crushes (again, to be fair, I wasn't very close with them), and yet, other people would eventually know. I don't trust *anyone* outside of a very, very select few people to keep information secret. I fear my peers will use it as an opportunity to pry open my romantic life and pursue the relationship or set up the interpersonal situation for me, The other person may believe that I have recruited an army of my friends to try to force them to be with me and make them feel pressured.\n\nI'm also wary of asking mutual friends for advice on dealing with another person since I fear receiving downright bad advice and falling prey to it. I remember during one of my high school crushes, when I asked a lot people for advice (as usual) and listened to advice that fit with my hopes of eventually dating her, while ignoring advice that went against these beliefs. It just so happened that I ended up following advice that was just downright bad, such as obsessing from afar, treating the situation as a competition with other potential romantic interests, and getting other people involved, while I ignored advice that would have actually been useful, such as moving on.\n\nI also fear that asking mutual friends for advice would present me as \"weak\", unconfident, and unable to handle crushes and other non-romantic social situations myself, and therefore someone no one should date or otherwise be close friends with. People usually say the following in terms of pursuing a romantic relationship: why would you do all this work of telling a bunch of people about your crush and trying to recruit an army of friends to build the relationship for you, when you could just go up and bite the bullet by talking to your crush and asking them out? If you spend all your time and energy asking a bunch of people about dealing with your crush, you're just circumventing the problem by obsessing from afar and not getting anywhere, and you could just use that same energy to ask them out. Girls want boys who are confident and therefore can handle crushes. Therefore, if you ask mutual friends for advice on crushes/interpersonal situations, you are not confident and therefore you are not relationship material.\n\nPlease change this view. I feel that this view should be changed I may have a strong network of friends but I believe this view is preventing me from using it to its full potential. I feel like I have to carry a huge burden in interpersonal relationships with little to no guidance and risking messing things up without having outside opinions/judgment to guide me and therefore feeling better not doing anything at all. It just feels like a missing part of my interpersonal relationships/interpersonal situations. It just feels wrong to have a support system that could potentially be useful but also something I refuse to use. I could seek advice from parents/my therapist/random internet strangers on Reddit, but while I don't think they're incorrect and I don't mean this as a personal offense to them, I feel that they're \"out of touch\" from my perspective mainly because they're older than me and may not know me personally or be relatable as much as someone my own age.\n\nAlright Reddit, change my view.","date":"2023-06-08","id":"144i8zs","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: You should NEVER ask mutual friends about a specific person or to check on them","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/144i8zs/cmv_you_should_never_ask_mutual_friends_about_a/"},{"author":"StrangerThanGene","body":">I feel that I should NEVER ask mutual friends about a specific person or for advice on dealing with that person.\n\nA good friend of mine got divorced a few months ago. We hadn't heard much from him, not surprisingly- we wanted to give him space to handle his stuff. Then a mutual I ran into shortly after mentioned that he saw him looking pretty rough at a meeting.\n\nI called him up and just shot the shit for a few minutes. Let him know I was going to grill that week and I needed his help getting it set up for summer. He showed up, looking great. Cleaned up, perked up, great conversation. He mentioned on his way out a thank you for inviting him over because he had been really scared to reach out to people because he was worried about people taking sides and he didn't want to cause any problems.\n\ntl;dr\n\nSometimes friends hide because they're scared. And sometimes friends should go find them.","date":"2023-06-08","id":"jng5gy0","parent_id":"144i8zs","score":3,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"CEO_Of_Rejection_99","body":"I noticed a post on a relationship advice subreddit about a coworker who was avoiding the OP, and the top comment said OP should \"check on said friend through a mutual friend.\"\n\nThis unlocked a realization in my head. I feel that I should NEVER ask mutual friends about a specific person or for advice on dealing with that person. Here's my reasoning, and correct me if I'm wrong:\n\nIf you're pursuing a romantic relationship with another person or are attracted to them, you should NEVER tell other people about your crush (at least, if you're not close with them) or otherwise get other people directly involved in the relationship, because it could make things awkward for the other person. In my experience, people tend to get riled up about crushes/potential romantic interests REALLY quickly. I have also unknowingly extended this logic to other interpersonal situations that are outside the strictly romantic realm as well. Therefore, crushes, and other interpersonal situations by extension, shall NEVER be released to your peers, and you have to take care of it by yourself.\n\nI learned this the hard way during my high school crushes. Since I was young and didn't know of any alternative method to seek guidance, I told a lot of my peers (except the actual person I liked) that I had a crush on that person and asked them for advice. To be fair, I wasn't actually close with these people and only told them out of hope that they would leverage their connection with the person to get them to like me back or at least offer some advice as to how to pursue the relationship. This knowledge would eventually spread around and get back to the other person. This made things awkward for the other person and made them feel pressured. Some of these crushes would also later block me on social media.\n\nThis is why I become extremely uncomfortable and get wary of answering my friends if they ask if I have a crush on another person, regardless of whether or not I actually have a potential romantic interest in mind, even if they say they'll keep it confidential. I remember telling some of my peers \"please don't tell anyone else this\" when asking them for advice on my crushes (again, to be fair, I wasn't very close with them), and yet, other people would eventually know. I don't trust *anyone* outside of a very, very select few people to keep information secret. I fear my peers will use it as an opportunity to pry open my romantic life and pursue the relationship or set up the interpersonal situation for me, The other person may believe that I have recruited an army of my friends to try to force them to be with me and make them feel pressured.\n\nI'm also wary of asking mutual friends for advice on dealing with another person since I fear receiving downright bad advice and falling prey to it. I remember during one of my high school crushes, when I asked a lot people for advice (as usual) and listened to advice that fit with my hopes of eventually dating her, while ignoring advice that went against these beliefs. It just so happened that I ended up following advice that was just downright bad, such as obsessing from afar, treating the situation as a competition with other potential romantic interests, and getting other people involved, while I ignored advice that would have actually been useful, such as moving on.\n\nI also fear that asking mutual friends for advice would present me as \"weak\", unconfident, and unable to handle crushes and other non-romantic social situations myself, and therefore someone no one should date or otherwise be close friends with. People usually say the following in terms of pursuing a romantic relationship: why would you do all this work of telling a bunch of people about your crush and trying to recruit an army of friends to build the relationship for you, when you could just go up and bite the bullet by talking to your crush and asking them out? If you spend all your time and energy asking a bunch of people about dealing with your crush, you're just circumventing the problem by obsessing from afar and not getting anywhere, and you could just use that same energy to ask them out. Girls want boys who are confident and therefore can handle crushes. Therefore, if you ask mutual friends for advice on crushes/interpersonal situations, you are not confident and therefore you are not relationship material.\n\nPlease change this view. I feel that this view should be changed I may have a strong network of friends but I believe this view is preventing me from using it to its full potential. I feel like I have to carry a huge burden in interpersonal relationships with little to no guidance and risking messing things up without having outside opinions/judgment to guide me and therefore feeling better not doing anything at all. It just feels like a missing part of my interpersonal relationships/interpersonal situations. It just feels wrong to have a support system that could potentially be useful but also something I refuse to use. I could seek advice from parents/my therapist/random internet strangers on Reddit, but while I don't think they're incorrect and I don't mean this as a personal offense to them, I feel that they're \"out of touch\" from my perspective mainly because they're older than me and may not know me personally or be relatable as much as someone my own age.\n\nAlright Reddit, change my view.","date":"2023-06-08","id":"144i8zs","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: You should NEVER ask mutual friends about a specific person or to check on them","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/144i8zs/cmv_you_should_never_ask_mutual_friends_about_a/"},{"author":"Klutzy_Juggernaut_76","body":"Looks like CEO\\_Of\\_Rejection\\_99 has changed their view, but don't ask me to confirm with our mutual friends ;)","date":"2023-06-09","id":"jnhxbcb","parent_id":"144i8zs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"CEO_Of_Rejection_99","body":"Oh no....\n\n/j","date":"2023-06-09","id":"jnkwpjn","parent_id":"jnhxbcb","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"CEO_Of_Rejection_99","body":"I noticed a post on a relationship advice subreddit about a coworker who was avoiding the OP, and the top comment said OP should \"check on said friend through a mutual friend.\"\n\nThis unlocked a realization in my head. I feel that I should NEVER ask mutual friends about a specific person or for advice on dealing with that person. Here's my reasoning, and correct me if I'm wrong:\n\nIf you're pursuing a romantic relationship with another person or are attracted to them, you should NEVER tell other people about your crush (at least, if you're not close with them) or otherwise get other people directly involved in the relationship, because it could make things awkward for the other person. In my experience, people tend to get riled up about crushes/potential romantic interests REALLY quickly. I have also unknowingly extended this logic to other interpersonal situations that are outside the strictly romantic realm as well. Therefore, crushes, and other interpersonal situations by extension, shall NEVER be released to your peers, and you have to take care of it by yourself.\n\nI learned this the hard way during my high school crushes. Since I was young and didn't know of any alternative method to seek guidance, I told a lot of my peers (except the actual person I liked) that I had a crush on that person and asked them for advice. To be fair, I wasn't actually close with these people and only told them out of hope that they would leverage their connection with the person to get them to like me back or at least offer some advice as to how to pursue the relationship. This knowledge would eventually spread around and get back to the other person. This made things awkward for the other person and made them feel pressured. Some of these crushes would also later block me on social media.\n\nThis is why I become extremely uncomfortable and get wary of answering my friends if they ask if I have a crush on another person, regardless of whether or not I actually have a potential romantic interest in mind, even if they say they'll keep it confidential. I remember telling some of my peers \"please don't tell anyone else this\" when asking them for advice on my crushes (again, to be fair, I wasn't very close with them), and yet, other people would eventually know. I don't trust *anyone* outside of a very, very select few people to keep information secret. I fear my peers will use it as an opportunity to pry open my romantic life and pursue the relationship or set up the interpersonal situation for me, The other person may believe that I have recruited an army of my friends to try to force them to be with me and make them feel pressured.\n\nI'm also wary of asking mutual friends for advice on dealing with another person since I fear receiving downright bad advice and falling prey to it. I remember during one of my high school crushes, when I asked a lot people for advice (as usual) and listened to advice that fit with my hopes of eventually dating her, while ignoring advice that went against these beliefs. It just so happened that I ended up following advice that was just downright bad, such as obsessing from afar, treating the situation as a competition with other potential romantic interests, and getting other people involved, while I ignored advice that would have actually been useful, such as moving on.\n\nI also fear that asking mutual friends for advice would present me as \"weak\", unconfident, and unable to handle crushes and other non-romantic social situations myself, and therefore someone no one should date or otherwise be close friends with. People usually say the following in terms of pursuing a romantic relationship: why would you do all this work of telling a bunch of people about your crush and trying to recruit an army of friends to build the relationship for you, when you could just go up and bite the bullet by talking to your crush and asking them out? If you spend all your time and energy asking a bunch of people about dealing with your crush, you're just circumventing the problem by obsessing from afar and not getting anywhere, and you could just use that same energy to ask them out. Girls want boys who are confident and therefore can handle crushes. Therefore, if you ask mutual friends for advice on crushes/interpersonal situations, you are not confident and therefore you are not relationship material.\n\nPlease change this view. I feel that this view should be changed I may have a strong network of friends but I believe this view is preventing me from using it to its full potential. I feel like I have to carry a huge burden in interpersonal relationships with little to no guidance and risking messing things up without having outside opinions/judgment to guide me and therefore feeling better not doing anything at all. It just feels like a missing part of my interpersonal relationships/interpersonal situations. It just feels wrong to have a support system that could potentially be useful but also something I refuse to use. I could seek advice from parents/my therapist/random internet strangers on Reddit, but while I don't think they're incorrect and I don't mean this as a personal offense to them, I feel that they're \"out of touch\" from my perspective mainly because they're older than me and may not know me personally or be relatable as much as someone my own age.\n\nAlright Reddit, change my view.","date":"2023-06-08","id":"144i8zs","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: You should NEVER ask mutual friends about a specific person or to check on them","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/144i8zs/cmv_you_should_never_ask_mutual_friends_about_a/"},{"author":"Resident-Camp-8795","body":"I wouldn't say never but it does depend on if you can trust the persons character AND judgement and hwo the other person might react. Putting Never in the title of Cmv is generally wrong","date":"2023-06-09","id":"jnka49l","parent_id":"144i8zs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"CEO_Of_Rejection_99","body":"I noticed a post on a relationship advice subreddit about a coworker who was avoiding the OP, and the top comment said OP should \"check on said friend through a mutual friend.\"\n\nThis unlocked a realization in my head. I feel that I should NEVER ask mutual friends about a specific person or for advice on dealing with that person. Here's my reasoning, and correct me if I'm wrong:\n\nIf you're pursuing a romantic relationship with another person or are attracted to them, you should NEVER tell other people about your crush (at least, if you're not close with them) or otherwise get other people directly involved in the relationship, because it could make things awkward for the other person. In my experience, people tend to get riled up about crushes/potential romantic interests REALLY quickly. I have also unknowingly extended this logic to other interpersonal situations that are outside the strictly romantic realm as well. Therefore, crushes, and other interpersonal situations by extension, shall NEVER be released to your peers, and you have to take care of it by yourself.\n\nI learned this the hard way during my high school crushes. Since I was young and didn't know of any alternative method to seek guidance, I told a lot of my peers (except the actual person I liked) that I had a crush on that person and asked them for advice. To be fair, I wasn't actually close with these people and only told them out of hope that they would leverage their connection with the person to get them to like me back or at least offer some advice as to how to pursue the relationship. This knowledge would eventually spread around and get back to the other person. This made things awkward for the other person and made them feel pressured. Some of these crushes would also later block me on social media.\n\nThis is why I become extremely uncomfortable and get wary of answering my friends if they ask if I have a crush on another person, regardless of whether or not I actually have a potential romantic interest in mind, even if they say they'll keep it confidential. I remember telling some of my peers \"please don't tell anyone else this\" when asking them for advice on my crushes (again, to be fair, I wasn't very close with them), and yet, other people would eventually know. I don't trust *anyone* outside of a very, very select few people to keep information secret. I fear my peers will use it as an opportunity to pry open my romantic life and pursue the relationship or set up the interpersonal situation for me, The other person may believe that I have recruited an army of my friends to try to force them to be with me and make them feel pressured.\n\nI'm also wary of asking mutual friends for advice on dealing with another person since I fear receiving downright bad advice and falling prey to it. I remember during one of my high school crushes, when I asked a lot people for advice (as usual) and listened to advice that fit with my hopes of eventually dating her, while ignoring advice that went against these beliefs. It just so happened that I ended up following advice that was just downright bad, such as obsessing from afar, treating the situation as a competition with other potential romantic interests, and getting other people involved, while I ignored advice that would have actually been useful, such as moving on.\n\nI also fear that asking mutual friends for advice would present me as \"weak\", unconfident, and unable to handle crushes and other non-romantic social situations myself, and therefore someone no one should date or otherwise be close friends with. People usually say the following in terms of pursuing a romantic relationship: why would you do all this work of telling a bunch of people about your crush and trying to recruit an army of friends to build the relationship for you, when you could just go up and bite the bullet by talking to your crush and asking them out? If you spend all your time and energy asking a bunch of people about dealing with your crush, you're just circumventing the problem by obsessing from afar and not getting anywhere, and you could just use that same energy to ask them out. Girls want boys who are confident and therefore can handle crushes. Therefore, if you ask mutual friends for advice on crushes/interpersonal situations, you are not confident and therefore you are not relationship material.\n\nPlease change this view. I feel that this view should be changed I may have a strong network of friends but I believe this view is preventing me from using it to its full potential. I feel like I have to carry a huge burden in interpersonal relationships with little to no guidance and risking messing things up without having outside opinions/judgment to guide me and therefore feeling better not doing anything at all. It just feels like a missing part of my interpersonal relationships/interpersonal situations. It just feels wrong to have a support system that could potentially be useful but also something I refuse to use. I could seek advice from parents/my therapist/random internet strangers on Reddit, but while I don't think they're incorrect and I don't mean this as a personal offense to them, I feel that they're \"out of touch\" from my perspective mainly because they're older than me and may not know me personally or be relatable as much as someone my own age.\n\nAlright Reddit, change my view.","date":"2023-06-08","id":"144i8zs","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: You should NEVER ask mutual friends about a specific person or to check on them","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/144i8zs/cmv_you_should_never_ask_mutual_friends_about_a/"},{"author":"ghotier","body":">If you're pursuing a romantic relationship with another person or are attracted to them, you should NEVER tell other people about your crush (at least, if you're not close with them) or otherwise get other people directly involved in the relationship, because it could make things awkward for the other person\n\n1) Completely hiding your feelings from the world and never trusting anyone to know your feelings is harmful to you. You're right, it could make things awkward for the other person, but you're weighing a risk against a real harm. \n\n2) this is a way people get past the very awkwardness you're talking about. I might not be with my own wife if a mutual friend didn't tell us each that our feelings were mutual. Neither she nor I are worse off for this.\n\n\n>Since I was young and didn't know of any alternative method to seek guidance, I told a lot of my peers (except the actual person I liked) that I had a crush on that person and asked them for advice. To be fair, I wasn't actually close with these people and only told them out of hope that they would leverage their connection with the person to get them to like me back or at least offer some advice as to how to pursue the relationship.\n\nYou already know your mistake here was not telling other people. It was telling people you had no reason to trust. Why draw a broader conclusion from this?","date":"2023-06-09","id":"jnkjrqg","parent_id":"144i8zs","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"CEO_Of_Rejection_99","body":"I noticed a post on a relationship advice subreddit about a coworker who was avoiding the OP, and the top comment said OP should \"check on said friend through a mutual friend.\"\n\nThis unlocked a realization in my head. I feel that I should NEVER ask mutual friends about a specific person or for advice on dealing with that person. Here's my reasoning, and correct me if I'm wrong:\n\nIf you're pursuing a romantic relationship with another person or are attracted to them, you should NEVER tell other people about your crush (at least, if you're not close with them) or otherwise get other people directly involved in the relationship, because it could make things awkward for the other person. In my experience, people tend to get riled up about crushes/potential romantic interests REALLY quickly. I have also unknowingly extended this logic to other interpersonal situations that are outside the strictly romantic realm as well. Therefore, crushes, and other interpersonal situations by extension, shall NEVER be released to your peers, and you have to take care of it by yourself.\n\nI learned this the hard way during my high school crushes. Since I was young and didn't know of any alternative method to seek guidance, I told a lot of my peers (except the actual person I liked) that I had a crush on that person and asked them for advice. To be fair, I wasn't actually close with these people and only told them out of hope that they would leverage their connection with the person to get them to like me back or at least offer some advice as to how to pursue the relationship. This knowledge would eventually spread around and get back to the other person. This made things awkward for the other person and made them feel pressured. Some of these crushes would also later block me on social media.\n\nThis is why I become extremely uncomfortable and get wary of answering my friends if they ask if I have a crush on another person, regardless of whether or not I actually have a potential romantic interest in mind, even if they say they'll keep it confidential. I remember telling some of my peers \"please don't tell anyone else this\" when asking them for advice on my crushes (again, to be fair, I wasn't very close with them), and yet, other people would eventually know. I don't trust *anyone* outside of a very, very select few people to keep information secret. I fear my peers will use it as an opportunity to pry open my romantic life and pursue the relationship or set up the interpersonal situation for me, The other person may believe that I have recruited an army of my friends to try to force them to be with me and make them feel pressured.\n\nI'm also wary of asking mutual friends for advice on dealing with another person since I fear receiving downright bad advice and falling prey to it. I remember during one of my high school crushes, when I asked a lot people for advice (as usual) and listened to advice that fit with my hopes of eventually dating her, while ignoring advice that went against these beliefs. It just so happened that I ended up following advice that was just downright bad, such as obsessing from afar, treating the situation as a competition with other potential romantic interests, and getting other people involved, while I ignored advice that would have actually been useful, such as moving on.\n\nI also fear that asking mutual friends for advice would present me as \"weak\", unconfident, and unable to handle crushes and other non-romantic social situations myself, and therefore someone no one should date or otherwise be close friends with. People usually say the following in terms of pursuing a romantic relationship: why would you do all this work of telling a bunch of people about your crush and trying to recruit an army of friends to build the relationship for you, when you could just go up and bite the bullet by talking to your crush and asking them out? If you spend all your time and energy asking a bunch of people about dealing with your crush, you're just circumventing the problem by obsessing from afar and not getting anywhere, and you could just use that same energy to ask them out. Girls want boys who are confident and therefore can handle crushes. Therefore, if you ask mutual friends for advice on crushes/interpersonal situations, you are not confident and therefore you are not relationship material.\n\nPlease change this view. I feel that this view should be changed I may have a strong network of friends but I believe this view is preventing me from using it to its full potential. I feel like I have to carry a huge burden in interpersonal relationships with little to no guidance and risking messing things up without having outside opinions/judgment to guide me and therefore feeling better not doing anything at all. It just feels like a missing part of my interpersonal relationships/interpersonal situations. It just feels wrong to have a support system that could potentially be useful but also something I refuse to use. I could seek advice from parents/my therapist/random internet strangers on Reddit, but while I don't think they're incorrect and I don't mean this as a personal offense to them, I feel that they're \"out of touch\" from my perspective mainly because they're older than me and may not know me personally or be relatable as much as someone my own age.\n\nAlright Reddit, change my view.","date":"2023-06-08","id":"144i8zs","parent_id":null,"score":0,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: You should NEVER ask mutual friends about a specific person or to check on them","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/144i8zs/cmv_you_should_never_ask_mutual_friends_about_a/"},{"author":"TygerJ99","body":"I disagree because I have nothing to lose or gain when you send me as an intermediary between your crush. \nIf I like you I’ll want you to be happy but I have no stake. \n\nI won’t be nervous and insecure because it won’t affect me really. This is why I love being a wingman I’m 100% confident vs me talking to someone I like.","date":"2023-06-10","id":"jnqnyss","parent_id":"144i8zs","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}]],"string":"[\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"CEO_Of_Rejection_99\",\n \"body\": \"I noticed a post on a relationship advice subreddit about a coworker who was avoiding the OP, and the top comment said OP should \\\"check on said friend through a mutual friend.\\\"\\n\\nThis unlocked a realization in my head. I feel that I should NEVER ask mutual friends about a specific person or for advice on dealing with that person. Here's my reasoning, and correct me if I'm wrong:\\n\\nIf you're pursuing a romantic relationship with another person or are attracted to them, you should NEVER tell other people about your crush (at least, if you're not close with them) or otherwise get other people directly involved in the relationship, because it could make things awkward for the other person. In my experience, people tend to get riled up about crushes/potential romantic interests REALLY quickly. I have also unknowingly extended this logic to other interpersonal situations that are outside the strictly romantic realm as well. Therefore, crushes, and other interpersonal situations by extension, shall NEVER be released to your peers, and you have to take care of it by yourself.\\n\\nI learned this the hard way during my high school crushes. Since I was young and didn't know of any alternative method to seek guidance, I told a lot of my peers (except the actual person I liked) that I had a crush on that person and asked them for advice. To be fair, I wasn't actually close with these people and only told them out of hope that they would leverage their connection with the person to get them to like me back or at least offer some advice as to how to pursue the relationship. This knowledge would eventually spread around and get back to the other person. This made things awkward for the other person and made them feel pressured. Some of these crushes would also later block me on social media.\\n\\nThis is why I become extremely uncomfortable and get wary of answering my friends if they ask if I have a crush on another person, regardless of whether or not I actually have a potential romantic interest in mind, even if they say they'll keep it confidential. I remember telling some of my peers \\\"please don't tell anyone else this\\\" when asking them for advice on my crushes (again, to be fair, I wasn't very close with them), and yet, other people would eventually know. I don't trust *anyone* outside of a very, very select few people to keep information secret. I fear my peers will use it as an opportunity to pry open my romantic life and pursue the relationship or set up the interpersonal situation for me, The other person may believe that I have recruited an army of my friends to try to force them to be with me and make them feel pressured.\\n\\nI'm also wary of asking mutual friends for advice on dealing with another person since I fear receiving downright bad advice and falling prey to it. I remember during one of my high school crushes, when I asked a lot people for advice (as usual) and listened to advice that fit with my hopes of eventually dating her, while ignoring advice that went against these beliefs. It just so happened that I ended up following advice that was just downright bad, such as obsessing from afar, treating the situation as a competition with other potential romantic interests, and getting other people involved, while I ignored advice that would have actually been useful, such as moving on.\\n\\nI also fear that asking mutual friends for advice would present me as \\\"weak\\\", unconfident, and unable to handle crushes and other non-romantic social situations myself, and therefore someone no one should date or otherwise be close friends with. People usually say the following in terms of pursuing a romantic relationship: why would you do all this work of telling a bunch of people about your crush and trying to recruit an army of friends to build the relationship for you, when you could just go up and bite the bullet by talking to your crush and asking them out? If you spend all your time and energy asking a bunch of people about dealing with your crush, you're just circumventing the problem by obsessing from afar and not getting anywhere, and you could just use that same energy to ask them out. Girls want boys who are confident and therefore can handle crushes. Therefore, if you ask mutual friends for advice on crushes/interpersonal situations, you are not confident and therefore you are not relationship material.\\n\\nPlease change this view. I feel that this view should be changed I may have a strong network of friends but I believe this view is preventing me from using it to its full potential. I feel like I have to carry a huge burden in interpersonal relationships with little to no guidance and risking messing things up without having outside opinions/judgment to guide me and therefore feeling better not doing anything at all. It just feels like a missing part of my interpersonal relationships/interpersonal situations. It just feels wrong to have a support system that could potentially be useful but also something I refuse to use. I could seek advice from parents/my therapist/random internet strangers on Reddit, but while I don't think they're incorrect and I don't mean this as a personal offense to them, I feel that they're \\\"out of touch\\\" from my perspective mainly because they're older than me and may not know me personally or be relatable as much as someone my own age.\\n\\nAlright Reddit, change my view.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-08\",\n \"id\": \"144i8zs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: You should NEVER ask mutual friends about a specific person or to check on them\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/144i8zs/cmv_you_should_never_ask_mutual_friends_about_a/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"RedditUsrnamesRweird\",\n \"body\": \"Agreed.\\n\\n👋🏻 following this to see what kind of numbskulls disagree. Admittedly I only read 1/4 or your comment though as I think I got the picture and am not expecting a quiz after. What a novel..\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-08\",\n \"id\": \"jnfmr1g\",\n \"parent_id\": \"144i8zs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Znyper\",\n \"body\": \"Comment has been removed for breaking Rule 1:\\n\\n> **Direct responses to a CMV post must challenge at least one aspect of OP’s stated view (however minor), or ask a clarifying question**. Arguments in favor of the view OP is willing to change must be restricted to replies to other comments. [See the wiki page for more information](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules#wiki_rule_1). \\n\\nIf you would like to appeal, review our appeals process [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/modstandards#wiki_appeal_process), then [message the moderators by clicking this link](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fchangemyview&subject=Rule%201%20Appeal&message=Author%20would%20like%20to%20appeal%20the%20removal%20of%20their%20post%20because\\\\.\\\\.\\\\.) within one week of this notice being posted. **Appeals that do not follow this process will not be heard.** \\n\\nPlease note that multiple violations will lead to a ban, as explained in our [moderation standards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/modstandards).\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-08\",\n \"id\": \"jnftysq\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jnfmr1g\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"CEO_Of_Rejection_99\",\n \"body\": \"I noticed a post on a relationship advice subreddit about a coworker who was avoiding the OP, and the top comment said OP should \\\"check on said friend through a mutual friend.\\\"\\n\\nThis unlocked a realization in my head. I feel that I should NEVER ask mutual friends about a specific person or for advice on dealing with that person. Here's my reasoning, and correct me if I'm wrong:\\n\\nIf you're pursuing a romantic relationship with another person or are attracted to them, you should NEVER tell other people about your crush (at least, if you're not close with them) or otherwise get other people directly involved in the relationship, because it could make things awkward for the other person. In my experience, people tend to get riled up about crushes/potential romantic interests REALLY quickly. I have also unknowingly extended this logic to other interpersonal situations that are outside the strictly romantic realm as well. Therefore, crushes, and other interpersonal situations by extension, shall NEVER be released to your peers, and you have to take care of it by yourself.\\n\\nI learned this the hard way during my high school crushes. Since I was young and didn't know of any alternative method to seek guidance, I told a lot of my peers (except the actual person I liked) that I had a crush on that person and asked them for advice. To be fair, I wasn't actually close with these people and only told them out of hope that they would leverage their connection with the person to get them to like me back or at least offer some advice as to how to pursue the relationship. This knowledge would eventually spread around and get back to the other person. This made things awkward for the other person and made them feel pressured. Some of these crushes would also later block me on social media.\\n\\nThis is why I become extremely uncomfortable and get wary of answering my friends if they ask if I have a crush on another person, regardless of whether or not I actually have a potential romantic interest in mind, even if they say they'll keep it confidential. I remember telling some of my peers \\\"please don't tell anyone else this\\\" when asking them for advice on my crushes (again, to be fair, I wasn't very close with them), and yet, other people would eventually know. I don't trust *anyone* outside of a very, very select few people to keep information secret. I fear my peers will use it as an opportunity to pry open my romantic life and pursue the relationship or set up the interpersonal situation for me, The other person may believe that I have recruited an army of my friends to try to force them to be with me and make them feel pressured.\\n\\nI'm also wary of asking mutual friends for advice on dealing with another person since I fear receiving downright bad advice and falling prey to it. I remember during one of my high school crushes, when I asked a lot people for advice (as usual) and listened to advice that fit with my hopes of eventually dating her, while ignoring advice that went against these beliefs. It just so happened that I ended up following advice that was just downright bad, such as obsessing from afar, treating the situation as a competition with other potential romantic interests, and getting other people involved, while I ignored advice that would have actually been useful, such as moving on.\\n\\nI also fear that asking mutual friends for advice would present me as \\\"weak\\\", unconfident, and unable to handle crushes and other non-romantic social situations myself, and therefore someone no one should date or otherwise be close friends with. People usually say the following in terms of pursuing a romantic relationship: why would you do all this work of telling a bunch of people about your crush and trying to recruit an army of friends to build the relationship for you, when you could just go up and bite the bullet by talking to your crush and asking them out? If you spend all your time and energy asking a bunch of people about dealing with your crush, you're just circumventing the problem by obsessing from afar and not getting anywhere, and you could just use that same energy to ask them out. Girls want boys who are confident and therefore can handle crushes. Therefore, if you ask mutual friends for advice on crushes/interpersonal situations, you are not confident and therefore you are not relationship material.\\n\\nPlease change this view. I feel that this view should be changed I may have a strong network of friends but I believe this view is preventing me from using it to its full potential. I feel like I have to carry a huge burden in interpersonal relationships with little to no guidance and risking messing things up without having outside opinions/judgment to guide me and therefore feeling better not doing anything at all. It just feels like a missing part of my interpersonal relationships/interpersonal situations. It just feels wrong to have a support system that could potentially be useful but also something I refuse to use. I could seek advice from parents/my therapist/random internet strangers on Reddit, but while I don't think they're incorrect and I don't mean this as a personal offense to them, I feel that they're \\\"out of touch\\\" from my perspective mainly because they're older than me and may not know me personally or be relatable as much as someone my own age.\\n\\nAlright Reddit, change my view.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-08\",\n \"id\": \"144i8zs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: You should NEVER ask mutual friends about a specific person or to check on them\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/144i8zs/cmv_you_should_never_ask_mutual_friends_about_a/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Superbooper24\",\n \"body\": \"I’m guessing you are talking about like romantic relationships and this opinion is built on ur own personal experiences. Tbh a lot of ur description is a lot of the same and is super long. However, I think it’s okay to ask a mutual friend to be like hey what do you think x would want for a present because I want it to be a surprise or idk seeing if they are okay or something bc they haven’t responded to ur calls or text messages or something.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-08\",\n \"id\": \"jnfnd9w\",\n \"parent_id\": \"144i8zs\",\n \"score\": 4,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"CEO_Of_Rejection_99\",\n \"body\": \"I noticed a post on a relationship advice subreddit about a coworker who was avoiding the OP, and the top comment said OP should \\\"check on said friend through a mutual friend.\\\"\\n\\nThis unlocked a realization in my head. I feel that I should NEVER ask mutual friends about a specific person or for advice on dealing with that person. Here's my reasoning, and correct me if I'm wrong:\\n\\nIf you're pursuing a romantic relationship with another person or are attracted to them, you should NEVER tell other people about your crush (at least, if you're not close with them) or otherwise get other people directly involved in the relationship, because it could make things awkward for the other person. In my experience, people tend to get riled up about crushes/potential romantic interests REALLY quickly. I have also unknowingly extended this logic to other interpersonal situations that are outside the strictly romantic realm as well. Therefore, crushes, and other interpersonal situations by extension, shall NEVER be released to your peers, and you have to take care of it by yourself.\\n\\nI learned this the hard way during my high school crushes. Since I was young and didn't know of any alternative method to seek guidance, I told a lot of my peers (except the actual person I liked) that I had a crush on that person and asked them for advice. To be fair, I wasn't actually close with these people and only told them out of hope that they would leverage their connection with the person to get them to like me back or at least offer some advice as to how to pursue the relationship. This knowledge would eventually spread around and get back to the other person. This made things awkward for the other person and made them feel pressured. Some of these crushes would also later block me on social media.\\n\\nThis is why I become extremely uncomfortable and get wary of answering my friends if they ask if I have a crush on another person, regardless of whether or not I actually have a potential romantic interest in mind, even if they say they'll keep it confidential. I remember telling some of my peers \\\"please don't tell anyone else this\\\" when asking them for advice on my crushes (again, to be fair, I wasn't very close with them), and yet, other people would eventually know. I don't trust *anyone* outside of a very, very select few people to keep information secret. I fear my peers will use it as an opportunity to pry open my romantic life and pursue the relationship or set up the interpersonal situation for me, The other person may believe that I have recruited an army of my friends to try to force them to be with me and make them feel pressured.\\n\\nI'm also wary of asking mutual friends for advice on dealing with another person since I fear receiving downright bad advice and falling prey to it. I remember during one of my high school crushes, when I asked a lot people for advice (as usual) and listened to advice that fit with my hopes of eventually dating her, while ignoring advice that went against these beliefs. It just so happened that I ended up following advice that was just downright bad, such as obsessing from afar, treating the situation as a competition with other potential romantic interests, and getting other people involved, while I ignored advice that would have actually been useful, such as moving on.\\n\\nI also fear that asking mutual friends for advice would present me as \\\"weak\\\", unconfident, and unable to handle crushes and other non-romantic social situations myself, and therefore someone no one should date or otherwise be close friends with. People usually say the following in terms of pursuing a romantic relationship: why would you do all this work of telling a bunch of people about your crush and trying to recruit an army of friends to build the relationship for you, when you could just go up and bite the bullet by talking to your crush and asking them out? If you spend all your time and energy asking a bunch of people about dealing with your crush, you're just circumventing the problem by obsessing from afar and not getting anywhere, and you could just use that same energy to ask them out. Girls want boys who are confident and therefore can handle crushes. Therefore, if you ask mutual friends for advice on crushes/interpersonal situations, you are not confident and therefore you are not relationship material.\\n\\nPlease change this view. I feel that this view should be changed I may have a strong network of friends but I believe this view is preventing me from using it to its full potential. I feel like I have to carry a huge burden in interpersonal relationships with little to no guidance and risking messing things up without having outside opinions/judgment to guide me and therefore feeling better not doing anything at all. It just feels like a missing part of my interpersonal relationships/interpersonal situations. It just feels wrong to have a support system that could potentially be useful but also something I refuse to use. I could seek advice from parents/my therapist/random internet strangers on Reddit, but while I don't think they're incorrect and I don't mean this as a personal offense to them, I feel that they're \\\"out of touch\\\" from my perspective mainly because they're older than me and may not know me personally or be relatable as much as someone my own age.\\n\\nAlright Reddit, change my view.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-08\",\n \"id\": \"144i8zs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: You should NEVER ask mutual friends about a specific person or to check on them\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/144i8zs/cmv_you_should_never_ask_mutual_friends_about_a/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Lusamommy\",\n \"body\": \"The big thing is trust with the people you tell about your personal life. For example, I've asked close buddies of mine to get me a connection with their friends who I'm not in the same circle as. They didn't go blab about it to everyone on earth, and most importantly, I followed up on it before it had a chance to make it's way around.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-08\",\n \"id\": \"jnfofqp\",\n \"parent_id\": \"144i8zs\",\n \"score\": 4,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"CEO_Of_Rejection_99\",\n \"body\": \"I noticed a post on a relationship advice subreddit about a coworker who was avoiding the OP, and the top comment said OP should \\\"check on said friend through a mutual friend.\\\"\\n\\nThis unlocked a realization in my head. I feel that I should NEVER ask mutual friends about a specific person or for advice on dealing with that person. Here's my reasoning, and correct me if I'm wrong:\\n\\nIf you're pursuing a romantic relationship with another person or are attracted to them, you should NEVER tell other people about your crush (at least, if you're not close with them) or otherwise get other people directly involved in the relationship, because it could make things awkward for the other person. In my experience, people tend to get riled up about crushes/potential romantic interests REALLY quickly. I have also unknowingly extended this logic to other interpersonal situations that are outside the strictly romantic realm as well. Therefore, crushes, and other interpersonal situations by extension, shall NEVER be released to your peers, and you have to take care of it by yourself.\\n\\nI learned this the hard way during my high school crushes. Since I was young and didn't know of any alternative method to seek guidance, I told a lot of my peers (except the actual person I liked) that I had a crush on that person and asked them for advice. To be fair, I wasn't actually close with these people and only told them out of hope that they would leverage their connection with the person to get them to like me back or at least offer some advice as to how to pursue the relationship. This knowledge would eventually spread around and get back to the other person. This made things awkward for the other person and made them feel pressured. Some of these crushes would also later block me on social media.\\n\\nThis is why I become extremely uncomfortable and get wary of answering my friends if they ask if I have a crush on another person, regardless of whether or not I actually have a potential romantic interest in mind, even if they say they'll keep it confidential. I remember telling some of my peers \\\"please don't tell anyone else this\\\" when asking them for advice on my crushes (again, to be fair, I wasn't very close with them), and yet, other people would eventually know. I don't trust *anyone* outside of a very, very select few people to keep information secret. I fear my peers will use it as an opportunity to pry open my romantic life and pursue the relationship or set up the interpersonal situation for me, The other person may believe that I have recruited an army of my friends to try to force them to be with me and make them feel pressured.\\n\\nI'm also wary of asking mutual friends for advice on dealing with another person since I fear receiving downright bad advice and falling prey to it. I remember during one of my high school crushes, when I asked a lot people for advice (as usual) and listened to advice that fit with my hopes of eventually dating her, while ignoring advice that went against these beliefs. It just so happened that I ended up following advice that was just downright bad, such as obsessing from afar, treating the situation as a competition with other potential romantic interests, and getting other people involved, while I ignored advice that would have actually been useful, such as moving on.\\n\\nI also fear that asking mutual friends for advice would present me as \\\"weak\\\", unconfident, and unable to handle crushes and other non-romantic social situations myself, and therefore someone no one should date or otherwise be close friends with. People usually say the following in terms of pursuing a romantic relationship: why would you do all this work of telling a bunch of people about your crush and trying to recruit an army of friends to build the relationship for you, when you could just go up and bite the bullet by talking to your crush and asking them out? If you spend all your time and energy asking a bunch of people about dealing with your crush, you're just circumventing the problem by obsessing from afar and not getting anywhere, and you could just use that same energy to ask them out. Girls want boys who are confident and therefore can handle crushes. Therefore, if you ask mutual friends for advice on crushes/interpersonal situations, you are not confident and therefore you are not relationship material.\\n\\nPlease change this view. I feel that this view should be changed I may have a strong network of friends but I believe this view is preventing me from using it to its full potential. I feel like I have to carry a huge burden in interpersonal relationships with little to no guidance and risking messing things up without having outside opinions/judgment to guide me and therefore feeling better not doing anything at all. It just feels like a missing part of my interpersonal relationships/interpersonal situations. It just feels wrong to have a support system that could potentially be useful but also something I refuse to use. I could seek advice from parents/my therapist/random internet strangers on Reddit, but while I don't think they're incorrect and I don't mean this as a personal offense to them, I feel that they're \\\"out of touch\\\" from my perspective mainly because they're older than me and may not know me personally or be relatable as much as someone my own age.\\n\\nAlright Reddit, change my view.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-08\",\n \"id\": \"144i8zs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: You should NEVER ask mutual friends about a specific person or to check on them\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/144i8zs/cmv_you_should_never_ask_mutual_friends_about_a/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Nrdman\",\n \"body\": \"This sounds more like you don’t have trust worthy friends. Obviously if you don’t trust someone you shouldn’t tell them something that you don’t want leaked. I see no harm telling a friend that is trustworthy\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-08\",\n \"id\": \"jnfql11\",\n \"parent_id\": \"144i8zs\",\n \"score\": 3,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"CEO_Of_Rejection_99\",\n \"body\": \"I noticed a post on a relationship advice subreddit about a coworker who was avoiding the OP, and the top comment said OP should \\\"check on said friend through a mutual friend.\\\"\\n\\nThis unlocked a realization in my head. I feel that I should NEVER ask mutual friends about a specific person or for advice on dealing with that person. Here's my reasoning, and correct me if I'm wrong:\\n\\nIf you're pursuing a romantic relationship with another person or are attracted to them, you should NEVER tell other people about your crush (at least, if you're not close with them) or otherwise get other people directly involved in the relationship, because it could make things awkward for the other person. In my experience, people tend to get riled up about crushes/potential romantic interests REALLY quickly. I have also unknowingly extended this logic to other interpersonal situations that are outside the strictly romantic realm as well. Therefore, crushes, and other interpersonal situations by extension, shall NEVER be released to your peers, and you have to take care of it by yourself.\\n\\nI learned this the hard way during my high school crushes. Since I was young and didn't know of any alternative method to seek guidance, I told a lot of my peers (except the actual person I liked) that I had a crush on that person and asked them for advice. To be fair, I wasn't actually close with these people and only told them out of hope that they would leverage their connection with the person to get them to like me back or at least offer some advice as to how to pursue the relationship. This knowledge would eventually spread around and get back to the other person. This made things awkward for the other person and made them feel pressured. Some of these crushes would also later block me on social media.\\n\\nThis is why I become extremely uncomfortable and get wary of answering my friends if they ask if I have a crush on another person, regardless of whether or not I actually have a potential romantic interest in mind, even if they say they'll keep it confidential. I remember telling some of my peers \\\"please don't tell anyone else this\\\" when asking them for advice on my crushes (again, to be fair, I wasn't very close with them), and yet, other people would eventually know. I don't trust *anyone* outside of a very, very select few people to keep information secret. I fear my peers will use it as an opportunity to pry open my romantic life and pursue the relationship or set up the interpersonal situation for me, The other person may believe that I have recruited an army of my friends to try to force them to be with me and make them feel pressured.\\n\\nI'm also wary of asking mutual friends for advice on dealing with another person since I fear receiving downright bad advice and falling prey to it. I remember during one of my high school crushes, when I asked a lot people for advice (as usual) and listened to advice that fit with my hopes of eventually dating her, while ignoring advice that went against these beliefs. It just so happened that I ended up following advice that was just downright bad, such as obsessing from afar, treating the situation as a competition with other potential romantic interests, and getting other people involved, while I ignored advice that would have actually been useful, such as moving on.\\n\\nI also fear that asking mutual friends for advice would present me as \\\"weak\\\", unconfident, and unable to handle crushes and other non-romantic social situations myself, and therefore someone no one should date or otherwise be close friends with. People usually say the following in terms of pursuing a romantic relationship: why would you do all this work of telling a bunch of people about your crush and trying to recruit an army of friends to build the relationship for you, when you could just go up and bite the bullet by talking to your crush and asking them out? If you spend all your time and energy asking a bunch of people about dealing with your crush, you're just circumventing the problem by obsessing from afar and not getting anywhere, and you could just use that same energy to ask them out. Girls want boys who are confident and therefore can handle crushes. Therefore, if you ask mutual friends for advice on crushes/interpersonal situations, you are not confident and therefore you are not relationship material.\\n\\nPlease change this view. I feel that this view should be changed I may have a strong network of friends but I believe this view is preventing me from using it to its full potential. I feel like I have to carry a huge burden in interpersonal relationships with little to no guidance and risking messing things up without having outside opinions/judgment to guide me and therefore feeling better not doing anything at all. It just feels like a missing part of my interpersonal relationships/interpersonal situations. It just feels wrong to have a support system that could potentially be useful but also something I refuse to use. I could seek advice from parents/my therapist/random internet strangers on Reddit, but while I don't think they're incorrect and I don't mean this as a personal offense to them, I feel that they're \\\"out of touch\\\" from my perspective mainly because they're older than me and may not know me personally or be relatable as much as someone my own age.\\n\\nAlright Reddit, change my view.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-08\",\n \"id\": \"144i8zs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: You should NEVER ask mutual friends about a specific person or to check on them\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/144i8zs/cmv_you_should_never_ask_mutual_friends_about_a/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Annual_Ad_1536\",\n \"body\": \"You are waayyy wayyy wayyy overthinking this. After college when your friends have a crush on you you don't care. You simply take it as a compliment and if you don't see it working you prepare for how to let them know. \\n\\n\\nIt's not that your friend would see you as weak, or your crush would, if you ask a third party, it shows you are way too invested in something that isn't that important, which shows you don't have a lot going on, which is likely to make the person reject you. \\n\\n\\nA better approach is perhaps to not ask anything, but simply continue being friends and drop hints, you don't need advice. There is no secret bag of tricks. It is about listening well to the other person and sharing more and more memorable experiences with them. Eventually you guys will just want to make out if you like each other.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-08\",\n \"id\": \"jnftfnm\",\n \"parent_id\": \"144i8zs\",\n \"score\": 21,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"IndependenceAway8724\",\n \"body\": \"Exactly. As a full-grown adult, if a friend tried to talk to me about a \\\"crush\\\", I wouldn't see it as weak so much as juvenile\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-08\",\n \"id\": \"jng0cew\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jnftfnm\",\n \"score\": 4,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"CEO_Of_Rejection_99\",\n \"body\": \"I noticed a post on a relationship advice subreddit about a coworker who was avoiding the OP, and the top comment said OP should \\\"check on said friend through a mutual friend.\\\"\\n\\nThis unlocked a realization in my head. I feel that I should NEVER ask mutual friends about a specific person or for advice on dealing with that person. Here's my reasoning, and correct me if I'm wrong:\\n\\nIf you're pursuing a romantic relationship with another person or are attracted to them, you should NEVER tell other people about your crush (at least, if you're not close with them) or otherwise get other people directly involved in the relationship, because it could make things awkward for the other person. In my experience, people tend to get riled up about crushes/potential romantic interests REALLY quickly. I have also unknowingly extended this logic to other interpersonal situations that are outside the strictly romantic realm as well. Therefore, crushes, and other interpersonal situations by extension, shall NEVER be released to your peers, and you have to take care of it by yourself.\\n\\nI learned this the hard way during my high school crushes. Since I was young and didn't know of any alternative method to seek guidance, I told a lot of my peers (except the actual person I liked) that I had a crush on that person and asked them for advice. To be fair, I wasn't actually close with these people and only told them out of hope that they would leverage their connection with the person to get them to like me back or at least offer some advice as to how to pursue the relationship. This knowledge would eventually spread around and get back to the other person. This made things awkward for the other person and made them feel pressured. Some of these crushes would also later block me on social media.\\n\\nThis is why I become extremely uncomfortable and get wary of answering my friends if they ask if I have a crush on another person, regardless of whether or not I actually have a potential romantic interest in mind, even if they say they'll keep it confidential. I remember telling some of my peers \\\"please don't tell anyone else this\\\" when asking them for advice on my crushes (again, to be fair, I wasn't very close with them), and yet, other people would eventually know. I don't trust *anyone* outside of a very, very select few people to keep information secret. I fear my peers will use it as an opportunity to pry open my romantic life and pursue the relationship or set up the interpersonal situation for me, The other person may believe that I have recruited an army of my friends to try to force them to be with me and make them feel pressured.\\n\\nI'm also wary of asking mutual friends for advice on dealing with another person since I fear receiving downright bad advice and falling prey to it. I remember during one of my high school crushes, when I asked a lot people for advice (as usual) and listened to advice that fit with my hopes of eventually dating her, while ignoring advice that went against these beliefs. It just so happened that I ended up following advice that was just downright bad, such as obsessing from afar, treating the situation as a competition with other potential romantic interests, and getting other people involved, while I ignored advice that would have actually been useful, such as moving on.\\n\\nI also fear that asking mutual friends for advice would present me as \\\"weak\\\", unconfident, and unable to handle crushes and other non-romantic social situations myself, and therefore someone no one should date or otherwise be close friends with. People usually say the following in terms of pursuing a romantic relationship: why would you do all this work of telling a bunch of people about your crush and trying to recruit an army of friends to build the relationship for you, when you could just go up and bite the bullet by talking to your crush and asking them out? If you spend all your time and energy asking a bunch of people about dealing with your crush, you're just circumventing the problem by obsessing from afar and not getting anywhere, and you could just use that same energy to ask them out. Girls want boys who are confident and therefore can handle crushes. Therefore, if you ask mutual friends for advice on crushes/interpersonal situations, you are not confident and therefore you are not relationship material.\\n\\nPlease change this view. I feel that this view should be changed I may have a strong network of friends but I believe this view is preventing me from using it to its full potential. I feel like I have to carry a huge burden in interpersonal relationships with little to no guidance and risking messing things up without having outside opinions/judgment to guide me and therefore feeling better not doing anything at all. It just feels like a missing part of my interpersonal relationships/interpersonal situations. It just feels wrong to have a support system that could potentially be useful but also something I refuse to use. I could seek advice from parents/my therapist/random internet strangers on Reddit, but while I don't think they're incorrect and I don't mean this as a personal offense to them, I feel that they're \\\"out of touch\\\" from my perspective mainly because they're older than me and may not know me personally or be relatable as much as someone my own age.\\n\\nAlright Reddit, change my view.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-08\",\n \"id\": \"144i8zs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: You should NEVER ask mutual friends about a specific person or to check on them\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/144i8zs/cmv_you_should_never_ask_mutual_friends_about_a/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"cbdqs\",\n \"body\": \"I think you misinterpreted the advice. If you don't know someone and are scared of them then you can ask a friend who knows them better than you do about them. That's all. If you are more scared of the intermediate person then don't involve them! If you can't think of anyone you already know who knows them this advice is not helpful.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-08\",\n \"id\": \"jnfvo42\",\n \"parent_id\": \"144i8zs\",\n \"score\": 3,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"CEO_Of_Rejection_99\",\n \"body\": \"I noticed a post on a relationship advice subreddit about a coworker who was avoiding the OP, and the top comment said OP should \\\"check on said friend through a mutual friend.\\\"\\n\\nThis unlocked a realization in my head. I feel that I should NEVER ask mutual friends about a specific person or for advice on dealing with that person. Here's my reasoning, and correct me if I'm wrong:\\n\\nIf you're pursuing a romantic relationship with another person or are attracted to them, you should NEVER tell other people about your crush (at least, if you're not close with them) or otherwise get other people directly involved in the relationship, because it could make things awkward for the other person. In my experience, people tend to get riled up about crushes/potential romantic interests REALLY quickly. I have also unknowingly extended this logic to other interpersonal situations that are outside the strictly romantic realm as well. Therefore, crushes, and other interpersonal situations by extension, shall NEVER be released to your peers, and you have to take care of it by yourself.\\n\\nI learned this the hard way during my high school crushes. Since I was young and didn't know of any alternative method to seek guidance, I told a lot of my peers (except the actual person I liked) that I had a crush on that person and asked them for advice. To be fair, I wasn't actually close with these people and only told them out of hope that they would leverage their connection with the person to get them to like me back or at least offer some advice as to how to pursue the relationship. This knowledge would eventually spread around and get back to the other person. This made things awkward for the other person and made them feel pressured. Some of these crushes would also later block me on social media.\\n\\nThis is why I become extremely uncomfortable and get wary of answering my friends if they ask if I have a crush on another person, regardless of whether or not I actually have a potential romantic interest in mind, even if they say they'll keep it confidential. I remember telling some of my peers \\\"please don't tell anyone else this\\\" when asking them for advice on my crushes (again, to be fair, I wasn't very close with them), and yet, other people would eventually know. I don't trust *anyone* outside of a very, very select few people to keep information secret. I fear my peers will use it as an opportunity to pry open my romantic life and pursue the relationship or set up the interpersonal situation for me, The other person may believe that I have recruited an army of my friends to try to force them to be with me and make them feel pressured.\\n\\nI'm also wary of asking mutual friends for advice on dealing with another person since I fear receiving downright bad advice and falling prey to it. I remember during one of my high school crushes, when I asked a lot people for advice (as usual) and listened to advice that fit with my hopes of eventually dating her, while ignoring advice that went against these beliefs. It just so happened that I ended up following advice that was just downright bad, such as obsessing from afar, treating the situation as a competition with other potential romantic interests, and getting other people involved, while I ignored advice that would have actually been useful, such as moving on.\\n\\nI also fear that asking mutual friends for advice would present me as \\\"weak\\\", unconfident, and unable to handle crushes and other non-romantic social situations myself, and therefore someone no one should date or otherwise be close friends with. People usually say the following in terms of pursuing a romantic relationship: why would you do all this work of telling a bunch of people about your crush and trying to recruit an army of friends to build the relationship for you, when you could just go up and bite the bullet by talking to your crush and asking them out? If you spend all your time and energy asking a bunch of people about dealing with your crush, you're just circumventing the problem by obsessing from afar and not getting anywhere, and you could just use that same energy to ask them out. Girls want boys who are confident and therefore can handle crushes. Therefore, if you ask mutual friends for advice on crushes/interpersonal situations, you are not confident and therefore you are not relationship material.\\n\\nPlease change this view. I feel that this view should be changed I may have a strong network of friends but I believe this view is preventing me from using it to its full potential. I feel like I have to carry a huge burden in interpersonal relationships with little to no guidance and risking messing things up without having outside opinions/judgment to guide me and therefore feeling better not doing anything at all. It just feels like a missing part of my interpersonal relationships/interpersonal situations. It just feels wrong to have a support system that could potentially be useful but also something I refuse to use. I could seek advice from parents/my therapist/random internet strangers on Reddit, but while I don't think they're incorrect and I don't mean this as a personal offense to them, I feel that they're \\\"out of touch\\\" from my perspective mainly because they're older than me and may not know me personally or be relatable as much as someone my own age.\\n\\nAlright Reddit, change my view.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-08\",\n \"id\": \"144i8zs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: You should NEVER ask mutual friends about a specific person or to check on them\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/144i8zs/cmv_you_should_never_ask_mutual_friends_about_a/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"dantheman91\",\n \"body\": \"If I made friend A upset, can I not ask friend B to check on friend A, where you doing so would make them more upset?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-08\",\n \"id\": \"jnfwyxu\",\n \"parent_id\": \"144i8zs\",\n \"score\": 3,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"CEO_Of_Rejection_99\",\n \"body\": \"I noticed a post on a relationship advice subreddit about a coworker who was avoiding the OP, and the top comment said OP should \\\"check on said friend through a mutual friend.\\\"\\n\\nThis unlocked a realization in my head. I feel that I should NEVER ask mutual friends about a specific person or for advice on dealing with that person. Here's my reasoning, and correct me if I'm wrong:\\n\\nIf you're pursuing a romantic relationship with another person or are attracted to them, you should NEVER tell other people about your crush (at least, if you're not close with them) or otherwise get other people directly involved in the relationship, because it could make things awkward for the other person. In my experience, people tend to get riled up about crushes/potential romantic interests REALLY quickly. I have also unknowingly extended this logic to other interpersonal situations that are outside the strictly romantic realm as well. Therefore, crushes, and other interpersonal situations by extension, shall NEVER be released to your peers, and you have to take care of it by yourself.\\n\\nI learned this the hard way during my high school crushes. Since I was young and didn't know of any alternative method to seek guidance, I told a lot of my peers (except the actual person I liked) that I had a crush on that person and asked them for advice. To be fair, I wasn't actually close with these people and only told them out of hope that they would leverage their connection with the person to get them to like me back or at least offer some advice as to how to pursue the relationship. This knowledge would eventually spread around and get back to the other person. This made things awkward for the other person and made them feel pressured. Some of these crushes would also later block me on social media.\\n\\nThis is why I become extremely uncomfortable and get wary of answering my friends if they ask if I have a crush on another person, regardless of whether or not I actually have a potential romantic interest in mind, even if they say they'll keep it confidential. I remember telling some of my peers \\\"please don't tell anyone else this\\\" when asking them for advice on my crushes (again, to be fair, I wasn't very close with them), and yet, other people would eventually know. I don't trust *anyone* outside of a very, very select few people to keep information secret. I fear my peers will use it as an opportunity to pry open my romantic life and pursue the relationship or set up the interpersonal situation for me, The other person may believe that I have recruited an army of my friends to try to force them to be with me and make them feel pressured.\\n\\nI'm also wary of asking mutual friends for advice on dealing with another person since I fear receiving downright bad advice and falling prey to it. I remember during one of my high school crushes, when I asked a lot people for advice (as usual) and listened to advice that fit with my hopes of eventually dating her, while ignoring advice that went against these beliefs. It just so happened that I ended up following advice that was just downright bad, such as obsessing from afar, treating the situation as a competition with other potential romantic interests, and getting other people involved, while I ignored advice that would have actually been useful, such as moving on.\\n\\nI also fear that asking mutual friends for advice would present me as \\\"weak\\\", unconfident, and unable to handle crushes and other non-romantic social situations myself, and therefore someone no one should date or otherwise be close friends with. People usually say the following in terms of pursuing a romantic relationship: why would you do all this work of telling a bunch of people about your crush and trying to recruit an army of friends to build the relationship for you, when you could just go up and bite the bullet by talking to your crush and asking them out? If you spend all your time and energy asking a bunch of people about dealing with your crush, you're just circumventing the problem by obsessing from afar and not getting anywhere, and you could just use that same energy to ask them out. Girls want boys who are confident and therefore can handle crushes. Therefore, if you ask mutual friends for advice on crushes/interpersonal situations, you are not confident and therefore you are not relationship material.\\n\\nPlease change this view. I feel that this view should be changed I may have a strong network of friends but I believe this view is preventing me from using it to its full potential. I feel like I have to carry a huge burden in interpersonal relationships with little to no guidance and risking messing things up without having outside opinions/judgment to guide me and therefore feeling better not doing anything at all. It just feels like a missing part of my interpersonal relationships/interpersonal situations. It just feels wrong to have a support system that could potentially be useful but also something I refuse to use. I could seek advice from parents/my therapist/random internet strangers on Reddit, but while I don't think they're incorrect and I don't mean this as a personal offense to them, I feel that they're \\\"out of touch\\\" from my perspective mainly because they're older than me and may not know me personally or be relatable as much as someone my own age.\\n\\nAlright Reddit, change my view.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-08\",\n \"id\": \"144i8zs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: You should NEVER ask mutual friends about a specific person or to check on them\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/144i8zs/cmv_you_should_never_ask_mutual_friends_about_a/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"StrangerThanGene\",\n \"body\": \">I feel that I should NEVER ask mutual friends about a specific person or for advice on dealing with that person.\\n\\nA good friend of mine got divorced a few months ago. We hadn't heard much from him, not surprisingly- we wanted to give him space to handle his stuff. Then a mutual I ran into shortly after mentioned that he saw him looking pretty rough at a meeting.\\n\\nI called him up and just shot the shit for a few minutes. Let him know I was going to grill that week and I needed his help getting it set up for summer. He showed up, looking great. Cleaned up, perked up, great conversation. He mentioned on his way out a thank you for inviting him over because he had been really scared to reach out to people because he was worried about people taking sides and he didn't want to cause any problems.\\n\\ntl;dr\\n\\nSometimes friends hide because they're scared. And sometimes friends should go find them.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-08\",\n \"id\": \"jng5gy0\",\n \"parent_id\": \"144i8zs\",\n \"score\": 3,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"CEO_Of_Rejection_99\",\n \"body\": \"I noticed a post on a relationship advice subreddit about a coworker who was avoiding the OP, and the top comment said OP should \\\"check on said friend through a mutual friend.\\\"\\n\\nThis unlocked a realization in my head. I feel that I should NEVER ask mutual friends about a specific person or for advice on dealing with that person. Here's my reasoning, and correct me if I'm wrong:\\n\\nIf you're pursuing a romantic relationship with another person or are attracted to them, you should NEVER tell other people about your crush (at least, if you're not close with them) or otherwise get other people directly involved in the relationship, because it could make things awkward for the other person. In my experience, people tend to get riled up about crushes/potential romantic interests REALLY quickly. I have also unknowingly extended this logic to other interpersonal situations that are outside the strictly romantic realm as well. Therefore, crushes, and other interpersonal situations by extension, shall NEVER be released to your peers, and you have to take care of it by yourself.\\n\\nI learned this the hard way during my high school crushes. Since I was young and didn't know of any alternative method to seek guidance, I told a lot of my peers (except the actual person I liked) that I had a crush on that person and asked them for advice. To be fair, I wasn't actually close with these people and only told them out of hope that they would leverage their connection with the person to get them to like me back or at least offer some advice as to how to pursue the relationship. This knowledge would eventually spread around and get back to the other person. This made things awkward for the other person and made them feel pressured. Some of these crushes would also later block me on social media.\\n\\nThis is why I become extremely uncomfortable and get wary of answering my friends if they ask if I have a crush on another person, regardless of whether or not I actually have a potential romantic interest in mind, even if they say they'll keep it confidential. I remember telling some of my peers \\\"please don't tell anyone else this\\\" when asking them for advice on my crushes (again, to be fair, I wasn't very close with them), and yet, other people would eventually know. I don't trust *anyone* outside of a very, very select few people to keep information secret. I fear my peers will use it as an opportunity to pry open my romantic life and pursue the relationship or set up the interpersonal situation for me, The other person may believe that I have recruited an army of my friends to try to force them to be with me and make them feel pressured.\\n\\nI'm also wary of asking mutual friends for advice on dealing with another person since I fear receiving downright bad advice and falling prey to it. I remember during one of my high school crushes, when I asked a lot people for advice (as usual) and listened to advice that fit with my hopes of eventually dating her, while ignoring advice that went against these beliefs. It just so happened that I ended up following advice that was just downright bad, such as obsessing from afar, treating the situation as a competition with other potential romantic interests, and getting other people involved, while I ignored advice that would have actually been useful, such as moving on.\\n\\nI also fear that asking mutual friends for advice would present me as \\\"weak\\\", unconfident, and unable to handle crushes and other non-romantic social situations myself, and therefore someone no one should date or otherwise be close friends with. People usually say the following in terms of pursuing a romantic relationship: why would you do all this work of telling a bunch of people about your crush and trying to recruit an army of friends to build the relationship for you, when you could just go up and bite the bullet by talking to your crush and asking them out? If you spend all your time and energy asking a bunch of people about dealing with your crush, you're just circumventing the problem by obsessing from afar and not getting anywhere, and you could just use that same energy to ask them out. Girls want boys who are confident and therefore can handle crushes. Therefore, if you ask mutual friends for advice on crushes/interpersonal situations, you are not confident and therefore you are not relationship material.\\n\\nPlease change this view. I feel that this view should be changed I may have a strong network of friends but I believe this view is preventing me from using it to its full potential. I feel like I have to carry a huge burden in interpersonal relationships with little to no guidance and risking messing things up without having outside opinions/judgment to guide me and therefore feeling better not doing anything at all. It just feels like a missing part of my interpersonal relationships/interpersonal situations. It just feels wrong to have a support system that could potentially be useful but also something I refuse to use. I could seek advice from parents/my therapist/random internet strangers on Reddit, but while I don't think they're incorrect and I don't mean this as a personal offense to them, I feel that they're \\\"out of touch\\\" from my perspective mainly because they're older than me and may not know me personally or be relatable as much as someone my own age.\\n\\nAlright Reddit, change my view.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-08\",\n \"id\": \"144i8zs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: You should NEVER ask mutual friends about a specific person or to check on them\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/144i8zs/cmv_you_should_never_ask_mutual_friends_about_a/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Klutzy_Juggernaut_76\",\n \"body\": \"Looks like CEO\\\\_Of\\\\_Rejection\\\\_99 has changed their view, but don't ask me to confirm with our mutual friends ;)\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-09\",\n \"id\": \"jnhxbcb\",\n \"parent_id\": \"144i8zs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CEO_Of_Rejection_99\",\n \"body\": \"Oh no....\\n\\n/j\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-09\",\n \"id\": \"jnkwpjn\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jnhxbcb\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"CEO_Of_Rejection_99\",\n \"body\": \"I noticed a post on a relationship advice subreddit about a coworker who was avoiding the OP, and the top comment said OP should \\\"check on said friend through a mutual friend.\\\"\\n\\nThis unlocked a realization in my head. I feel that I should NEVER ask mutual friends about a specific person or for advice on dealing with that person. Here's my reasoning, and correct me if I'm wrong:\\n\\nIf you're pursuing a romantic relationship with another person or are attracted to them, you should NEVER tell other people about your crush (at least, if you're not close with them) or otherwise get other people directly involved in the relationship, because it could make things awkward for the other person. In my experience, people tend to get riled up about crushes/potential romantic interests REALLY quickly. I have also unknowingly extended this logic to other interpersonal situations that are outside the strictly romantic realm as well. Therefore, crushes, and other interpersonal situations by extension, shall NEVER be released to your peers, and you have to take care of it by yourself.\\n\\nI learned this the hard way during my high school crushes. Since I was young and didn't know of any alternative method to seek guidance, I told a lot of my peers (except the actual person I liked) that I had a crush on that person and asked them for advice. To be fair, I wasn't actually close with these people and only told them out of hope that they would leverage their connection with the person to get them to like me back or at least offer some advice as to how to pursue the relationship. This knowledge would eventually spread around and get back to the other person. This made things awkward for the other person and made them feel pressured. Some of these crushes would also later block me on social media.\\n\\nThis is why I become extremely uncomfortable and get wary of answering my friends if they ask if I have a crush on another person, regardless of whether or not I actually have a potential romantic interest in mind, even if they say they'll keep it confidential. I remember telling some of my peers \\\"please don't tell anyone else this\\\" when asking them for advice on my crushes (again, to be fair, I wasn't very close with them), and yet, other people would eventually know. I don't trust *anyone* outside of a very, very select few people to keep information secret. I fear my peers will use it as an opportunity to pry open my romantic life and pursue the relationship or set up the interpersonal situation for me, The other person may believe that I have recruited an army of my friends to try to force them to be with me and make them feel pressured.\\n\\nI'm also wary of asking mutual friends for advice on dealing with another person since I fear receiving downright bad advice and falling prey to it. I remember during one of my high school crushes, when I asked a lot people for advice (as usual) and listened to advice that fit with my hopes of eventually dating her, while ignoring advice that went against these beliefs. It just so happened that I ended up following advice that was just downright bad, such as obsessing from afar, treating the situation as a competition with other potential romantic interests, and getting other people involved, while I ignored advice that would have actually been useful, such as moving on.\\n\\nI also fear that asking mutual friends for advice would present me as \\\"weak\\\", unconfident, and unable to handle crushes and other non-romantic social situations myself, and therefore someone no one should date or otherwise be close friends with. People usually say the following in terms of pursuing a romantic relationship: why would you do all this work of telling a bunch of people about your crush and trying to recruit an army of friends to build the relationship for you, when you could just go up and bite the bullet by talking to your crush and asking them out? If you spend all your time and energy asking a bunch of people about dealing with your crush, you're just circumventing the problem by obsessing from afar and not getting anywhere, and you could just use that same energy to ask them out. Girls want boys who are confident and therefore can handle crushes. Therefore, if you ask mutual friends for advice on crushes/interpersonal situations, you are not confident and therefore you are not relationship material.\\n\\nPlease change this view. I feel that this view should be changed I may have a strong network of friends but I believe this view is preventing me from using it to its full potential. I feel like I have to carry a huge burden in interpersonal relationships with little to no guidance and risking messing things up without having outside opinions/judgment to guide me and therefore feeling better not doing anything at all. It just feels like a missing part of my interpersonal relationships/interpersonal situations. It just feels wrong to have a support system that could potentially be useful but also something I refuse to use. I could seek advice from parents/my therapist/random internet strangers on Reddit, but while I don't think they're incorrect and I don't mean this as a personal offense to them, I feel that they're \\\"out of touch\\\" from my perspective mainly because they're older than me and may not know me personally or be relatable as much as someone my own age.\\n\\nAlright Reddit, change my view.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-08\",\n \"id\": \"144i8zs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: You should NEVER ask mutual friends about a specific person or to check on them\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/144i8zs/cmv_you_should_never_ask_mutual_friends_about_a/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Resident-Camp-8795\",\n \"body\": \"I wouldn't say never but it does depend on if you can trust the persons character AND judgement and hwo the other person might react. Putting Never in the title of Cmv is generally wrong\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-09\",\n \"id\": \"jnka49l\",\n \"parent_id\": \"144i8zs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"CEO_Of_Rejection_99\",\n \"body\": \"I noticed a post on a relationship advice subreddit about a coworker who was avoiding the OP, and the top comment said OP should \\\"check on said friend through a mutual friend.\\\"\\n\\nThis unlocked a realization in my head. I feel that I should NEVER ask mutual friends about a specific person or for advice on dealing with that person. Here's my reasoning, and correct me if I'm wrong:\\n\\nIf you're pursuing a romantic relationship with another person or are attracted to them, you should NEVER tell other people about your crush (at least, if you're not close with them) or otherwise get other people directly involved in the relationship, because it could make things awkward for the other person. In my experience, people tend to get riled up about crushes/potential romantic interests REALLY quickly. I have also unknowingly extended this logic to other interpersonal situations that are outside the strictly romantic realm as well. Therefore, crushes, and other interpersonal situations by extension, shall NEVER be released to your peers, and you have to take care of it by yourself.\\n\\nI learned this the hard way during my high school crushes. Since I was young and didn't know of any alternative method to seek guidance, I told a lot of my peers (except the actual person I liked) that I had a crush on that person and asked them for advice. To be fair, I wasn't actually close with these people and only told them out of hope that they would leverage their connection with the person to get them to like me back or at least offer some advice as to how to pursue the relationship. This knowledge would eventually spread around and get back to the other person. This made things awkward for the other person and made them feel pressured. Some of these crushes would also later block me on social media.\\n\\nThis is why I become extremely uncomfortable and get wary of answering my friends if they ask if I have a crush on another person, regardless of whether or not I actually have a potential romantic interest in mind, even if they say they'll keep it confidential. I remember telling some of my peers \\\"please don't tell anyone else this\\\" when asking them for advice on my crushes (again, to be fair, I wasn't very close with them), and yet, other people would eventually know. I don't trust *anyone* outside of a very, very select few people to keep information secret. I fear my peers will use it as an opportunity to pry open my romantic life and pursue the relationship or set up the interpersonal situation for me, The other person may believe that I have recruited an army of my friends to try to force them to be with me and make them feel pressured.\\n\\nI'm also wary of asking mutual friends for advice on dealing with another person since I fear receiving downright bad advice and falling prey to it. I remember during one of my high school crushes, when I asked a lot people for advice (as usual) and listened to advice that fit with my hopes of eventually dating her, while ignoring advice that went against these beliefs. It just so happened that I ended up following advice that was just downright bad, such as obsessing from afar, treating the situation as a competition with other potential romantic interests, and getting other people involved, while I ignored advice that would have actually been useful, such as moving on.\\n\\nI also fear that asking mutual friends for advice would present me as \\\"weak\\\", unconfident, and unable to handle crushes and other non-romantic social situations myself, and therefore someone no one should date or otherwise be close friends with. People usually say the following in terms of pursuing a romantic relationship: why would you do all this work of telling a bunch of people about your crush and trying to recruit an army of friends to build the relationship for you, when you could just go up and bite the bullet by talking to your crush and asking them out? If you spend all your time and energy asking a bunch of people about dealing with your crush, you're just circumventing the problem by obsessing from afar and not getting anywhere, and you could just use that same energy to ask them out. Girls want boys who are confident and therefore can handle crushes. Therefore, if you ask mutual friends for advice on crushes/interpersonal situations, you are not confident and therefore you are not relationship material.\\n\\nPlease change this view. I feel that this view should be changed I may have a strong network of friends but I believe this view is preventing me from using it to its full potential. I feel like I have to carry a huge burden in interpersonal relationships with little to no guidance and risking messing things up without having outside opinions/judgment to guide me and therefore feeling better not doing anything at all. It just feels like a missing part of my interpersonal relationships/interpersonal situations. It just feels wrong to have a support system that could potentially be useful but also something I refuse to use. I could seek advice from parents/my therapist/random internet strangers on Reddit, but while I don't think they're incorrect and I don't mean this as a personal offense to them, I feel that they're \\\"out of touch\\\" from my perspective mainly because they're older than me and may not know me personally or be relatable as much as someone my own age.\\n\\nAlright Reddit, change my view.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-08\",\n \"id\": \"144i8zs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: You should NEVER ask mutual friends about a specific person or to check on them\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/144i8zs/cmv_you_should_never_ask_mutual_friends_about_a/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"ghotier\",\n \"body\": \">If you're pursuing a romantic relationship with another person or are attracted to them, you should NEVER tell other people about your crush (at least, if you're not close with them) or otherwise get other people directly involved in the relationship, because it could make things awkward for the other person\\n\\n1) Completely hiding your feelings from the world and never trusting anyone to know your feelings is harmful to you. You're right, it could make things awkward for the other person, but you're weighing a risk against a real harm. \\n\\n2) this is a way people get past the very awkwardness you're talking about. I might not be with my own wife if a mutual friend didn't tell us each that our feelings were mutual. Neither she nor I are worse off for this.\\n\\n\\n>Since I was young and didn't know of any alternative method to seek guidance, I told a lot of my peers (except the actual person I liked) that I had a crush on that person and asked them for advice. To be fair, I wasn't actually close with these people and only told them out of hope that they would leverage their connection with the person to get them to like me back or at least offer some advice as to how to pursue the relationship.\\n\\nYou already know your mistake here was not telling other people. It was telling people you had no reason to trust. Why draw a broader conclusion from this?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-09\",\n \"id\": \"jnkjrqg\",\n \"parent_id\": \"144i8zs\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"CEO_Of_Rejection_99\",\n \"body\": \"I noticed a post on a relationship advice subreddit about a coworker who was avoiding the OP, and the top comment said OP should \\\"check on said friend through a mutual friend.\\\"\\n\\nThis unlocked a realization in my head. I feel that I should NEVER ask mutual friends about a specific person or for advice on dealing with that person. Here's my reasoning, and correct me if I'm wrong:\\n\\nIf you're pursuing a romantic relationship with another person or are attracted to them, you should NEVER tell other people about your crush (at least, if you're not close with them) or otherwise get other people directly involved in the relationship, because it could make things awkward for the other person. In my experience, people tend to get riled up about crushes/potential romantic interests REALLY quickly. I have also unknowingly extended this logic to other interpersonal situations that are outside the strictly romantic realm as well. Therefore, crushes, and other interpersonal situations by extension, shall NEVER be released to your peers, and you have to take care of it by yourself.\\n\\nI learned this the hard way during my high school crushes. Since I was young and didn't know of any alternative method to seek guidance, I told a lot of my peers (except the actual person I liked) that I had a crush on that person and asked them for advice. To be fair, I wasn't actually close with these people and only told them out of hope that they would leverage their connection with the person to get them to like me back or at least offer some advice as to how to pursue the relationship. This knowledge would eventually spread around and get back to the other person. This made things awkward for the other person and made them feel pressured. Some of these crushes would also later block me on social media.\\n\\nThis is why I become extremely uncomfortable and get wary of answering my friends if they ask if I have a crush on another person, regardless of whether or not I actually have a potential romantic interest in mind, even if they say they'll keep it confidential. I remember telling some of my peers \\\"please don't tell anyone else this\\\" when asking them for advice on my crushes (again, to be fair, I wasn't very close with them), and yet, other people would eventually know. I don't trust *anyone* outside of a very, very select few people to keep information secret. I fear my peers will use it as an opportunity to pry open my romantic life and pursue the relationship or set up the interpersonal situation for me, The other person may believe that I have recruited an army of my friends to try to force them to be with me and make them feel pressured.\\n\\nI'm also wary of asking mutual friends for advice on dealing with another person since I fear receiving downright bad advice and falling prey to it. I remember during one of my high school crushes, when I asked a lot people for advice (as usual) and listened to advice that fit with my hopes of eventually dating her, while ignoring advice that went against these beliefs. It just so happened that I ended up following advice that was just downright bad, such as obsessing from afar, treating the situation as a competition with other potential romantic interests, and getting other people involved, while I ignored advice that would have actually been useful, such as moving on.\\n\\nI also fear that asking mutual friends for advice would present me as \\\"weak\\\", unconfident, and unable to handle crushes and other non-romantic social situations myself, and therefore someone no one should date or otherwise be close friends with. People usually say the following in terms of pursuing a romantic relationship: why would you do all this work of telling a bunch of people about your crush and trying to recruit an army of friends to build the relationship for you, when you could just go up and bite the bullet by talking to your crush and asking them out? If you spend all your time and energy asking a bunch of people about dealing with your crush, you're just circumventing the problem by obsessing from afar and not getting anywhere, and you could just use that same energy to ask them out. Girls want boys who are confident and therefore can handle crushes. Therefore, if you ask mutual friends for advice on crushes/interpersonal situations, you are not confident and therefore you are not relationship material.\\n\\nPlease change this view. I feel that this view should be changed I may have a strong network of friends but I believe this view is preventing me from using it to its full potential. I feel like I have to carry a huge burden in interpersonal relationships with little to no guidance and risking messing things up without having outside opinions/judgment to guide me and therefore feeling better not doing anything at all. It just feels like a missing part of my interpersonal relationships/interpersonal situations. It just feels wrong to have a support system that could potentially be useful but also something I refuse to use. I could seek advice from parents/my therapist/random internet strangers on Reddit, but while I don't think they're incorrect and I don't mean this as a personal offense to them, I feel that they're \\\"out of touch\\\" from my perspective mainly because they're older than me and may not know me personally or be relatable as much as someone my own age.\\n\\nAlright Reddit, change my view.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-08\",\n \"id\": \"144i8zs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 0,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: You should NEVER ask mutual friends about a specific person or to check on them\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/144i8zs/cmv_you_should_never_ask_mutual_friends_about_a/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"TygerJ99\",\n \"body\": \"I disagree because I have nothing to lose or gain when you send me as an intermediary between your crush. \\nIf I like you I’ll want you to be happy but I have no stake. \\n\\nI won’t be nervous and insecure because it won’t affect me really. This is why I love being a wingman I’m 100% confident vs me talking to someone I like.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-10\",\n \"id\": \"jnqnyss\",\n \"parent_id\": \"144i8zs\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ]\n]","isConversational":false},"2":{"kind":"string","value":"moderate"}}},{"rowIdx":46,"cells":{"0":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"author":"kingpatzer","body":"(1) Under the Brit's system, cases of lower merit are rarely filed, as losing the case increases costs to the loser.\n\n(2) Under the Brit's system, settling cases outside of the courts is more encouraged, based on (1) which lowers appeals and speeds up the results for both parties.\n\n(3) The Brit's system means that people with few means can take on larger corporations or the government much more easily if they have a meritorious case\n\n(4) SLAPP suites are less common because they will incur a higher cost for the filing party.\n\n(5) In the USA, while it possible to get a judgement for costs, such judgements rarely cover actual costs as Judges do not have to consider actual costs incurred but can calculate what the costs \"should\" be based on average ([loadstar](https://www.abi.org/abi-journal/what-is-reasonable-under-lodestar)) costs in the area. Judges also have the authority to adjust the costs downward by as much as 30% without explanation based on their sole determination of what is \"fair.\"\n\nThe American System is far inferior to the Brit's system for determining who pays. CMV!","date":"2023-06-23","id":"14gzx57","parent_id":null,"score":121,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: In the Court System, The British System of Having Loser Pays is Far Superior to the American System of Parties Pay Their Own Way.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/14gzx57/cmv_in_the_court_system_the_british_system_of/"},{"author":"Spanglertastic","body":"You are missing a few key points. \n\nThe British have much greater protection provided by government agencies that will perform legal actions on your behalf. The majority of landlord, employment, and medical disputes are handled without a private party needing to sue. People in the US lack these protections and the courts are used to provide them. Restricting the ability to sue by exposing people to the risk of large legal bills without replacing these protections would be disasterous. The British system works for the British, it would not work in America without other major changes.\n\nSpite exists. Rich people can be extremely petty. If I'm a billionaire, spending $200,000 to avoid paying someone I don't like $10,000 I owe them is perfectly logical. If I lose, I wont miss the money, but if I win, the prospect of bankrupting them fills me with glee. The impact of losing hits poorer people a lot harder than it does corporations or the rich.","date":"2023-06-23","id":"jp9fyf0","parent_id":"14gzx57","score":46,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"kingpatzer","body":"> People in the US lack these protections and the courts are used to provide them\n\nThis is an exceptionally good point and a factor I hadn't considered. I think this is by far the best counter-argument I've seen and it is kind of a slam dunk to suggest that a legal system works or doesn't work based on a greater social context. \n\n\n!delta.","date":"2023-06-23","id":"jp9hd2u","parent_id":"jp9fyf0","score":17,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"DeltaBot","body":"Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/Spanglertastic ([11∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/Spanglertastic)).\n\n^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)","date":"2023-06-23","id":"jp9hff9","parent_id":"jp9hd2u","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],"string":"[\n {\n \"author\": \"kingpatzer\",\n \"body\": \"(1) Under the Brit's system, cases of lower merit are rarely filed, as losing the case increases costs to the loser.\\n\\n(2) Under the Brit's system, settling cases outside of the courts is more encouraged, based on (1) which lowers appeals and speeds up the results for both parties.\\n\\n(3) The Brit's system means that people with few means can take on larger corporations or the government much more easily if they have a meritorious case\\n\\n(4) SLAPP suites are less common because they will incur a higher cost for the filing party.\\n\\n(5) In the USA, while it possible to get a judgement for costs, such judgements rarely cover actual costs as Judges do not have to consider actual costs incurred but can calculate what the costs \\\"should\\\" be based on average ([loadstar](https://www.abi.org/abi-journal/what-is-reasonable-under-lodestar)) costs in the area. Judges also have the authority to adjust the costs downward by as much as 30% without explanation based on their sole determination of what is \\\"fair.\\\"\\n\\nThe American System is far inferior to the Brit's system for determining who pays. CMV!\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-23\",\n \"id\": \"14gzx57\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 121,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: In the Court System, The British System of Having Loser Pays is Far Superior to the American System of Parties Pay Their Own Way.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/14gzx57/cmv_in_the_court_system_the_british_system_of/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Spanglertastic\",\n \"body\": \"You are missing a few key points. \\n\\nThe British have much greater protection provided by government agencies that will perform legal actions on your behalf. The majority of landlord, employment, and medical disputes are handled without a private party needing to sue. People in the US lack these protections and the courts are used to provide them. Restricting the ability to sue by exposing people to the risk of large legal bills without replacing these protections would be disasterous. The British system works for the British, it would not work in America without other major changes.\\n\\nSpite exists. Rich people can be extremely petty. If I'm a billionaire, spending $200,000 to avoid paying someone I don't like $10,000 I owe them is perfectly logical. If I lose, I wont miss the money, but if I win, the prospect of bankrupting them fills me with glee. The impact of losing hits poorer people a lot harder than it does corporations or the rich.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-23\",\n \"id\": \"jp9fyf0\",\n \"parent_id\": \"14gzx57\",\n \"score\": 46,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"kingpatzer\",\n \"body\": \"> People in the US lack these protections and the courts are used to provide them\\n\\nThis is an exceptionally good point and a factor I hadn't considered. I think this is by far the best counter-argument I've seen and it is kind of a slam dunk to suggest that a legal system works or doesn't work based on a greater social context. \\n\\n\\n!delta.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-23\",\n \"id\": \"jp9hd2u\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jp9fyf0\",\n \"score\": 17,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"DeltaBot\",\n \"body\": \"Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/Spanglertastic ([11∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/Spanglertastic)).\\n\\n^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-23\",\n \"id\": \"jp9hff9\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jp9hd2u\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n]","isConversational":false},"1":{"kind":"list like","value":[[{"author":"kingpatzer","body":"(1) Under the Brit's system, cases of lower merit are rarely filed, as losing the case increases costs to the loser.\n\n(2) Under the Brit's system, settling cases outside of the courts is more encouraged, based on (1) which lowers appeals and speeds up the results for both parties.\n\n(3) The Brit's system means that people with few means can take on larger corporations or the government much more easily if they have a meritorious case\n\n(4) SLAPP suites are less common because they will incur a higher cost for the filing party.\n\n(5) In the USA, while it possible to get a judgement for costs, such judgements rarely cover actual costs as Judges do not have to consider actual costs incurred but can calculate what the costs \"should\" be based on average ([loadstar](https://www.abi.org/abi-journal/what-is-reasonable-under-lodestar)) costs in the area. Judges also have the authority to adjust the costs downward by as much as 30% without explanation based on their sole determination of what is \"fair.\"\n\nThe American System is far inferior to the Brit's system for determining who pays. CMV!","date":"2023-06-23","id":"14gzx57","parent_id":null,"score":121,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: In the Court System, The British System of Having Loser Pays is Far Superior to the American System of Parties Pay Their Own Way.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/14gzx57/cmv_in_the_court_system_the_british_system_of/"},{"author":"onetwo3four5","body":"I can see merits to both systems. For example, say you know that you are correct, but you are not sure that you can win a court case against a much wealthier opponent. \n\n\nSo you want to file a lawsuit against somebody. It is not a frivolous suit by any means, but the decision is far from guaranteed to go in your favor. \n\nSo that means in the American system, a poorer person could sue a wealthier entity. Even if the poor person is only working with one lawyer, or a very small team, they can afford it even if they lose. \n\nHowever, if they lose, are they now on the hook for the entire legal bill, paid for by a giant cooperation with a team of fancy, expensive lawyers? \n\nFor an example, let's say I sue Walmart because I think that their negligence caused some damage to my property in their store. This isn't a frivolous lawsuit, this is genuine, and I have a strong case, but for whatever reason, I lose the case. Do i now owe Walmart the millions of dollars that they may have spent on their defense, even if I was only suing for some smaller amount of damages, and paid my own lawyer several thousand only?","date":"2023-06-23","id":"jp8yply","parent_id":"14gzx57","score":65,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"kingpatzer","body":"If the decision is questionable, then it is not a meritorious suit.\n\nThat's the point. Civil lawsuits should be for where it is clear that someone is more wrong than not, and there is good reason to believe that just compensation is being denied.\n\nYour scenario is more someone MAY be more wrong than not, it's not clear; or, they may not be denying just compensation, it's not clear; or both. That's not a meritorious claim.\n\nI can't even imagine a case where Walmart damaged many thousands of dollars worth of property (and it would have to be many thousands to make validate spending a few thousand on legal expenses) and it wasn't clear who was at fault.\n\nIf you can give me a realistic scenario, I'll be inclined to give a delta for a one off instance. But you're going to have to come up with something realistic. \n\n\nEDIT: should be \"highly questionable\" we go into rational analysis below, but I can see how what I said here could be misconstrued as being only about being fully justified. Which was not my intent. I recognize that all cases carry some burden of risk.","date":"2023-06-23","id":"jp8zyvj","parent_id":"jp8yply","score":-38,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"kingpatzer","body":"(1) Under the Brit's system, cases of lower merit are rarely filed, as losing the case increases costs to the loser.\n\n(2) Under the Brit's system, settling cases outside of the courts is more encouraged, based on (1) which lowers appeals and speeds up the results for both parties.\n\n(3) The Brit's system means that people with few means can take on larger corporations or the government much more easily if they have a meritorious case\n\n(4) SLAPP suites are less common because they will incur a higher cost for the filing party.\n\n(5) In the USA, while it possible to get a judgement for costs, such judgements rarely cover actual costs as Judges do not have to consider actual costs incurred but can calculate what the costs \"should\" be based on average ([loadstar](https://www.abi.org/abi-journal/what-is-reasonable-under-lodestar)) costs in the area. Judges also have the authority to adjust the costs downward by as much as 30% without explanation based on their sole determination of what is \"fair.\"\n\nThe American System is far inferior to the Brit's system for determining who pays. CMV!","date":"2023-06-23","id":"14gzx57","parent_id":null,"score":121,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: In the Court System, The British System of Having Loser Pays is Far Superior to the American System of Parties Pay Their Own Way.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/14gzx57/cmv_in_the_court_system_the_british_system_of/"},{"author":"jacobissimus","body":"I’m the US, frivolous cases are also remarkably rare, but various lobbying groups have perpetuated a media campaign to make them seem more common then they really are—the classic example is the “hot coffee” incident, where McDonalds successfully put the idea in the public consciousness that it was filled by a crazy Karen-type, but it was actually filled by someone hoping to get their medical bills covered after they got third-degree burns from the coffee.\n\nSimilarly, I’m not sure how the British system does more to encourage out of court settlements then we do here. It’s pretty common to settle out of court.","date":"2023-06-23","id":"jp8z2yg","parent_id":"14gzx57","score":13,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Gasblaster2000","body":"The USA is famous for people suing over all kinds of trivial stuff though. Very much known for it","date":"2023-06-23","id":"jp8zoq8","parent_id":"jp8z2yg","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"kingpatzer","body":"(1) Under the Brit's system, cases of lower merit are rarely filed, as losing the case increases costs to the loser.\n\n(2) Under the Brit's system, settling cases outside of the courts is more encouraged, based on (1) which lowers appeals and speeds up the results for both parties.\n\n(3) The Brit's system means that people with few means can take on larger corporations or the government much more easily if they have a meritorious case\n\n(4) SLAPP suites are less common because they will incur a higher cost for the filing party.\n\n(5) In the USA, while it possible to get a judgement for costs, such judgements rarely cover actual costs as Judges do not have to consider actual costs incurred but can calculate what the costs \"should\" be based on average ([loadstar](https://www.abi.org/abi-journal/what-is-reasonable-under-lodestar)) costs in the area. Judges also have the authority to adjust the costs downward by as much as 30% without explanation based on their sole determination of what is \"fair.\"\n\nThe American System is far inferior to the Brit's system for determining who pays. CMV!","date":"2023-06-23","id":"14gzx57","parent_id":null,"score":121,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: In the Court System, The British System of Having Loser Pays is Far Superior to the American System of Parties Pay Their Own Way.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/14gzx57/cmv_in_the_court_system_the_british_system_of/"},{"author":"Euphoric-Beat-7206","body":"The \"loser pays\" system can discourage individuals with limited financial means from pursuing legitimate claims or defending themselves in court. It places a significant financial burden on the losing party, potentially deterring people from seeking justice or exercising their legal rights. This can lead to unequal access to justice, favoring the wealthy and potentially undermining the principle of equal treatment under the law.","date":"2023-06-23","id":"jp92iov","parent_id":"14gzx57","score":5,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"kingpatzer","body":"The loser pays system is the only way for those with limited financial means to bring a meritorious claim, though. \n\n\nWhile all legal cases carry some risk. If I am living hand-to-mouth, I can't afford to hire an attorney at all; while in a loser pays system I at least have the option at a bite of the apple.","date":"2023-06-23","id":"jp930p8","parent_id":"jp92iov","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"kingpatzer","body":"(1) Under the Brit's system, cases of lower merit are rarely filed, as losing the case increases costs to the loser.\n\n(2) Under the Brit's system, settling cases outside of the courts is more encouraged, based on (1) which lowers appeals and speeds up the results for both parties.\n\n(3) The Brit's system means that people with few means can take on larger corporations or the government much more easily if they have a meritorious case\n\n(4) SLAPP suites are less common because they will incur a higher cost for the filing party.\n\n(5) In the USA, while it possible to get a judgement for costs, such judgements rarely cover actual costs as Judges do not have to consider actual costs incurred but can calculate what the costs \"should\" be based on average ([loadstar](https://www.abi.org/abi-journal/what-is-reasonable-under-lodestar)) costs in the area. Judges also have the authority to adjust the costs downward by as much as 30% without explanation based on their sole determination of what is \"fair.\"\n\nThe American System is far inferior to the Brit's system for determining who pays. CMV!","date":"2023-06-23","id":"14gzx57","parent_id":null,"score":121,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: In the Court System, The British System of Having Loser Pays is Far Superior to the American System of Parties Pay Their Own Way.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/14gzx57/cmv_in_the_court_system_the_british_system_of/"},{"author":"markroth69","body":"While in reality I have a decent job with, most importantly, a decent written contract, that is not the case for most Americans. \n\nMandating that the loser always pays would lead to money directly being stolen from American workers. I am not really exaggerating. \n\nWage theft is one of the easiest and most lucrative crimes in America and one of the least reported and least punished. (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/owed-employers-face-little-accountability-for-wage-theft/) \n\nIf loser pays laws were implemented, employers would absolutely have an incentive to steal from their employees. And would know that lax state enforcement plus the chilling effect of employees unable to afford to sue would mean they would win.","date":"2023-06-23","id":"jp93g5n","parent_id":"14gzx57","score":5,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"kingpatzer","body":">employees unable to afford to sue \n\nI am missing your argument. \n\n\nIf I'm suffering from wage theft, then very likely I'm a low wage employee who can't afford an attorney in the first place. Employment lawyers around me go for about $400 an hour and would want a 5-10 hour retainer minimum. \n\n\nWhile, in the UK, I could afford to bring a case, because if I am the victim of wage theft and have a case, then it will (a) more likely be settled and (b) not be impossible for me to hire the required lawyer in the first place.","date":"2023-06-23","id":"jp94wm7","parent_id":"jp93g5n","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"kingpatzer","body":"(1) Under the Brit's system, cases of lower merit are rarely filed, as losing the case increases costs to the loser.\n\n(2) Under the Brit's system, settling cases outside of the courts is more encouraged, based on (1) which lowers appeals and speeds up the results for both parties.\n\n(3) The Brit's system means that people with few means can take on larger corporations or the government much more easily if they have a meritorious case\n\n(4) SLAPP suites are less common because they will incur a higher cost for the filing party.\n\n(5) In the USA, while it possible to get a judgement for costs, such judgements rarely cover actual costs as Judges do not have to consider actual costs incurred but can calculate what the costs \"should\" be based on average ([loadstar](https://www.abi.org/abi-journal/what-is-reasonable-under-lodestar)) costs in the area. Judges also have the authority to adjust the costs downward by as much as 30% without explanation based on their sole determination of what is \"fair.\"\n\nThe American System is far inferior to the Brit's system for determining who pays. CMV!","date":"2023-06-23","id":"14gzx57","parent_id":null,"score":121,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: In the Court System, The British System of Having Loser Pays is Far Superior to the American System of Parties Pay Their Own Way.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/14gzx57/cmv_in_the_court_system_the_british_system_of/"},{"author":"merlinus12","body":"This would make it incredibly dangerous to sue any large corporation unless you had a near certainty of winning the case.\n\nScenario: I am but by an Amazon truck, costing me $5000 in medical bills. I take them to court. They spend $2 million in legal fees with a high-priced firm. I end up losing the case because it turns out that (unknown to me) the Amazon driver was drunk, so Amazon isn’t at fault (since corporate vicarious liability only applies to negligent actions by their employees, not criminal ones). I am now on the hook for $2 million in legal fees and have to declare bankruptcy.\n\nUnder such a system, why would anyone risk suing a large corporation who can afford to spend big $$ on legal fees? Even if you were 99% sure that you would win such a case, you’d be a fool to sue because there is a 1% chance of you being ruined financially. In contrast, big corporations aren’t deterred at all, since they can afford to lose big cases and pay the resulting fees. \n\nThe end result is a legal system that is heavily biased in the favor of whomever has the biggest bank account.","date":"2023-06-23","id":"jp93s9o","parent_id":"14gzx57","score":10,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"kingpatzer","body":"How does your attorney miss that the driver was drunk as part of discovery?\n\nHow is being drunk proven if not by a police citation? Meaning, the attorney wouldn't even need discovery, they'd have found that out in initial fact finding on their own prior to filing. \n\nYour scenario makes no sense, unless you're saying complete legal incompetence dramatically crossing the line to malpractice is common. Which, well, frankly, I'd like to see some data on.","date":"2023-06-23","id":"jp95mvl","parent_id":"jp93s9o","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"kingpatzer","body":"(1) Under the Brit's system, cases of lower merit are rarely filed, as losing the case increases costs to the loser.\n\n(2) Under the Brit's system, settling cases outside of the courts is more encouraged, based on (1) which lowers appeals and speeds up the results for both parties.\n\n(3) The Brit's system means that people with few means can take on larger corporations or the government much more easily if they have a meritorious case\n\n(4) SLAPP suites are less common because they will incur a higher cost for the filing party.\n\n(5) In the USA, while it possible to get a judgement for costs, such judgements rarely cover actual costs as Judges do not have to consider actual costs incurred but can calculate what the costs \"should\" be based on average ([loadstar](https://www.abi.org/abi-journal/what-is-reasonable-under-lodestar)) costs in the area. Judges also have the authority to adjust the costs downward by as much as 30% without explanation based on their sole determination of what is \"fair.\"\n\nThe American System is far inferior to the Brit's system for determining who pays. CMV!","date":"2023-06-23","id":"14gzx57","parent_id":null,"score":121,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: In the Court System, The British System of Having Loser Pays is Far Superior to the American System of Parties Pay Their Own Way.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/14gzx57/cmv_in_the_court_system_the_british_system_of/"},{"author":"El_dorado_au","body":"According to the Wikipedia article on Libel tourism, England and Wales is a popular destination for libel tourism, at least until laws addressing it were enacted. That would suggest that lawsuits of weak merit are not being prevented. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libel_tourism","date":"2023-06-23","id":"jp9bhsy","parent_id":"14gzx57","score":10,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"kingpatzer","body":"Not really, but I see what you're getting at. \n\n\nUK standards for libel are not the same as US standards for libel. So, a case that has merit in the UK may not have merit in the US. \n\n\nThat is a difference in law which differentiates what is or is not meritorious in each jurisdiction, not a difference in access. \n\nBut, this is true for many types of cases. I am not arguing that the UK definition of any particular civil infraction is superior to the definition in America. I am arguing that the system governing how attorneys are paid is superior. \n\n\nBut, maybe you're on your way to something here. If you could show it is not a difference in the legal definition of the torte but the fact of the financial system allowing access to the courts that causes the difference I'd buy the argument.","date":"2023-06-23","id":"jp9e30v","parent_id":"jp9bhsy","score":6,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"kingpatzer","body":"(1) Under the Brit's system, cases of lower merit are rarely filed, as losing the case increases costs to the loser.\n\n(2) Under the Brit's system, settling cases outside of the courts is more encouraged, based on (1) which lowers appeals and speeds up the results for both parties.\n\n(3) The Brit's system means that people with few means can take on larger corporations or the government much more easily if they have a meritorious case\n\n(4) SLAPP suites are less common because they will incur a higher cost for the filing party.\n\n(5) In the USA, while it possible to get a judgement for costs, such judgements rarely cover actual costs as Judges do not have to consider actual costs incurred but can calculate what the costs \"should\" be based on average ([loadstar](https://www.abi.org/abi-journal/what-is-reasonable-under-lodestar)) costs in the area. Judges also have the authority to adjust the costs downward by as much as 30% without explanation based on their sole determination of what is \"fair.\"\n\nThe American System is far inferior to the Brit's system for determining who pays. CMV!","date":"2023-06-23","id":"14gzx57","parent_id":null,"score":121,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: In the Court System, The British System of Having Loser Pays is Far Superior to the American System of Parties Pay Their Own Way.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/14gzx57/cmv_in_the_court_system_the_british_system_of/"},{"author":"TheAlabamaJedi","body":"Not 100 % familiar with the brit system but I am not wealthy. If I sued a large corporation who could afford fancy lawyers (even if they lose), I would have to pay those lawyers if I lost? \n\n That would keep poor people from risking a lawsuit because the odds of defeating a wealthy and powerful company is to high to justify the risk.","date":"2023-06-23","id":"jp9kljc","parent_id":"14gzx57","score":3,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Wigglebot23","body":"It seems there are a variety of limitations not discussed in the post designed to stop parties from unreasonably inflating their costs https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costs_in_English_law","date":"2023-06-23","id":"jpa5hey","parent_id":"jp9kljc","score":3,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"kingpatzer","body":"(1) Under the Brit's system, cases of lower merit are rarely filed, as losing the case increases costs to the loser.\n\n(2) Under the Brit's system, settling cases outside of the courts is more encouraged, based on (1) which lowers appeals and speeds up the results for both parties.\n\n(3) The Brit's system means that people with few means can take on larger corporations or the government much more easily if they have a meritorious case\n\n(4) SLAPP suites are less common because they will incur a higher cost for the filing party.\n\n(5) In the USA, while it possible to get a judgement for costs, such judgements rarely cover actual costs as Judges do not have to consider actual costs incurred but can calculate what the costs \"should\" be based on average ([loadstar](https://www.abi.org/abi-journal/what-is-reasonable-under-lodestar)) costs in the area. Judges also have the authority to adjust the costs downward by as much as 30% without explanation based on their sole determination of what is \"fair.\"\n\nThe American System is far inferior to the Brit's system for determining who pays. CMV!","date":"2023-06-23","id":"14gzx57","parent_id":null,"score":121,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: In the Court System, The British System of Having Loser Pays is Far Superior to the American System of Parties Pay Their Own Way.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/14gzx57/cmv_in_the_court_system_the_british_system_of/"},{"author":"zstandig","body":"Most cases don't end up in court, that's supposed to be a last resort. Court is very expensive and it's best to settle out of court or get some arbitration. \n\nThat's what all my classes emphasized anyway. No idea how true that is in practice","date":"2023-06-23","id":"jp9ylmx","parent_id":"14gzx57","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"kingpatzer","body":"(1) Under the Brit's system, cases of lower merit are rarely filed, as losing the case increases costs to the loser.\n\n(2) Under the Brit's system, settling cases outside of the courts is more encouraged, based on (1) which lowers appeals and speeds up the results for both parties.\n\n(3) The Brit's system means that people with few means can take on larger corporations or the government much more easily if they have a meritorious case\n\n(4) SLAPP suites are less common because they will incur a higher cost for the filing party.\n\n(5) In the USA, while it possible to get a judgement for costs, such judgements rarely cover actual costs as Judges do not have to consider actual costs incurred but can calculate what the costs \"should\" be based on average ([loadstar](https://www.abi.org/abi-journal/what-is-reasonable-under-lodestar)) costs in the area. Judges also have the authority to adjust the costs downward by as much as 30% without explanation based on their sole determination of what is \"fair.\"\n\nThe American System is far inferior to the Brit's system for determining who pays. CMV!","date":"2023-06-23","id":"14gzx57","parent_id":null,"score":121,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: In the Court System, The British System of Having Loser Pays is Far Superior to the American System of Parties Pay Their Own Way.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/14gzx57/cmv_in_the_court_system_the_british_system_of/"},{"author":"mrcrabspointyknob","body":"I think your focus on “weak” is a bit misguided. \n\nFirst, the british rule certainly means that people who don’t have meritorious claims are less likely to file. *However, it also means that “complex” or risky claims are also not likely to be filed, even when they arguably should be meritorious.* For example, it is very complex to bring a technological patent case before a jury, and it brings a lot of risk external to the actual merits because jury’s simply might not have the capacity to accurately assess “meritorious” claims. Even judges have a hard time. The american rule limits this risk.\n\nSecond, “weak” is a bit mischievous in meaning. When cases involve some question of fact, there are slam dunk cases, there are difficult cases, there are edge cases, and there are bad cases. But you either win, or you don’t; something was either illegal, or it wasn’t. The british rule leaves a large dead zone of people afraid to bring actions against illegal conduct because they involve some arguable question of fact, meaning a lot more arguable illegal conduct goes unpunished. The american rule has much lower stakes and thus a smaller dead zone of illegal conduct surviving.\n\nWhile I think “weakness” is not the best argument, I’m going to against myself here and say that the British rule does do something very important that the American rule does not: it makes plaintiffs actually “whole,” which is the purpose of civil suits, because they don’t lose a chunk of an award to attorney’s fees. I think that is a much better argument.","date":"2023-06-23","id":"jpa2ok1","parent_id":"14gzx57","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Taxington","body":"There are no win no fee law firms who aggregate that risk. They work on the agreement you pay them a cut of the award if you win and nothing if you lose.\n\nThey use their cut from winning cases to self insure agaisnt losing a few.\n\nThese firms won't take on a case that's 50/50. They will take on a load of cases that are mostly sound but a bit risky and make up losses in volume.\n\nIs not perfect but it means even the poorest have a strong recourse when clearly wronged.","date":"2023-06-27","id":"jpphx9c","parent_id":"jpa2ok1","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"kingpatzer","body":"(1) Under the Brit's system, cases of lower merit are rarely filed, as losing the case increases costs to the loser.\n\n(2) Under the Brit's system, settling cases outside of the courts is more encouraged, based on (1) which lowers appeals and speeds up the results for both parties.\n\n(3) The Brit's system means that people with few means can take on larger corporations or the government much more easily if they have a meritorious case\n\n(4) SLAPP suites are less common because they will incur a higher cost for the filing party.\n\n(5) In the USA, while it possible to get a judgement for costs, such judgements rarely cover actual costs as Judges do not have to consider actual costs incurred but can calculate what the costs \"should\" be based on average ([loadstar](https://www.abi.org/abi-journal/what-is-reasonable-under-lodestar)) costs in the area. Judges also have the authority to adjust the costs downward by as much as 30% without explanation based on their sole determination of what is \"fair.\"\n\nThe American System is far inferior to the Brit's system for determining who pays. CMV!","date":"2023-06-23","id":"14gzx57","parent_id":null,"score":121,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: In the Court System, The British System of Having Loser Pays is Far Superior to the American System of Parties Pay Their Own Way.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/14gzx57/cmv_in_the_court_system_the_british_system_of/"},{"author":"Pretend-Clue1448","body":"Does that mean if someone with very little financial resources takes on enormous company and loses, they have to pay for the small country of lawyers the corporation hired?","date":"2023-06-23","id":"jpb5hdf","parent_id":"14gzx57","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"kingpatzer","body":"(1) Under the Brit's system, cases of lower merit are rarely filed, as losing the case increases costs to the loser.\n\n(2) Under the Brit's system, settling cases outside of the courts is more encouraged, based on (1) which lowers appeals and speeds up the results for both parties.\n\n(3) The Brit's system means that people with few means can take on larger corporations or the government much more easily if they have a meritorious case\n\n(4) SLAPP suites are less common because they will incur a higher cost for the filing party.\n\n(5) In the USA, while it possible to get a judgement for costs, such judgements rarely cover actual costs as Judges do not have to consider actual costs incurred but can calculate what the costs \"should\" be based on average ([loadstar](https://www.abi.org/abi-journal/what-is-reasonable-under-lodestar)) costs in the area. Judges also have the authority to adjust the costs downward by as much as 30% without explanation based on their sole determination of what is \"fair.\"\n\nThe American System is far inferior to the Brit's system for determining who pays. CMV!","date":"2023-06-23","id":"14gzx57","parent_id":null,"score":121,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: In the Court System, The British System of Having Loser Pays is Far Superior to the American System of Parties Pay Their Own Way.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/14gzx57/cmv_in_the_court_system_the_british_system_of/"},{"author":"VenflonBandit","body":"So, not sure if this will change your mind but might add context. What you've described isn't the whole of the English and Welsh system (I have no clue about Scotland or NI). There is the small claims (<£10,000) and fast track (<£25,000) where minimal or fixed costs respectively can be claimed. Then there's the tribunal system where costs are again very limited, only being liable for the other side if you act unreasonably. Even in high value cases in 'normal' civil court the judges have wide discretion in how to award costs.","date":"2023-06-24","id":"jpb780i","parent_id":"14gzx57","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"kingpatzer","body":"(1) Under the Brit's system, cases of lower merit are rarely filed, as losing the case increases costs to the loser.\n\n(2) Under the Brit's system, settling cases outside of the courts is more encouraged, based on (1) which lowers appeals and speeds up the results for both parties.\n\n(3) The Brit's system means that people with few means can take on larger corporations or the government much more easily if they have a meritorious case\n\n(4) SLAPP suites are less common because they will incur a higher cost for the filing party.\n\n(5) In the USA, while it possible to get a judgement for costs, such judgements rarely cover actual costs as Judges do not have to consider actual costs incurred but can calculate what the costs \"should\" be based on average ([loadstar](https://www.abi.org/abi-journal/what-is-reasonable-under-lodestar)) costs in the area. Judges also have the authority to adjust the costs downward by as much as 30% without explanation based on their sole determination of what is \"fair.\"\n\nThe American System is far inferior to the Brit's system for determining who pays. CMV!","date":"2023-06-23","id":"14gzx57","parent_id":null,"score":121,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: In the Court System, The British System of Having Loser Pays is Far Superior to the American System of Parties Pay Their Own Way.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/14gzx57/cmv_in_the_court_system_the_british_system_of/"},{"author":"GuidanceBackground66","body":"Looks like the British are winning at something other than tea making. Cheers to loser pays!","date":"2023-06-24","id":"jpbymlf","parent_id":"14gzx57","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"kingpatzer","body":"(1) Under the Brit's system, cases of lower merit are rarely filed, as losing the case increases costs to the loser.\n\n(2) Under the Brit's system, settling cases outside of the courts is more encouraged, based on (1) which lowers appeals and speeds up the results for both parties.\n\n(3) The Brit's system means that people with few means can take on larger corporations or the government much more easily if they have a meritorious case\n\n(4) SLAPP suites are less common because they will incur a higher cost for the filing party.\n\n(5) In the USA, while it possible to get a judgement for costs, such judgements rarely cover actual costs as Judges do not have to consider actual costs incurred but can calculate what the costs \"should\" be based on average ([loadstar](https://www.abi.org/abi-journal/what-is-reasonable-under-lodestar)) costs in the area. Judges also have the authority to adjust the costs downward by as much as 30% without explanation based on their sole determination of what is \"fair.\"\n\nThe American System is far inferior to the Brit's system for determining who pays. CMV!","date":"2023-06-23","id":"14gzx57","parent_id":null,"score":121,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: In the Court System, The British System of Having Loser Pays is Far Superior to the American System of Parties Pay Their Own Way.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/14gzx57/cmv_in_the_court_system_the_british_system_of/"},{"author":"Mr_Makak","body":"Ok, so if I'm a poor person who can't afford a lawyer and my only option is to represent myself, my cost is like... zero? Or the odd train ticket fee to go to court?\n\nUnder your proposed system, how could I ever decide to sue some rich guy and risk having to pay millions to whatever army of lawyers he chooses to hire for his case? \n\nYour system is actively punishing (increasing the risk) for the poorer party","date":"2023-06-24","id":"jpbzix8","parent_id":"14gzx57","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Taxington","body":">Under your proposed system, how could I ever decide to sue some rich guy and risk having to pay millions to whatever army of lawyers he chooses to hire for his case? \n\nHe can't do that. Judges realy realy don't take kindly to deliberately running up the bill. He's free to hire entirely pointless extra council but it won't get included in a costs award.\n\nThere are plenty of no win no. Fee law firms who aggregate the risk.\n\nThey take your case in return for a cut of the winnings, if it's remotely sound. \n\nThey use their cut to cover the odd loss.","date":"2023-06-27","id":"jppik28","parent_id":"jpbzix8","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"kingpatzer","body":"(1) Under the Brit's system, cases of lower merit are rarely filed, as losing the case increases costs to the loser.\n\n(2) Under the Brit's system, settling cases outside of the courts is more encouraged, based on (1) which lowers appeals and speeds up the results for both parties.\n\n(3) The Brit's system means that people with few means can take on larger corporations or the government much more easily if they have a meritorious case\n\n(4) SLAPP suites are less common because they will incur a higher cost for the filing party.\n\n(5) In the USA, while it possible to get a judgement for costs, such judgements rarely cover actual costs as Judges do not have to consider actual costs incurred but can calculate what the costs \"should\" be based on average ([loadstar](https://www.abi.org/abi-journal/what-is-reasonable-under-lodestar)) costs in the area. Judges also have the authority to adjust the costs downward by as much as 30% without explanation based on their sole determination of what is \"fair.\"\n\nThe American System is far inferior to the Brit's system for determining who pays. CMV!","date":"2023-06-23","id":"14gzx57","parent_id":null,"score":121,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: In the Court System, The British System of Having Loser Pays is Far Superior to the American System of Parties Pay Their Own Way.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/14gzx57/cmv_in_the_court_system_the_british_system_of/"},{"author":"AdagioInevitable9357","body":"Looks like the British system really takes the cake. Time for America to step up its game! 🍰🇬🇧🏆","date":"2023-06-24","id":"jpd0rfi","parent_id":"14gzx57","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"kingpatzer","body":"(1) Under the Brit's system, cases of lower merit are rarely filed, as losing the case increases costs to the loser.\n\n(2) Under the Brit's system, settling cases outside of the courts is more encouraged, based on (1) which lowers appeals and speeds up the results for both parties.\n\n(3) The Brit's system means that people with few means can take on larger corporations or the government much more easily if they have a meritorious case\n\n(4) SLAPP suites are less common because they will incur a higher cost for the filing party.\n\n(5) In the USA, while it possible to get a judgement for costs, such judgements rarely cover actual costs as Judges do not have to consider actual costs incurred but can calculate what the costs \"should\" be based on average ([loadstar](https://www.abi.org/abi-journal/what-is-reasonable-under-lodestar)) costs in the area. Judges also have the authority to adjust the costs downward by as much as 30% without explanation based on their sole determination of what is \"fair.\"\n\nThe American System is far inferior to the Brit's system for determining who pays. CMV!","date":"2023-06-23","id":"14gzx57","parent_id":null,"score":121,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: In the Court System, The British System of Having Loser Pays is Far Superior to the American System of Parties Pay Their Own Way.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/14gzx57/cmv_in_the_court_system_the_british_system_of/"},{"author":"Long_Dependent_5670","body":"Looks like the British just have better manners - even in the courtroom.","date":"2023-06-24","id":"jpf79du","parent_id":"14gzx57","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"kingpatzer","body":"(1) Under the Brit's system, cases of lower merit are rarely filed, as losing the case increases costs to the loser.\n\n(2) Under the Brit's system, settling cases outside of the courts is more encouraged, based on (1) which lowers appeals and speeds up the results for both parties.\n\n(3) The Brit's system means that people with few means can take on larger corporations or the government much more easily if they have a meritorious case\n\n(4) SLAPP suites are less common because they will incur a higher cost for the filing party.\n\n(5) In the USA, while it possible to get a judgement for costs, such judgements rarely cover actual costs as Judges do not have to consider actual costs incurred but can calculate what the costs \"should\" be based on average ([loadstar](https://www.abi.org/abi-journal/what-is-reasonable-under-lodestar)) costs in the area. Judges also have the authority to adjust the costs downward by as much as 30% without explanation based on their sole determination of what is \"fair.\"\n\nThe American System is far inferior to the Brit's system for determining who pays. CMV!","date":"2023-06-23","id":"14gzx57","parent_id":null,"score":121,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: In the Court System, The British System of Having Loser Pays is Far Superior to the American System of Parties Pay Their Own Way.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/14gzx57/cmv_in_the_court_system_the_british_system_of/"},{"author":"Corduroy_Sazerac","body":"A consequence of ‘loser pays’ that you may not have considered:\n> [“A corporation might apply to a court for an interim injunction (to prevent people protesting against them). In doing so, it doesn’t need to prove any claims it makes. It can name not only people who have protested against it, but anyone it feels inclined to name. Papers are then served on the named people, who have an opportunity to contest the injunction. If, as is often the case, they don’t understand the implications, they are likely to miss their chance. In any case, there is no legal aid, so people without knowledge of the law must defend themselves against companies using the best lawyers money can buy… But this is not the worst of it. National Highways Ltd, a company owned by the government, is using a new strategy: passing on the costs of obtaining its injunctions to the people named in them. Once a company has obtained a costs order from the court, it can force the people it names to pay the fees charged by its lawyers. Yes, even if you have adhered to the terms of the injunction, you are charged simply for being named. If you cannot pay, bailiffs might come to your home and confiscate your property. “](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jun/29/punishment-without-trial-britain-civil-injunctions-climate-activists)","date":"2023-06-29","id":"jpyoop7","parent_id":"14gzx57","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}]],"string":"[\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"kingpatzer\",\n \"body\": \"(1) Under the Brit's system, cases of lower merit are rarely filed, as losing the case increases costs to the loser.\\n\\n(2) Under the Brit's system, settling cases outside of the courts is more encouraged, based on (1) which lowers appeals and speeds up the results for both parties.\\n\\n(3) The Brit's system means that people with few means can take on larger corporations or the government much more easily if they have a meritorious case\\n\\n(4) SLAPP suites are less common because they will incur a higher cost for the filing party.\\n\\n(5) In the USA, while it possible to get a judgement for costs, such judgements rarely cover actual costs as Judges do not have to consider actual costs incurred but can calculate what the costs \\\"should\\\" be based on average ([loadstar](https://www.abi.org/abi-journal/what-is-reasonable-under-lodestar)) costs in the area. Judges also have the authority to adjust the costs downward by as much as 30% without explanation based on their sole determination of what is \\\"fair.\\\"\\n\\nThe American System is far inferior to the Brit's system for determining who pays. CMV!\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-23\",\n \"id\": \"14gzx57\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 121,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: In the Court System, The British System of Having Loser Pays is Far Superior to the American System of Parties Pay Their Own Way.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/14gzx57/cmv_in_the_court_system_the_british_system_of/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"onetwo3four5\",\n \"body\": \"I can see merits to both systems. For example, say you know that you are correct, but you are not sure that you can win a court case against a much wealthier opponent. \\n\\n\\nSo you want to file a lawsuit against somebody. It is not a frivolous suit by any means, but the decision is far from guaranteed to go in your favor. \\n\\nSo that means in the American system, a poorer person could sue a wealthier entity. Even if the poor person is only working with one lawyer, or a very small team, they can afford it even if they lose. \\n\\nHowever, if they lose, are they now on the hook for the entire legal bill, paid for by a giant cooperation with a team of fancy, expensive lawyers? \\n\\nFor an example, let's say I sue Walmart because I think that their negligence caused some damage to my property in their store. This isn't a frivolous lawsuit, this is genuine, and I have a strong case, but for whatever reason, I lose the case. Do i now owe Walmart the millions of dollars that they may have spent on their defense, even if I was only suing for some smaller amount of damages, and paid my own lawyer several thousand only?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-23\",\n \"id\": \"jp8yply\",\n \"parent_id\": \"14gzx57\",\n \"score\": 65,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"kingpatzer\",\n \"body\": \"If the decision is questionable, then it is not a meritorious suit.\\n\\nThat's the point. Civil lawsuits should be for where it is clear that someone is more wrong than not, and there is good reason to believe that just compensation is being denied.\\n\\nYour scenario is more someone MAY be more wrong than not, it's not clear; or, they may not be denying just compensation, it's not clear; or both. That's not a meritorious claim.\\n\\nI can't even imagine a case where Walmart damaged many thousands of dollars worth of property (and it would have to be many thousands to make validate spending a few thousand on legal expenses) and it wasn't clear who was at fault.\\n\\nIf you can give me a realistic scenario, I'll be inclined to give a delta for a one off instance. But you're going to have to come up with something realistic. \\n\\n\\nEDIT: should be \\\"highly questionable\\\" we go into rational analysis below, but I can see how what I said here could be misconstrued as being only about being fully justified. Which was not my intent. I recognize that all cases carry some burden of risk.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-23\",\n \"id\": \"jp8zyvj\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jp8yply\",\n \"score\": -38,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"kingpatzer\",\n \"body\": \"(1) Under the Brit's system, cases of lower merit are rarely filed, as losing the case increases costs to the loser.\\n\\n(2) Under the Brit's system, settling cases outside of the courts is more encouraged, based on (1) which lowers appeals and speeds up the results for both parties.\\n\\n(3) The Brit's system means that people with few means can take on larger corporations or the government much more easily if they have a meritorious case\\n\\n(4) SLAPP suites are less common because they will incur a higher cost for the filing party.\\n\\n(5) In the USA, while it possible to get a judgement for costs, such judgements rarely cover actual costs as Judges do not have to consider actual costs incurred but can calculate what the costs \\\"should\\\" be based on average ([loadstar](https://www.abi.org/abi-journal/what-is-reasonable-under-lodestar)) costs in the area. Judges also have the authority to adjust the costs downward by as much as 30% without explanation based on their sole determination of what is \\\"fair.\\\"\\n\\nThe American System is far inferior to the Brit's system for determining who pays. CMV!\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-23\",\n \"id\": \"14gzx57\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 121,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: In the Court System, The British System of Having Loser Pays is Far Superior to the American System of Parties Pay Their Own Way.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/14gzx57/cmv_in_the_court_system_the_british_system_of/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"jacobissimus\",\n \"body\": \"I’m the US, frivolous cases are also remarkably rare, but various lobbying groups have perpetuated a media campaign to make them seem more common then they really are—the classic example is the “hot coffee” incident, where McDonalds successfully put the idea in the public consciousness that it was filled by a crazy Karen-type, but it was actually filled by someone hoping to get their medical bills covered after they got third-degree burns from the coffee.\\n\\nSimilarly, I’m not sure how the British system does more to encourage out of court settlements then we do here. It’s pretty common to settle out of court.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-23\",\n \"id\": \"jp8z2yg\",\n \"parent_id\": \"14gzx57\",\n \"score\": 13,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Gasblaster2000\",\n \"body\": \"The USA is famous for people suing over all kinds of trivial stuff though. Very much known for it\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-23\",\n \"id\": \"jp8zoq8\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jp8z2yg\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"kingpatzer\",\n \"body\": \"(1) Under the Brit's system, cases of lower merit are rarely filed, as losing the case increases costs to the loser.\\n\\n(2) Under the Brit's system, settling cases outside of the courts is more encouraged, based on (1) which lowers appeals and speeds up the results for both parties.\\n\\n(3) The Brit's system means that people with few means can take on larger corporations or the government much more easily if they have a meritorious case\\n\\n(4) SLAPP suites are less common because they will incur a higher cost for the filing party.\\n\\n(5) In the USA, while it possible to get a judgement for costs, such judgements rarely cover actual costs as Judges do not have to consider actual costs incurred but can calculate what the costs \\\"should\\\" be based on average ([loadstar](https://www.abi.org/abi-journal/what-is-reasonable-under-lodestar)) costs in the area. Judges also have the authority to adjust the costs downward by as much as 30% without explanation based on their sole determination of what is \\\"fair.\\\"\\n\\nThe American System is far inferior to the Brit's system for determining who pays. CMV!\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-23\",\n \"id\": \"14gzx57\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 121,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: In the Court System, The British System of Having Loser Pays is Far Superior to the American System of Parties Pay Their Own Way.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/14gzx57/cmv_in_the_court_system_the_british_system_of/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Euphoric-Beat-7206\",\n \"body\": \"The \\\"loser pays\\\" system can discourage individuals with limited financial means from pursuing legitimate claims or defending themselves in court. It places a significant financial burden on the losing party, potentially deterring people from seeking justice or exercising their legal rights. This can lead to unequal access to justice, favoring the wealthy and potentially undermining the principle of equal treatment under the law.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-23\",\n \"id\": \"jp92iov\",\n \"parent_id\": \"14gzx57\",\n \"score\": 5,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"kingpatzer\",\n \"body\": \"The loser pays system is the only way for those with limited financial means to bring a meritorious claim, though. \\n\\n\\nWhile all legal cases carry some risk. If I am living hand-to-mouth, I can't afford to hire an attorney at all; while in a loser pays system I at least have the option at a bite of the apple.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-23\",\n \"id\": \"jp930p8\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jp92iov\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"kingpatzer\",\n \"body\": \"(1) Under the Brit's system, cases of lower merit are rarely filed, as losing the case increases costs to the loser.\\n\\n(2) Under the Brit's system, settling cases outside of the courts is more encouraged, based on (1) which lowers appeals and speeds up the results for both parties.\\n\\n(3) The Brit's system means that people with few means can take on larger corporations or the government much more easily if they have a meritorious case\\n\\n(4) SLAPP suites are less common because they will incur a higher cost for the filing party.\\n\\n(5) In the USA, while it possible to get a judgement for costs, such judgements rarely cover actual costs as Judges do not have to consider actual costs incurred but can calculate what the costs \\\"should\\\" be based on average ([loadstar](https://www.abi.org/abi-journal/what-is-reasonable-under-lodestar)) costs in the area. Judges also have the authority to adjust the costs downward by as much as 30% without explanation based on their sole determination of what is \\\"fair.\\\"\\n\\nThe American System is far inferior to the Brit's system for determining who pays. CMV!\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-23\",\n \"id\": \"14gzx57\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 121,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: In the Court System, The British System of Having Loser Pays is Far Superior to the American System of Parties Pay Their Own Way.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/14gzx57/cmv_in_the_court_system_the_british_system_of/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"markroth69\",\n \"body\": \"While in reality I have a decent job with, most importantly, a decent written contract, that is not the case for most Americans. \\n\\nMandating that the loser always pays would lead to money directly being stolen from American workers. I am not really exaggerating. \\n\\nWage theft is one of the easiest and most lucrative crimes in America and one of the least reported and least punished. (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/owed-employers-face-little-accountability-for-wage-theft/) \\n\\nIf loser pays laws were implemented, employers would absolutely have an incentive to steal from their employees. And would know that lax state enforcement plus the chilling effect of employees unable to afford to sue would mean they would win.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-23\",\n \"id\": \"jp93g5n\",\n \"parent_id\": \"14gzx57\",\n \"score\": 5,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"kingpatzer\",\n \"body\": \">employees unable to afford to sue \\n\\nI am missing your argument. \\n\\n\\nIf I'm suffering from wage theft, then very likely I'm a low wage employee who can't afford an attorney in the first place. Employment lawyers around me go for about $400 an hour and would want a 5-10 hour retainer minimum. \\n\\n\\nWhile, in the UK, I could afford to bring a case, because if I am the victim of wage theft and have a case, then it will (a) more likely be settled and (b) not be impossible for me to hire the required lawyer in the first place.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-23\",\n \"id\": \"jp94wm7\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jp93g5n\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"kingpatzer\",\n \"body\": \"(1) Under the Brit's system, cases of lower merit are rarely filed, as losing the case increases costs to the loser.\\n\\n(2) Under the Brit's system, settling cases outside of the courts is more encouraged, based on (1) which lowers appeals and speeds up the results for both parties.\\n\\n(3) The Brit's system means that people with few means can take on larger corporations or the government much more easily if they have a meritorious case\\n\\n(4) SLAPP suites are less common because they will incur a higher cost for the filing party.\\n\\n(5) In the USA, while it possible to get a judgement for costs, such judgements rarely cover actual costs as Judges do not have to consider actual costs incurred but can calculate what the costs \\\"should\\\" be based on average ([loadstar](https://www.abi.org/abi-journal/what-is-reasonable-under-lodestar)) costs in the area. Judges also have the authority to adjust the costs downward by as much as 30% without explanation based on their sole determination of what is \\\"fair.\\\"\\n\\nThe American System is far inferior to the Brit's system for determining who pays. CMV!\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-23\",\n \"id\": \"14gzx57\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 121,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: In the Court System, The British System of Having Loser Pays is Far Superior to the American System of Parties Pay Their Own Way.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/14gzx57/cmv_in_the_court_system_the_british_system_of/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"merlinus12\",\n \"body\": \"This would make it incredibly dangerous to sue any large corporation unless you had a near certainty of winning the case.\\n\\nScenario: I am but by an Amazon truck, costing me $5000 in medical bills. I take them to court. They spend $2 million in legal fees with a high-priced firm. I end up losing the case because it turns out that (unknown to me) the Amazon driver was drunk, so Amazon isn’t at fault (since corporate vicarious liability only applies to negligent actions by their employees, not criminal ones). I am now on the hook for $2 million in legal fees and have to declare bankruptcy.\\n\\nUnder such a system, why would anyone risk suing a large corporation who can afford to spend big $$ on legal fees? Even if you were 99% sure that you would win such a case, you’d be a fool to sue because there is a 1% chance of you being ruined financially. In contrast, big corporations aren’t deterred at all, since they can afford to lose big cases and pay the resulting fees. \\n\\nThe end result is a legal system that is heavily biased in the favor of whomever has the biggest bank account.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-23\",\n \"id\": \"jp93s9o\",\n \"parent_id\": \"14gzx57\",\n \"score\": 10,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"kingpatzer\",\n \"body\": \"How does your attorney miss that the driver was drunk as part of discovery?\\n\\nHow is being drunk proven if not by a police citation? Meaning, the attorney wouldn't even need discovery, they'd have found that out in initial fact finding on their own prior to filing. \\n\\nYour scenario makes no sense, unless you're saying complete legal incompetence dramatically crossing the line to malpractice is common. Which, well, frankly, I'd like to see some data on.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-23\",\n \"id\": \"jp95mvl\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jp93s9o\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"kingpatzer\",\n \"body\": \"(1) Under the Brit's system, cases of lower merit are rarely filed, as losing the case increases costs to the loser.\\n\\n(2) Under the Brit's system, settling cases outside of the courts is more encouraged, based on (1) which lowers appeals and speeds up the results for both parties.\\n\\n(3) The Brit's system means that people with few means can take on larger corporations or the government much more easily if they have a meritorious case\\n\\n(4) SLAPP suites are less common because they will incur a higher cost for the filing party.\\n\\n(5) In the USA, while it possible to get a judgement for costs, such judgements rarely cover actual costs as Judges do not have to consider actual costs incurred but can calculate what the costs \\\"should\\\" be based on average ([loadstar](https://www.abi.org/abi-journal/what-is-reasonable-under-lodestar)) costs in the area. Judges also have the authority to adjust the costs downward by as much as 30% without explanation based on their sole determination of what is \\\"fair.\\\"\\n\\nThe American System is far inferior to the Brit's system for determining who pays. CMV!\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-23\",\n \"id\": \"14gzx57\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 121,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: In the Court System, The British System of Having Loser Pays is Far Superior to the American System of Parties Pay Their Own Way.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/14gzx57/cmv_in_the_court_system_the_british_system_of/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"El_dorado_au\",\n \"body\": \"According to the Wikipedia article on Libel tourism, England and Wales is a popular destination for libel tourism, at least until laws addressing it were enacted. That would suggest that lawsuits of weak merit are not being prevented. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libel_tourism\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-23\",\n \"id\": \"jp9bhsy\",\n \"parent_id\": \"14gzx57\",\n \"score\": 10,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"kingpatzer\",\n \"body\": \"Not really, but I see what you're getting at. \\n\\n\\nUK standards for libel are not the same as US standards for libel. So, a case that has merit in the UK may not have merit in the US. \\n\\n\\nThat is a difference in law which differentiates what is or is not meritorious in each jurisdiction, not a difference in access. \\n\\nBut, this is true for many types of cases. I am not arguing that the UK definition of any particular civil infraction is superior to the definition in America. I am arguing that the system governing how attorneys are paid is superior. \\n\\n\\nBut, maybe you're on your way to something here. If you could show it is not a difference in the legal definition of the torte but the fact of the financial system allowing access to the courts that causes the difference I'd buy the argument.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-23\",\n \"id\": \"jp9e30v\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jp9bhsy\",\n \"score\": 6,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"kingpatzer\",\n \"body\": \"(1) Under the Brit's system, cases of lower merit are rarely filed, as losing the case increases costs to the loser.\\n\\n(2) Under the Brit's system, settling cases outside of the courts is more encouraged, based on (1) which lowers appeals and speeds up the results for both parties.\\n\\n(3) The Brit's system means that people with few means can take on larger corporations or the government much more easily if they have a meritorious case\\n\\n(4) SLAPP suites are less common because they will incur a higher cost for the filing party.\\n\\n(5) In the USA, while it possible to get a judgement for costs, such judgements rarely cover actual costs as Judges do not have to consider actual costs incurred but can calculate what the costs \\\"should\\\" be based on average ([loadstar](https://www.abi.org/abi-journal/what-is-reasonable-under-lodestar)) costs in the area. Judges also have the authority to adjust the costs downward by as much as 30% without explanation based on their sole determination of what is \\\"fair.\\\"\\n\\nThe American System is far inferior to the Brit's system for determining who pays. CMV!\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-23\",\n \"id\": \"14gzx57\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 121,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: In the Court System, The British System of Having Loser Pays is Far Superior to the American System of Parties Pay Their Own Way.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/14gzx57/cmv_in_the_court_system_the_british_system_of/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"TheAlabamaJedi\",\n \"body\": \"Not 100 % familiar with the brit system but I am not wealthy. If I sued a large corporation who could afford fancy lawyers (even if they lose), I would have to pay those lawyers if I lost? \\n\\n That would keep poor people from risking a lawsuit because the odds of defeating a wealthy and powerful company is to high to justify the risk.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-23\",\n \"id\": \"jp9kljc\",\n \"parent_id\": \"14gzx57\",\n \"score\": 3,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Wigglebot23\",\n \"body\": \"It seems there are a variety of limitations not discussed in the post designed to stop parties from unreasonably inflating their costs https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costs_in_English_law\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-23\",\n \"id\": \"jpa5hey\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jp9kljc\",\n \"score\": 3,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"kingpatzer\",\n \"body\": \"(1) Under the Brit's system, cases of lower merit are rarely filed, as losing the case increases costs to the loser.\\n\\n(2) Under the Brit's system, settling cases outside of the courts is more encouraged, based on (1) which lowers appeals and speeds up the results for both parties.\\n\\n(3) The Brit's system means that people with few means can take on larger corporations or the government much more easily if they have a meritorious case\\n\\n(4) SLAPP suites are less common because they will incur a higher cost for the filing party.\\n\\n(5) In the USA, while it possible to get a judgement for costs, such judgements rarely cover actual costs as Judges do not have to consider actual costs incurred but can calculate what the costs \\\"should\\\" be based on average ([loadstar](https://www.abi.org/abi-journal/what-is-reasonable-under-lodestar)) costs in the area. Judges also have the authority to adjust the costs downward by as much as 30% without explanation based on their sole determination of what is \\\"fair.\\\"\\n\\nThe American System is far inferior to the Brit's system for determining who pays. CMV!\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-23\",\n \"id\": \"14gzx57\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 121,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: In the Court System, The British System of Having Loser Pays is Far Superior to the American System of Parties Pay Their Own Way.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/14gzx57/cmv_in_the_court_system_the_british_system_of/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"zstandig\",\n \"body\": \"Most cases don't end up in court, that's supposed to be a last resort. Court is very expensive and it's best to settle out of court or get some arbitration. \\n\\nThat's what all my classes emphasized anyway. No idea how true that is in practice\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-23\",\n \"id\": \"jp9ylmx\",\n \"parent_id\": \"14gzx57\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"kingpatzer\",\n \"body\": \"(1) Under the Brit's system, cases of lower merit are rarely filed, as losing the case increases costs to the loser.\\n\\n(2) Under the Brit's system, settling cases outside of the courts is more encouraged, based on (1) which lowers appeals and speeds up the results for both parties.\\n\\n(3) The Brit's system means that people with few means can take on larger corporations or the government much more easily if they have a meritorious case\\n\\n(4) SLAPP suites are less common because they will incur a higher cost for the filing party.\\n\\n(5) In the USA, while it possible to get a judgement for costs, such judgements rarely cover actual costs as Judges do not have to consider actual costs incurred but can calculate what the costs \\\"should\\\" be based on average ([loadstar](https://www.abi.org/abi-journal/what-is-reasonable-under-lodestar)) costs in the area. Judges also have the authority to adjust the costs downward by as much as 30% without explanation based on their sole determination of what is \\\"fair.\\\"\\n\\nThe American System is far inferior to the Brit's system for determining who pays. CMV!\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-23\",\n \"id\": \"14gzx57\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 121,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: In the Court System, The British System of Having Loser Pays is Far Superior to the American System of Parties Pay Their Own Way.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/14gzx57/cmv_in_the_court_system_the_british_system_of/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"mrcrabspointyknob\",\n \"body\": \"I think your focus on “weak” is a bit misguided. \\n\\nFirst, the british rule certainly means that people who don’t have meritorious claims are less likely to file. *However, it also means that “complex” or risky claims are also not likely to be filed, even when they arguably should be meritorious.* For example, it is very complex to bring a technological patent case before a jury, and it brings a lot of risk external to the actual merits because jury’s simply might not have the capacity to accurately assess “meritorious” claims. Even judges have a hard time. The american rule limits this risk.\\n\\nSecond, “weak” is a bit mischievous in meaning. When cases involve some question of fact, there are slam dunk cases, there are difficult cases, there are edge cases, and there are bad cases. But you either win, or you don’t; something was either illegal, or it wasn’t. The british rule leaves a large dead zone of people afraid to bring actions against illegal conduct because they involve some arguable question of fact, meaning a lot more arguable illegal conduct goes unpunished. The american rule has much lower stakes and thus a smaller dead zone of illegal conduct surviving.\\n\\nWhile I think “weakness” is not the best argument, I’m going to against myself here and say that the British rule does do something very important that the American rule does not: it makes plaintiffs actually “whole,” which is the purpose of civil suits, because they don’t lose a chunk of an award to attorney’s fees. I think that is a much better argument.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-23\",\n \"id\": \"jpa2ok1\",\n \"parent_id\": \"14gzx57\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Taxington\",\n \"body\": \"There are no win no fee law firms who aggregate that risk. They work on the agreement you pay them a cut of the award if you win and nothing if you lose.\\n\\nThey use their cut from winning cases to self insure agaisnt losing a few.\\n\\nThese firms won't take on a case that's 50/50. They will take on a load of cases that are mostly sound but a bit risky and make up losses in volume.\\n\\nIs not perfect but it means even the poorest have a strong recourse when clearly wronged.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-27\",\n \"id\": \"jpphx9c\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jpa2ok1\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"kingpatzer\",\n \"body\": \"(1) Under the Brit's system, cases of lower merit are rarely filed, as losing the case increases costs to the loser.\\n\\n(2) Under the Brit's system, settling cases outside of the courts is more encouraged, based on (1) which lowers appeals and speeds up the results for both parties.\\n\\n(3) The Brit's system means that people with few means can take on larger corporations or the government much more easily if they have a meritorious case\\n\\n(4) SLAPP suites are less common because they will incur a higher cost for the filing party.\\n\\n(5) In the USA, while it possible to get a judgement for costs, such judgements rarely cover actual costs as Judges do not have to consider actual costs incurred but can calculate what the costs \\\"should\\\" be based on average ([loadstar](https://www.abi.org/abi-journal/what-is-reasonable-under-lodestar)) costs in the area. Judges also have the authority to adjust the costs downward by as much as 30% without explanation based on their sole determination of what is \\\"fair.\\\"\\n\\nThe American System is far inferior to the Brit's system for determining who pays. CMV!\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-23\",\n \"id\": \"14gzx57\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 121,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: In the Court System, The British System of Having Loser Pays is Far Superior to the American System of Parties Pay Their Own Way.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/14gzx57/cmv_in_the_court_system_the_british_system_of/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Pretend-Clue1448\",\n \"body\": \"Does that mean if someone with very little financial resources takes on enormous company and loses, they have to pay for the small country of lawyers the corporation hired?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-23\",\n \"id\": \"jpb5hdf\",\n \"parent_id\": \"14gzx57\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"kingpatzer\",\n \"body\": \"(1) Under the Brit's system, cases of lower merit are rarely filed, as losing the case increases costs to the loser.\\n\\n(2) Under the Brit's system, settling cases outside of the courts is more encouraged, based on (1) which lowers appeals and speeds up the results for both parties.\\n\\n(3) The Brit's system means that people with few means can take on larger corporations or the government much more easily if they have a meritorious case\\n\\n(4) SLAPP suites are less common because they will incur a higher cost for the filing party.\\n\\n(5) In the USA, while it possible to get a judgement for costs, such judgements rarely cover actual costs as Judges do not have to consider actual costs incurred but can calculate what the costs \\\"should\\\" be based on average ([loadstar](https://www.abi.org/abi-journal/what-is-reasonable-under-lodestar)) costs in the area. Judges also have the authority to adjust the costs downward by as much as 30% without explanation based on their sole determination of what is \\\"fair.\\\"\\n\\nThe American System is far inferior to the Brit's system for determining who pays. CMV!\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-23\",\n \"id\": \"14gzx57\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 121,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: In the Court System, The British System of Having Loser Pays is Far Superior to the American System of Parties Pay Their Own Way.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/14gzx57/cmv_in_the_court_system_the_british_system_of/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"VenflonBandit\",\n \"body\": \"So, not sure if this will change your mind but might add context. What you've described isn't the whole of the English and Welsh system (I have no clue about Scotland or NI). There is the small claims (<£10,000) and fast track (<£25,000) where minimal or fixed costs respectively can be claimed. Then there's the tribunal system where costs are again very limited, only being liable for the other side if you act unreasonably. Even in high value cases in 'normal' civil court the judges have wide discretion in how to award costs.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-24\",\n \"id\": \"jpb780i\",\n \"parent_id\": \"14gzx57\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"kingpatzer\",\n \"body\": \"(1) Under the Brit's system, cases of lower merit are rarely filed, as losing the case increases costs to the loser.\\n\\n(2) Under the Brit's system, settling cases outside of the courts is more encouraged, based on (1) which lowers appeals and speeds up the results for both parties.\\n\\n(3) The Brit's system means that people with few means can take on larger corporations or the government much more easily if they have a meritorious case\\n\\n(4) SLAPP suites are less common because they will incur a higher cost for the filing party.\\n\\n(5) In the USA, while it possible to get a judgement for costs, such judgements rarely cover actual costs as Judges do not have to consider actual costs incurred but can calculate what the costs \\\"should\\\" be based on average ([loadstar](https://www.abi.org/abi-journal/what-is-reasonable-under-lodestar)) costs in the area. Judges also have the authority to adjust the costs downward by as much as 30% without explanation based on their sole determination of what is \\\"fair.\\\"\\n\\nThe American System is far inferior to the Brit's system for determining who pays. CMV!\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-23\",\n \"id\": \"14gzx57\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 121,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: In the Court System, The British System of Having Loser Pays is Far Superior to the American System of Parties Pay Their Own Way.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/14gzx57/cmv_in_the_court_system_the_british_system_of/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"GuidanceBackground66\",\n \"body\": \"Looks like the British are winning at something other than tea making. Cheers to loser pays!\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-24\",\n \"id\": \"jpbymlf\",\n \"parent_id\": \"14gzx57\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"kingpatzer\",\n \"body\": \"(1) Under the Brit's system, cases of lower merit are rarely filed, as losing the case increases costs to the loser.\\n\\n(2) Under the Brit's system, settling cases outside of the courts is more encouraged, based on (1) which lowers appeals and speeds up the results for both parties.\\n\\n(3) The Brit's system means that people with few means can take on larger corporations or the government much more easily if they have a meritorious case\\n\\n(4) SLAPP suites are less common because they will incur a higher cost for the filing party.\\n\\n(5) In the USA, while it possible to get a judgement for costs, such judgements rarely cover actual costs as Judges do not have to consider actual costs incurred but can calculate what the costs \\\"should\\\" be based on average ([loadstar](https://www.abi.org/abi-journal/what-is-reasonable-under-lodestar)) costs in the area. Judges also have the authority to adjust the costs downward by as much as 30% without explanation based on their sole determination of what is \\\"fair.\\\"\\n\\nThe American System is far inferior to the Brit's system for determining who pays. CMV!\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-23\",\n \"id\": \"14gzx57\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 121,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: In the Court System, The British System of Having Loser Pays is Far Superior to the American System of Parties Pay Their Own Way.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/14gzx57/cmv_in_the_court_system_the_british_system_of/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Mr_Makak\",\n \"body\": \"Ok, so if I'm a poor person who can't afford a lawyer and my only option is to represent myself, my cost is like... zero? Or the odd train ticket fee to go to court?\\n\\nUnder your proposed system, how could I ever decide to sue some rich guy and risk having to pay millions to whatever army of lawyers he chooses to hire for his case? \\n\\nYour system is actively punishing (increasing the risk) for the poorer party\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-24\",\n \"id\": \"jpbzix8\",\n \"parent_id\": \"14gzx57\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Taxington\",\n \"body\": \">Under your proposed system, how could I ever decide to sue some rich guy and risk having to pay millions to whatever army of lawyers he chooses to hire for his case? \\n\\nHe can't do that. Judges realy realy don't take kindly to deliberately running up the bill. He's free to hire entirely pointless extra council but it won't get included in a costs award.\\n\\nThere are plenty of no win no. Fee law firms who aggregate the risk.\\n\\nThey take your case in return for a cut of the winnings, if it's remotely sound. \\n\\nThey use their cut to cover the odd loss.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-27\",\n \"id\": \"jppik28\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jpbzix8\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"kingpatzer\",\n \"body\": \"(1) Under the Brit's system, cases of lower merit are rarely filed, as losing the case increases costs to the loser.\\n\\n(2) Under the Brit's system, settling cases outside of the courts is more encouraged, based on (1) which lowers appeals and speeds up the results for both parties.\\n\\n(3) The Brit's system means that people with few means can take on larger corporations or the government much more easily if they have a meritorious case\\n\\n(4) SLAPP suites are less common because they will incur a higher cost for the filing party.\\n\\n(5) In the USA, while it possible to get a judgement for costs, such judgements rarely cover actual costs as Judges do not have to consider actual costs incurred but can calculate what the costs \\\"should\\\" be based on average ([loadstar](https://www.abi.org/abi-journal/what-is-reasonable-under-lodestar)) costs in the area. Judges also have the authority to adjust the costs downward by as much as 30% without explanation based on their sole determination of what is \\\"fair.\\\"\\n\\nThe American System is far inferior to the Brit's system for determining who pays. CMV!\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-23\",\n \"id\": \"14gzx57\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 121,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: In the Court System, The British System of Having Loser Pays is Far Superior to the American System of Parties Pay Their Own Way.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/14gzx57/cmv_in_the_court_system_the_british_system_of/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"AdagioInevitable9357\",\n \"body\": \"Looks like the British system really takes the cake. Time for America to step up its game! 🍰🇬🇧🏆\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-24\",\n \"id\": \"jpd0rfi\",\n \"parent_id\": \"14gzx57\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"kingpatzer\",\n \"body\": \"(1) Under the Brit's system, cases of lower merit are rarely filed, as losing the case increases costs to the loser.\\n\\n(2) Under the Brit's system, settling cases outside of the courts is more encouraged, based on (1) which lowers appeals and speeds up the results for both parties.\\n\\n(3) The Brit's system means that people with few means can take on larger corporations or the government much more easily if they have a meritorious case\\n\\n(4) SLAPP suites are less common because they will incur a higher cost for the filing party.\\n\\n(5) In the USA, while it possible to get a judgement for costs, such judgements rarely cover actual costs as Judges do not have to consider actual costs incurred but can calculate what the costs \\\"should\\\" be based on average ([loadstar](https://www.abi.org/abi-journal/what-is-reasonable-under-lodestar)) costs in the area. Judges also have the authority to adjust the costs downward by as much as 30% without explanation based on their sole determination of what is \\\"fair.\\\"\\n\\nThe American System is far inferior to the Brit's system for determining who pays. CMV!\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-23\",\n \"id\": \"14gzx57\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 121,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: In the Court System, The British System of Having Loser Pays is Far Superior to the American System of Parties Pay Their Own Way.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/14gzx57/cmv_in_the_court_system_the_british_system_of/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Long_Dependent_5670\",\n \"body\": \"Looks like the British just have better manners - even in the courtroom.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-24\",\n \"id\": \"jpf79du\",\n \"parent_id\": \"14gzx57\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"kingpatzer\",\n \"body\": \"(1) Under the Brit's system, cases of lower merit are rarely filed, as losing the case increases costs to the loser.\\n\\n(2) Under the Brit's system, settling cases outside of the courts is more encouraged, based on (1) which lowers appeals and speeds up the results for both parties.\\n\\n(3) The Brit's system means that people with few means can take on larger corporations or the government much more easily if they have a meritorious case\\n\\n(4) SLAPP suites are less common because they will incur a higher cost for the filing party.\\n\\n(5) In the USA, while it possible to get a judgement for costs, such judgements rarely cover actual costs as Judges do not have to consider actual costs incurred but can calculate what the costs \\\"should\\\" be based on average ([loadstar](https://www.abi.org/abi-journal/what-is-reasonable-under-lodestar)) costs in the area. Judges also have the authority to adjust the costs downward by as much as 30% without explanation based on their sole determination of what is \\\"fair.\\\"\\n\\nThe American System is far inferior to the Brit's system for determining who pays. CMV!\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-23\",\n \"id\": \"14gzx57\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 121,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: In the Court System, The British System of Having Loser Pays is Far Superior to the American System of Parties Pay Their Own Way.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/14gzx57/cmv_in_the_court_system_the_british_system_of/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Corduroy_Sazerac\",\n \"body\": \"A consequence of ‘loser pays’ that you may not have considered:\\n> [“A corporation might apply to a court for an interim injunction (to prevent people protesting against them). In doing so, it doesn’t need to prove any claims it makes. It can name not only people who have protested against it, but anyone it feels inclined to name. Papers are then served on the named people, who have an opportunity to contest the injunction. If, as is often the case, they don’t understand the implications, they are likely to miss their chance. In any case, there is no legal aid, so people without knowledge of the law must defend themselves against companies using the best lawyers money can buy… But this is not the worst of it. National Highways Ltd, a company owned by the government, is using a new strategy: passing on the costs of obtaining its injunctions to the people named in them. Once a company has obtained a costs order from the court, it can force the people it names to pay the fees charged by its lawyers. Yes, even if you have adhered to the terms of the injunction, you are charged simply for being named. If you cannot pay, bailiffs might come to your home and confiscate your property. “](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jun/29/punishment-without-trial-britain-civil-injunctions-climate-activists)\",\n \"date\": \"2023-06-29\",\n \"id\": \"jpyoop7\",\n \"parent_id\": \"14gzx57\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ]\n]","isConversational":false},"2":{"kind":"string","value":"moderate"}}},{"rowIdx":47,"cells":{"0":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"author":"GrannyLow","body":"It is morally wrong to cut off a dog's body parts for aesthetics.\n\nMy view can possibly be changed with situations where the cropping or docking actually benefits the dog.\n\nMy view may be changed by situations where a dog is very likely to be injured in a particular body part if it is not removed, but it would have to be a grave danger since the operation itself is an injury.\n\nMy view will not be changed with arbitrary breed standards. If breeders wanted a specific trait in a breed then it they should have bred it in. Breed standards should never require surgical removal of body parts.","date":"2023-07-12","id":"14y71jo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The only justifiable reasons to crop a dog's ears or dock a dog's tail is prior injuries or diseases.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/14y71jo/cmv_the_only_justifiable_reasons_to_crop_a_dogs/"},{"author":"kingpatzer","body":"For dogs that are being used specifically for un-partnered sentry duty (think Doberman's and Rottweiler) cropping of tails matters because an intruder can gain control of the animal by grabbing the tail. \n\n\nDogs that typically do not work un-partnered (GSDs, Malinois) don't need to worry about this because if the intruder is worrying about the dog, the dog's human partner can be free to worry about the intruder. \n\n\nI agree that for it to be part of the breed standard creates a situation where cruelty is normalized. But for dogs being bred for use in specific working situations there are real reasons for doing it, which include keeping the dog safe.","date":"2023-07-13","id":"jrt75w2","parent_id":"14y71jo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"GrannyLow","body":"Interesting! One of the arguments in my head was the fact that everybody seems to want to dock their dobermans when all of the GSDs I see in actual police and military duty have their tails intact. \n\nI didn't realize that it had to do with working with a handler or not, or even that dobermans don't usually work with a handler.\n\n!delta\n\nI guess I can see docking a real guard dog's tail. An actual trained guard dog, not a housepet that doubles as \"security\"","date":"2023-07-13","id":"jrtxsm2","parent_id":"jrt75w2","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"DeltaBot","body":"Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/kingpatzer ([81∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/kingpatzer)).\n\n^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)","date":"2023-07-13","id":"jrtxuq3","parent_id":"jrtxsm2","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],"string":"[\n {\n \"author\": \"GrannyLow\",\n \"body\": \"It is morally wrong to cut off a dog's body parts for aesthetics.\\n\\nMy view can possibly be changed with situations where the cropping or docking actually benefits the dog.\\n\\nMy view may be changed by situations where a dog is very likely to be injured in a particular body part if it is not removed, but it would have to be a grave danger since the operation itself is an injury.\\n\\nMy view will not be changed with arbitrary breed standards. If breeders wanted a specific trait in a breed then it they should have bred it in. Breed standards should never require surgical removal of body parts.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-12\",\n \"id\": \"14y71jo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The only justifiable reasons to crop a dog's ears or dock a dog's tail is prior injuries or diseases.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/14y71jo/cmv_the_only_justifiable_reasons_to_crop_a_dogs/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"kingpatzer\",\n \"body\": \"For dogs that are being used specifically for un-partnered sentry duty (think Doberman's and Rottweiler) cropping of tails matters because an intruder can gain control of the animal by grabbing the tail. \\n\\n\\nDogs that typically do not work un-partnered (GSDs, Malinois) don't need to worry about this because if the intruder is worrying about the dog, the dog's human partner can be free to worry about the intruder. \\n\\n\\nI agree that for it to be part of the breed standard creates a situation where cruelty is normalized. But for dogs being bred for use in specific working situations there are real reasons for doing it, which include keeping the dog safe.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-13\",\n \"id\": \"jrt75w2\",\n \"parent_id\": \"14y71jo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"GrannyLow\",\n \"body\": \"Interesting! One of the arguments in my head was the fact that everybody seems to want to dock their dobermans when all of the GSDs I see in actual police and military duty have their tails intact. \\n\\nI didn't realize that it had to do with working with a handler or not, or even that dobermans don't usually work with a handler.\\n\\n!delta\\n\\nI guess I can see docking a real guard dog's tail. An actual trained guard dog, not a housepet that doubles as \\\"security\\\"\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-13\",\n \"id\": \"jrtxsm2\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jrt75w2\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"DeltaBot\",\n \"body\": \"Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/kingpatzer ([81∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/kingpatzer)).\\n\\n^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-13\",\n \"id\": \"jrtxuq3\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jrtxsm2\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n]","isConversational":false},"1":{"kind":"list like","value":[[{"author":"GrannyLow","body":"It is morally wrong to cut off a dog's body parts for aesthetics.\n\nMy view can possibly be changed with situations where the cropping or docking actually benefits the dog.\n\nMy view may be changed by situations where a dog is very likely to be injured in a particular body part if it is not removed, but it would have to be a grave danger since the operation itself is an injury.\n\nMy view will not be changed with arbitrary breed standards. If breeders wanted a specific trait in a breed then it they should have bred it in. Breed standards should never require surgical removal of body parts.","date":"2023-07-12","id":"14y71jo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The only justifiable reasons to crop a dog's ears or dock a dog's tail is prior injuries or diseases.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/14y71jo/cmv_the_only_justifiable_reasons_to_crop_a_dogs/"},{"author":"slightofhand1","body":"Dogs with cropped ears do way better in dogfighting rings, since the other dog can't chomp down on their ear and pull.","date":"2023-07-12","id":"jrqz4if","parent_id":"14y71jo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"GrannyLow","body":"No delta as dogfighting itself is morally bankrupt.","date":"2023-07-12","id":"jrqzu16","parent_id":"jrqz4if","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"GrannyLow","body":"It is morally wrong to cut off a dog's body parts for aesthetics.\n\nMy view can possibly be changed with situations where the cropping or docking actually benefits the dog.\n\nMy view may be changed by situations where a dog is very likely to be injured in a particular body part if it is not removed, but it would have to be a grave danger since the operation itself is an injury.\n\nMy view will not be changed with arbitrary breed standards. If breeders wanted a specific trait in a breed then it they should have bred it in. Breed standards should never require surgical removal of body parts.","date":"2023-07-12","id":"14y71jo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The only justifiable reasons to crop a dog's ears or dock a dog's tail is prior injuries or diseases.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/14y71jo/cmv_the_only_justifiable_reasons_to_crop_a_dogs/"},{"author":"SpreadEmu127332","body":"Pointer dogs do better with shorter tails because with longer ones they can’t pull it up all the way.","date":"2023-07-12","id":"jrr1dh0","parent_id":"14y71jo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"GrannyLow","body":"Do better with what? Why only pointers?","date":"2023-07-12","id":"jrr35ov","parent_id":"jrr1dh0","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"GrannyLow","body":"It is morally wrong to cut off a dog's body parts for aesthetics.\n\nMy view can possibly be changed with situations where the cropping or docking actually benefits the dog.\n\nMy view may be changed by situations where a dog is very likely to be injured in a particular body part if it is not removed, but it would have to be a grave danger since the operation itself is an injury.\n\nMy view will not be changed with arbitrary breed standards. If breeders wanted a specific trait in a breed then it they should have bred it in. Breed standards should never require surgical removal of body parts.","date":"2023-07-12","id":"14y71jo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The only justifiable reasons to crop a dog's ears or dock a dog's tail is prior injuries or diseases.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/14y71jo/cmv_the_only_justifiable_reasons_to_crop_a_dogs/"},{"author":"gbdallin","body":"I have two great Danes. Neither of them are docked or cropped.\n\nDanes are loving, happy, excitable dogs, and can get what's called \"happy tail:\" a condition in which they whip their tails into so many solid surfaces that the skin bursts, and they bleed all over the place. \n\nLong term, it can cause infection or kind of a permanent laceration, or bruising of the actual bones at the tip of the tail, causing horrible pain for the dogs.\n\nWe try really, really hard to keep them calm when we come home from work, for instance, and more than once they've split their tails and sprayed blood on the walls. I'm glad we didn't dock their tails. They are expressive and hilarious. But when they are crying and whining because they've injured themselves, I understand why some people do it.","date":"2023-07-12","id":"jrr2p3l","parent_id":"14y71jo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"horshack_test","body":"Our dog (pit mix) has an exceptionally long tail and the end of it is permanently calloused because of this. Vet says he's fine, though - we would never consider docking it unless it was a real issue.","date":"2023-07-12","id":"jrr4cxw","parent_id":"jrr2p3l","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"GrannyLow","body":"It is morally wrong to cut off a dog's body parts for aesthetics.\n\nMy view can possibly be changed with situations where the cropping or docking actually benefits the dog.\n\nMy view may be changed by situations where a dog is very likely to be injured in a particular body part if it is not removed, but it would have to be a grave danger since the operation itself is an injury.\n\nMy view will not be changed with arbitrary breed standards. If breeders wanted a specific trait in a breed then it they should have bred it in. Breed standards should never require surgical removal of body parts.","date":"2023-07-12","id":"14y71jo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The only justifiable reasons to crop a dog's ears or dock a dog's tail is prior injuries or diseases.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/14y71jo/cmv_the_only_justifiable_reasons_to_crop_a_dogs/"},{"author":"Nrdman","body":">It is morally wrong to cut off a dog's body parts for aesthetics.\r \n\r\n\nCan you explain why you think it is morally wrong?","date":"2023-07-12","id":"jrr3ual","parent_id":"14y71jo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"GrannyLow","body":"Would it be morally wrong for someone to decide you looked better with a stub pinkie and cut it off when you were a baby?","date":"2023-07-12","id":"jrr4ojo","parent_id":"jrr3ual","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"GrannyLow","body":"It is morally wrong to cut off a dog's body parts for aesthetics.\n\nMy view can possibly be changed with situations where the cropping or docking actually benefits the dog.\n\nMy view may be changed by situations where a dog is very likely to be injured in a particular body part if it is not removed, but it would have to be a grave danger since the operation itself is an injury.\n\nMy view will not be changed with arbitrary breed standards. If breeders wanted a specific trait in a breed then it they should have bred it in. Breed standards should never require surgical removal of body parts.","date":"2023-07-12","id":"14y71jo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The only justifiable reasons to crop a dog's ears or dock a dog's tail is prior injuries or diseases.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/14y71jo/cmv_the_only_justifiable_reasons_to_crop_a_dogs/"},{"author":"BeefCakeBilly","body":"The primary (non fighting) reason is working dogs historically. When dogs are working livestock this prevents biting or stepping on of the dogs tail or ears. As well as prevents the tail getting caught in farm equipment. \n\nThere is also a chance the dog might be needed to defend the herd from a wild predator. If this is the case it’s better for the dog not to have these soft tissue areas exposed. \n\nThe last one I have heard but is unverified is search and rescue dogs where the tail is docked to prevent it from getting caught in the tight spaces they may be searching.","date":"2023-07-12","id":"jrr8zuw","parent_id":"14y71jo","score":16,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"GrannyLow","body":"I have heard of your first two reasons, however: \n\nHeelers are commonly docked, but not border collies. They are both herders, so why?\n\nI am not sure what kind of livestock guardian dogs are docked or cropped, but anatolians, kangals, Pyrenees, etc are not commonly, and they are generally the real guardian dogs today","date":"2023-07-12","id":"jrra4og","parent_id":"jrr8zuw","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"GrannyLow","body":"It is morally wrong to cut off a dog's body parts for aesthetics.\n\nMy view can possibly be changed with situations where the cropping or docking actually benefits the dog.\n\nMy view may be changed by situations where a dog is very likely to be injured in a particular body part if it is not removed, but it would have to be a grave danger since the operation itself is an injury.\n\nMy view will not be changed with arbitrary breed standards. If breeders wanted a specific trait in a breed then it they should have bred it in. Breed standards should never require surgical removal of body parts.","date":"2023-07-12","id":"14y71jo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The only justifiable reasons to crop a dog's ears or dock a dog's tail is prior injuries or diseases.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/14y71jo/cmv_the_only_justifiable_reasons_to_crop_a_dogs/"},{"author":"hacksoncode","body":"Honestly... humans giveth and humans can taketh away. These dogs with excessively long tails and ears for their function were made that way by humans. \n\nIf their very existence isn't immoral (would be interesting to see that argument made) why would fixing the problem we gave them in the first place not be?\n\nIf this were causing them actual troubles in their lives, that would be one thing, but there's no function lost by this cosmetic surgery, and therefore simply no immorality involved in it at all. \n\nDogs, fundamentally, are property, created by humans to serve our purposes. \n\nThe only argument that could make any sense is that there shouldn't be any domesticated dogs at all. \n\nIf you want to get up in arms about something, look at purebred dogs that have actual health problems due to their limited genetics.","date":"2023-07-13","id":"jrrhc6w","parent_id":"14y71jo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"GrannyLow","body":">humans giveth and humans can taketh away.\n\nOf course we can, but should we?","date":"2023-07-13","id":"jrrk2q3","parent_id":"jrrhc6w","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"GrannyLow","body":"It is morally wrong to cut off a dog's body parts for aesthetics.\n\nMy view can possibly be changed with situations where the cropping or docking actually benefits the dog.\n\nMy view may be changed by situations where a dog is very likely to be injured in a particular body part if it is not removed, but it would have to be a grave danger since the operation itself is an injury.\n\nMy view will not be changed with arbitrary breed standards. If breeders wanted a specific trait in a breed then it they should have bred it in. Breed standards should never require surgical removal of body parts.","date":"2023-07-12","id":"14y71jo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The only justifiable reasons to crop a dog's ears or dock a dog's tail is prior injuries or diseases.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/14y71jo/cmv_the_only_justifiable_reasons_to_crop_a_dogs/"},{"author":"Mountain-Resource656","body":"Do you accept technicalities?","date":"2023-07-13","id":"jrs5v57","parent_id":"14y71jo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"GrannyLow","body":"No","date":"2023-07-13","id":"jrst8uy","parent_id":"jrs5v57","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"GrannyLow","body":"It is morally wrong to cut off a dog's body parts for aesthetics.\n\nMy view can possibly be changed with situations where the cropping or docking actually benefits the dog.\n\nMy view may be changed by situations where a dog is very likely to be injured in a particular body part if it is not removed, but it would have to be a grave danger since the operation itself is an injury.\n\nMy view will not be changed with arbitrary breed standards. If breeders wanted a specific trait in a breed then it they should have bred it in. Breed standards should never require surgical removal of body parts.","date":"2023-07-12","id":"14y71jo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The only justifiable reasons to crop a dog's ears or dock a dog's tail is prior injuries or diseases.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/14y71jo/cmv_the_only_justifiable_reasons_to_crop_a_dogs/"},{"author":"Right-2585","body":"Edit: I mean dumb ones","date":"2023-07-13","id":"jrs99po","parent_id":"14y71jo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"GrannyLow","body":"It is morally wrong to cut off a dog's body parts for aesthetics.\n\nMy view can possibly be changed with situations where the cropping or docking actually benefits the dog.\n\nMy view may be changed by situations where a dog is very likely to be injured in a particular body part if it is not removed, but it would have to be a grave danger since the operation itself is an injury.\n\nMy view will not be changed with arbitrary breed standards. If breeders wanted a specific trait in a breed then it they should have bred it in. Breed standards should never require surgical removal of body parts.","date":"2023-07-12","id":"14y71jo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The only justifiable reasons to crop a dog's ears or dock a dog's tail is prior injuries or diseases.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/14y71jo/cmv_the_only_justifiable_reasons_to_crop_a_dogs/"},{"author":"Organic_Street_3389","body":"Are you okay with people cutting off their own body parts then?","date":"2023-07-13","id":"jrsbcrn","parent_id":"14y71jo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"GrannyLow","body":"Sure, why not?","date":"2023-07-13","id":"jrst5np","parent_id":"jrsbcrn","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"GrannyLow","body":"It is morally wrong to cut off a dog's body parts for aesthetics.\n\nMy view can possibly be changed with situations where the cropping or docking actually benefits the dog.\n\nMy view may be changed by situations where a dog is very likely to be injured in a particular body part if it is not removed, but it would have to be a grave danger since the operation itself is an injury.\n\nMy view will not be changed with arbitrary breed standards. If breeders wanted a specific trait in a breed then it they should have bred it in. Breed standards should never require surgical removal of body parts.","date":"2023-07-12","id":"14y71jo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The only justifiable reasons to crop a dog's ears or dock a dog's tail is prior injuries or diseases.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/14y71jo/cmv_the_only_justifiable_reasons_to_crop_a_dogs/"},{"author":"Butter_Toe","body":"I think there's a time and place for everything. I lost a dog to yotes because of his tail. Sad thing to see. Since then all my guardian dogs tails are serviced as pups.","date":"2023-07-13","id":"jrsf12z","parent_id":"14y71jo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"GrannyLow","body":"It is morally wrong to cut off a dog's body parts for aesthetics.\n\nMy view can possibly be changed with situations where the cropping or docking actually benefits the dog.\n\nMy view may be changed by situations where a dog is very likely to be injured in a particular body part if it is not removed, but it would have to be a grave danger since the operation itself is an injury.\n\nMy view will not be changed with arbitrary breed standards. If breeders wanted a specific trait in a breed then it they should have bred it in. Breed standards should never require surgical removal of body parts.","date":"2023-07-12","id":"14y71jo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The only justifiable reasons to crop a dog's ears or dock a dog's tail is prior injuries or diseases.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/14y71jo/cmv_the_only_justifiable_reasons_to_crop_a_dogs/"},{"author":"RecognitionDapper814","body":"Exactly. Breed \"standards\" can be cruel. But sometimes, tail docking is necessary. Knew a former police officer who had jailed some MCC members who threatened to kill him. He had had other K9 police dogs before, but this one was totally different. He bought a GSD puppy he had flown in from a breeder in Eastern Europe who specialized in breeding guard dogs used for patrol along the Russian border. He trained it to be viscious and often kept it crated. No one except him could come within 20 feet of this poor dog. It hurt its tail while in the crate, and the tail became infected and had to be amputated. Vets always had to anesthetize this dog to even give it shots. It was sad how scary this poor dog was.","date":"2023-07-13","id":"jrt3vii","parent_id":"14y71jo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"GrannyLow","body":"It is morally wrong to cut off a dog's body parts for aesthetics.\n\nMy view can possibly be changed with situations where the cropping or docking actually benefits the dog.\n\nMy view may be changed by situations where a dog is very likely to be injured in a particular body part if it is not removed, but it would have to be a grave danger since the operation itself is an injury.\n\nMy view will not be changed with arbitrary breed standards. If breeders wanted a specific trait in a breed then it they should have bred it in. Breed standards should never require surgical removal of body parts.","date":"2023-07-12","id":"14y71jo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The only justifiable reasons to crop a dog's ears or dock a dog's tail is prior injuries or diseases.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/14y71jo/cmv_the_only_justifiable_reasons_to_crop_a_dogs/"},{"author":"TheAlabamaJedi","body":"I feel that way about getting them fixed. Yet many will freak out if you dare to say it's cruel to remove a dog's family jewels.\n\nAt the end of the day it's a dog and we know what's best for it, and well we are the dominant species.\n\n If the trade off is scrounging around in the wild with testicals or being pampered in a comfy house then honestly it's in the best interest of the dog to cut the balls out. The dog doesn't have the mental ability to way the pros and cons and decide for itself. \n\nAlot of people get annoyed by a large dog swinging in it's big tail around. So they have it bobbed. If the trade off for the dog is either remain in the pound or have its tail bobbed then its best for the dog.","date":"2023-07-13","id":"jrt537c","parent_id":"14y71jo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"GrannyLow","body":">I feel that way about getting them fixed.\n\nThat's a fine way to feel if you are 100% perfect about not getting your dog knocked up or not letting your dog knock up anyone else's dog.\n\nIf you don't spay and neuter and then allow your dog to add to the millions of excess, unwanted animals out there, then you are in the wrong and creating suffering.","date":"2023-07-13","id":"jrvx8gk","parent_id":"jrt537c","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"GrannyLow","body":"It is morally wrong to cut off a dog's body parts for aesthetics.\n\nMy view can possibly be changed with situations where the cropping or docking actually benefits the dog.\n\nMy view may be changed by situations where a dog is very likely to be injured in a particular body part if it is not removed, but it would have to be a grave danger since the operation itself is an injury.\n\nMy view will not be changed with arbitrary breed standards. If breeders wanted a specific trait in a breed then it they should have bred it in. Breed standards should never require surgical removal of body parts.","date":"2023-07-12","id":"14y71jo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The only justifiable reasons to crop a dog's ears or dock a dog's tail is prior injuries or diseases.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/14y71jo/cmv_the_only_justifiable_reasons_to_crop_a_dogs/"},{"author":"BadSexyRedhead0311","body":"I've worked in the grooming field for a long time, and I mostly agree with this statement. Its ridiculous to make a dog go through the procedures needed for just the look. However there are some breeds/dogs who have constant problems and infections; etc., based on the way their ears fall and if it is necessary then Id say why not.","date":"2023-07-13","id":"jrtdy1s","parent_id":"14y71jo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"GrannyLow","body":"It is morally wrong to cut off a dog's body parts for aesthetics.\n\nMy view can possibly be changed with situations where the cropping or docking actually benefits the dog.\n\nMy view may be changed by situations where a dog is very likely to be injured in a particular body part if it is not removed, but it would have to be a grave danger since the operation itself is an injury.\n\nMy view will not be changed with arbitrary breed standards. If breeders wanted a specific trait in a breed then it they should have bred it in. Breed standards should never require surgical removal of body parts.","date":"2023-07-12","id":"14y71jo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The only justifiable reasons to crop a dog's ears or dock a dog's tail is prior injuries or diseases.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/14y71jo/cmv_the_only_justifiable_reasons_to_crop_a_dogs/"},{"author":"Thegrizzlyatoms","body":"I generally agree with part of your statement- that it is wrong to cut off a dog's body part for aesthetics. I also believe that most docking/cropping on most commonly docked breeds is unnecessary, especially when these are generally suburban family pets.\n\nI disagree that the only justifiable reason to dock a dog's tail is prior injury. It's literally a preventative measure, that's the whole (and only morally justifiable imo) point of the operation. If you've ever seen puppies get docked, it's 2-5 minutes of whining and they go back to sleep with their littermates pretty much right away. Why wait for a more severe injury, which would lead to a more severe surgery on a now older, more trauma-prone and energetic dog?\n\nLet me tell you about my dogs to add some color to this case:\n\nI have an old GWP who has been my hunting, backpacking and general adventure buddy for a decade. I opted to not have him docked as a puppy, which I regret.\n\nHis tail often ends up a bit bloody, scraped and bruised at some point on any given weekend in the woods. These injuries (even small ones) concern me because they can lead to infection, it requires me to restrain him to treat it to keep it clean, which only adds to his misery.\n\nHe has had instances of seriously bruised/scraped/torn muscles in his tail that have resulted in vet visits, as well as Limber tail syndrome from cold water swims that require days or weeks of healing. If you've ever tried to get a hunting dog to chill out and heal for a week, it's impossible. They need to be active every day and when they can't, they are miserable mentally on top of their physical pain from the injury.\n\nA few minutes of pain as a puppy would have spared him days, weeks, and probably months of pain and misery if you added it all up over the past 12 years of his life.\n\nI recently picked up a Draht puppy whose lifestyle will be very similar to my old GWP, but she was docked by the breeder.\n\nDo you think it was morally wrong to have her docked, knowing with relative certainty that it would spare her a much higher degree and frequency of pain in the future?","date":"2023-07-13","id":"jrucwuv","parent_id":"14y71jo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"GrannyLow","body":"It is morally wrong to cut off a dog's body parts for aesthetics.\n\nMy view can possibly be changed with situations where the cropping or docking actually benefits the dog.\n\nMy view may be changed by situations where a dog is very likely to be injured in a particular body part if it is not removed, but it would have to be a grave danger since the operation itself is an injury.\n\nMy view will not be changed with arbitrary breed standards. If breeders wanted a specific trait in a breed then it they should have bred it in. Breed standards should never require surgical removal of body parts.","date":"2023-07-12","id":"14y71jo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The only justifiable reasons to crop a dog's ears or dock a dog's tail is prior injuries or diseases.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/14y71jo/cmv_the_only_justifiable_reasons_to_crop_a_dogs/"},{"author":"Any_Comfortable5669","body":"Looks like even dogs are getting their own 'fashion police' now!","date":"2023-07-13","id":"jrvgefu","parent_id":"14y71jo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"GrannyLow","body":"What do you mean by that?","date":"2023-07-13","id":"jrvlxg6","parent_id":"jrvgefu","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"GrannyLow","body":"It is morally wrong to cut off a dog's body parts for aesthetics.\n\nMy view can possibly be changed with situations where the cropping or docking actually benefits the dog.\n\nMy view may be changed by situations where a dog is very likely to be injured in a particular body part if it is not removed, but it would have to be a grave danger since the operation itself is an injury.\n\nMy view will not be changed with arbitrary breed standards. If breeders wanted a specific trait in a breed then it they should have bred it in. Breed standards should never require surgical removal of body parts.","date":"2023-07-12","id":"14y71jo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The only justifiable reasons to crop a dog's ears or dock a dog's tail is prior injuries or diseases.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/14y71jo/cmv_the_only_justifiable_reasons_to_crop_a_dogs/"},{"author":"Sea_Knee6224","body":"I 100% agree with your view!","date":"2023-07-13","id":"jrvhf9v","parent_id":"14y71jo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"GrannyLow","body":"It is morally wrong to cut off a dog's body parts for aesthetics.\n\nMy view can possibly be changed with situations where the cropping or docking actually benefits the dog.\n\nMy view may be changed by situations where a dog is very likely to be injured in a particular body part if it is not removed, but it would have to be a grave danger since the operation itself is an injury.\n\nMy view will not be changed with arbitrary breed standards. If breeders wanted a specific trait in a breed then it they should have bred it in. Breed standards should never require surgical removal of body parts.","date":"2023-07-12","id":"14y71jo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The only justifiable reasons to crop a dog's ears or dock a dog's tail is prior injuries or diseases.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/14y71jo/cmv_the_only_justifiable_reasons_to_crop_a_dogs/"},{"author":"ThrowRA_aholemom","body":"Not going to change your view. I've seen some horrific animal injuries and surgeries, but the only thing that ever turned my stomach was watching a vet tech dock a Doberman puppy's ears","date":"2023-07-13","id":"jrw07qj","parent_id":"14y71jo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"GrannyLow","body":"It is morally wrong to cut off a dog's body parts for aesthetics.\n\nMy view can possibly be changed with situations where the cropping or docking actually benefits the dog.\n\nMy view may be changed by situations where a dog is very likely to be injured in a particular body part if it is not removed, but it would have to be a grave danger since the operation itself is an injury.\n\nMy view will not be changed with arbitrary breed standards. If breeders wanted a specific trait in a breed then it they should have bred it in. Breed standards should never require surgical removal of body parts.","date":"2023-07-12","id":"14y71jo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The only justifiable reasons to crop a dog's ears or dock a dog's tail is prior injuries or diseases.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/14y71jo/cmv_the_only_justifiable_reasons_to_crop_a_dogs/"},{"author":"MightLongjumping9628","body":"My next door neighbour bought her doberman and within months she’s got her ears cropped and posting her ear casts proudly on facebook 😗","date":"2023-07-14","id":"jrwh6am","parent_id":"14y71jo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"GrannyLow","body":"It is morally wrong to cut off a dog's body parts for aesthetics.\n\nMy view can possibly be changed with situations where the cropping or docking actually benefits the dog.\n\nMy view may be changed by situations where a dog is very likely to be injured in a particular body part if it is not removed, but it would have to be a grave danger since the operation itself is an injury.\n\nMy view will not be changed with arbitrary breed standards. If breeders wanted a specific trait in a breed then it they should have bred it in. Breed standards should never require surgical removal of body parts.","date":"2023-07-12","id":"14y71jo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The only justifiable reasons to crop a dog's ears or dock a dog's tail is prior injuries or diseases.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/14y71jo/cmv_the_only_justifiable_reasons_to_crop_a_dogs/"},{"author":"Bmchauvette_123","body":"To me, cropping is an amputation.","date":"2023-07-15","id":"js3sklm","parent_id":"14y71jo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"GrannyLow","body":"It is morally wrong to cut off a dog's body parts for aesthetics.\n\nMy view can possibly be changed with situations where the cropping or docking actually benefits the dog.\n\nMy view may be changed by situations where a dog is very likely to be injured in a particular body part if it is not removed, but it would have to be a grave danger since the operation itself is an injury.\n\nMy view will not be changed with arbitrary breed standards. If breeders wanted a specific trait in a breed then it they should have bred it in. Breed standards should never require surgical removal of body parts.","date":"2023-07-12","id":"14y71jo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: The only justifiable reasons to crop a dog's ears or dock a dog's tail is prior injuries or diseases.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/14y71jo/cmv_the_only_justifiable_reasons_to_crop_a_dogs/"},{"author":"y2j1dft","body":"100% agree.","date":"2023-07-16","id":"js6b56b","parent_id":"14y71jo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}]],"string":"[\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"GrannyLow\",\n \"body\": \"It is morally wrong to cut off a dog's body parts for aesthetics.\\n\\nMy view can possibly be changed with situations where the cropping or docking actually benefits the dog.\\n\\nMy view may be changed by situations where a dog is very likely to be injured in a particular body part if it is not removed, but it would have to be a grave danger since the operation itself is an injury.\\n\\nMy view will not be changed with arbitrary breed standards. If breeders wanted a specific trait in a breed then it they should have bred it in. Breed standards should never require surgical removal of body parts.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-12\",\n \"id\": \"14y71jo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The only justifiable reasons to crop a dog's ears or dock a dog's tail is prior injuries or diseases.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/14y71jo/cmv_the_only_justifiable_reasons_to_crop_a_dogs/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"slightofhand1\",\n \"body\": \"Dogs with cropped ears do way better in dogfighting rings, since the other dog can't chomp down on their ear and pull.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-12\",\n \"id\": \"jrqz4if\",\n \"parent_id\": \"14y71jo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"GrannyLow\",\n \"body\": \"No delta as dogfighting itself is morally bankrupt.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-12\",\n \"id\": \"jrqzu16\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jrqz4if\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"GrannyLow\",\n \"body\": \"It is morally wrong to cut off a dog's body parts for aesthetics.\\n\\nMy view can possibly be changed with situations where the cropping or docking actually benefits the dog.\\n\\nMy view may be changed by situations where a dog is very likely to be injured in a particular body part if it is not removed, but it would have to be a grave danger since the operation itself is an injury.\\n\\nMy view will not be changed with arbitrary breed standards. If breeders wanted a specific trait in a breed then it they should have bred it in. Breed standards should never require surgical removal of body parts.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-12\",\n \"id\": \"14y71jo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The only justifiable reasons to crop a dog's ears or dock a dog's tail is prior injuries or diseases.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/14y71jo/cmv_the_only_justifiable_reasons_to_crop_a_dogs/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"SpreadEmu127332\",\n \"body\": \"Pointer dogs do better with shorter tails because with longer ones they can’t pull it up all the way.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-12\",\n \"id\": \"jrr1dh0\",\n \"parent_id\": \"14y71jo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"GrannyLow\",\n \"body\": \"Do better with what? Why only pointers?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-12\",\n \"id\": \"jrr35ov\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jrr1dh0\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"GrannyLow\",\n \"body\": \"It is morally wrong to cut off a dog's body parts for aesthetics.\\n\\nMy view can possibly be changed with situations where the cropping or docking actually benefits the dog.\\n\\nMy view may be changed by situations where a dog is very likely to be injured in a particular body part if it is not removed, but it would have to be a grave danger since the operation itself is an injury.\\n\\nMy view will not be changed with arbitrary breed standards. If breeders wanted a specific trait in a breed then it they should have bred it in. Breed standards should never require surgical removal of body parts.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-12\",\n \"id\": \"14y71jo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The only justifiable reasons to crop a dog's ears or dock a dog's tail is prior injuries or diseases.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/14y71jo/cmv_the_only_justifiable_reasons_to_crop_a_dogs/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"gbdallin\",\n \"body\": \"I have two great Danes. Neither of them are docked or cropped.\\n\\nDanes are loving, happy, excitable dogs, and can get what's called \\\"happy tail:\\\" a condition in which they whip their tails into so many solid surfaces that the skin bursts, and they bleed all over the place. \\n\\nLong term, it can cause infection or kind of a permanent laceration, or bruising of the actual bones at the tip of the tail, causing horrible pain for the dogs.\\n\\nWe try really, really hard to keep them calm when we come home from work, for instance, and more than once they've split their tails and sprayed blood on the walls. I'm glad we didn't dock their tails. They are expressive and hilarious. But when they are crying and whining because they've injured themselves, I understand why some people do it.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-12\",\n \"id\": \"jrr2p3l\",\n \"parent_id\": \"14y71jo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"horshack_test\",\n \"body\": \"Our dog (pit mix) has an exceptionally long tail and the end of it is permanently calloused because of this. Vet says he's fine, though - we would never consider docking it unless it was a real issue.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-12\",\n \"id\": \"jrr4cxw\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jrr2p3l\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"GrannyLow\",\n \"body\": \"It is morally wrong to cut off a dog's body parts for aesthetics.\\n\\nMy view can possibly be changed with situations where the cropping or docking actually benefits the dog.\\n\\nMy view may be changed by situations where a dog is very likely to be injured in a particular body part if it is not removed, but it would have to be a grave danger since the operation itself is an injury.\\n\\nMy view will not be changed with arbitrary breed standards. If breeders wanted a specific trait in a breed then it they should have bred it in. Breed standards should never require surgical removal of body parts.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-12\",\n \"id\": \"14y71jo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The only justifiable reasons to crop a dog's ears or dock a dog's tail is prior injuries or diseases.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/14y71jo/cmv_the_only_justifiable_reasons_to_crop_a_dogs/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Nrdman\",\n \"body\": \">It is morally wrong to cut off a dog's body parts for aesthetics.\\r \\n\\r\\n\\nCan you explain why you think it is morally wrong?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-12\",\n \"id\": \"jrr3ual\",\n \"parent_id\": \"14y71jo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"GrannyLow\",\n \"body\": \"Would it be morally wrong for someone to decide you looked better with a stub pinkie and cut it off when you were a baby?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-12\",\n \"id\": \"jrr4ojo\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jrr3ual\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"GrannyLow\",\n \"body\": \"It is morally wrong to cut off a dog's body parts for aesthetics.\\n\\nMy view can possibly be changed with situations where the cropping or docking actually benefits the dog.\\n\\nMy view may be changed by situations where a dog is very likely to be injured in a particular body part if it is not removed, but it would have to be a grave danger since the operation itself is an injury.\\n\\nMy view will not be changed with arbitrary breed standards. If breeders wanted a specific trait in a breed then it they should have bred it in. Breed standards should never require surgical removal of body parts.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-12\",\n \"id\": \"14y71jo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The only justifiable reasons to crop a dog's ears or dock a dog's tail is prior injuries or diseases.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/14y71jo/cmv_the_only_justifiable_reasons_to_crop_a_dogs/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"BeefCakeBilly\",\n \"body\": \"The primary (non fighting) reason is working dogs historically. When dogs are working livestock this prevents biting or stepping on of the dogs tail or ears. As well as prevents the tail getting caught in farm equipment. \\n\\nThere is also a chance the dog might be needed to defend the herd from a wild predator. If this is the case it’s better for the dog not to have these soft tissue areas exposed. \\n\\nThe last one I have heard but is unverified is search and rescue dogs where the tail is docked to prevent it from getting caught in the tight spaces they may be searching.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-12\",\n \"id\": \"jrr8zuw\",\n \"parent_id\": \"14y71jo\",\n \"score\": 16,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"GrannyLow\",\n \"body\": \"I have heard of your first two reasons, however: \\n\\nHeelers are commonly docked, but not border collies. They are both herders, so why?\\n\\nI am not sure what kind of livestock guardian dogs are docked or cropped, but anatolians, kangals, Pyrenees, etc are not commonly, and they are generally the real guardian dogs today\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-12\",\n \"id\": \"jrra4og\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jrr8zuw\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"GrannyLow\",\n \"body\": \"It is morally wrong to cut off a dog's body parts for aesthetics.\\n\\nMy view can possibly be changed with situations where the cropping or docking actually benefits the dog.\\n\\nMy view may be changed by situations where a dog is very likely to be injured in a particular body part if it is not removed, but it would have to be a grave danger since the operation itself is an injury.\\n\\nMy view will not be changed with arbitrary breed standards. If breeders wanted a specific trait in a breed then it they should have bred it in. Breed standards should never require surgical removal of body parts.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-12\",\n \"id\": \"14y71jo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The only justifiable reasons to crop a dog's ears or dock a dog's tail is prior injuries or diseases.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/14y71jo/cmv_the_only_justifiable_reasons_to_crop_a_dogs/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"hacksoncode\",\n \"body\": \"Honestly... humans giveth and humans can taketh away. These dogs with excessively long tails and ears for their function were made that way by humans. \\n\\nIf their very existence isn't immoral (would be interesting to see that argument made) why would fixing the problem we gave them in the first place not be?\\n\\nIf this were causing them actual troubles in their lives, that would be one thing, but there's no function lost by this cosmetic surgery, and therefore simply no immorality involved in it at all. \\n\\nDogs, fundamentally, are property, created by humans to serve our purposes. \\n\\nThe only argument that could make any sense is that there shouldn't be any domesticated dogs at all. \\n\\nIf you want to get up in arms about something, look at purebred dogs that have actual health problems due to their limited genetics.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-13\",\n \"id\": \"jrrhc6w\",\n \"parent_id\": \"14y71jo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"GrannyLow\",\n \"body\": \">humans giveth and humans can taketh away.\\n\\nOf course we can, but should we?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-13\",\n \"id\": \"jrrk2q3\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jrrhc6w\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"GrannyLow\",\n \"body\": \"It is morally wrong to cut off a dog's body parts for aesthetics.\\n\\nMy view can possibly be changed with situations where the cropping or docking actually benefits the dog.\\n\\nMy view may be changed by situations where a dog is very likely to be injured in a particular body part if it is not removed, but it would have to be a grave danger since the operation itself is an injury.\\n\\nMy view will not be changed with arbitrary breed standards. If breeders wanted a specific trait in a breed then it they should have bred it in. Breed standards should never require surgical removal of body parts.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-12\",\n \"id\": \"14y71jo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The only justifiable reasons to crop a dog's ears or dock a dog's tail is prior injuries or diseases.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/14y71jo/cmv_the_only_justifiable_reasons_to_crop_a_dogs/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Mountain-Resource656\",\n \"body\": \"Do you accept technicalities?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-13\",\n \"id\": \"jrs5v57\",\n \"parent_id\": \"14y71jo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"GrannyLow\",\n \"body\": \"No\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-13\",\n \"id\": \"jrst8uy\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jrs5v57\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"GrannyLow\",\n \"body\": \"It is morally wrong to cut off a dog's body parts for aesthetics.\\n\\nMy view can possibly be changed with situations where the cropping or docking actually benefits the dog.\\n\\nMy view may be changed by situations where a dog is very likely to be injured in a particular body part if it is not removed, but it would have to be a grave danger since the operation itself is an injury.\\n\\nMy view will not be changed with arbitrary breed standards. If breeders wanted a specific trait in a breed then it they should have bred it in. Breed standards should never require surgical removal of body parts.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-12\",\n \"id\": \"14y71jo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The only justifiable reasons to crop a dog's ears or dock a dog's tail is prior injuries or diseases.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/14y71jo/cmv_the_only_justifiable_reasons_to_crop_a_dogs/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Right-2585\",\n \"body\": \"Edit: I mean dumb ones\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-13\",\n \"id\": \"jrs99po\",\n \"parent_id\": \"14y71jo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"GrannyLow\",\n \"body\": \"It is morally wrong to cut off a dog's body parts for aesthetics.\\n\\nMy view can possibly be changed with situations where the cropping or docking actually benefits the dog.\\n\\nMy view may be changed by situations where a dog is very likely to be injured in a particular body part if it is not removed, but it would have to be a grave danger since the operation itself is an injury.\\n\\nMy view will not be changed with arbitrary breed standards. If breeders wanted a specific trait in a breed then it they should have bred it in. Breed standards should never require surgical removal of body parts.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-12\",\n \"id\": \"14y71jo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The only justifiable reasons to crop a dog's ears or dock a dog's tail is prior injuries or diseases.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/14y71jo/cmv_the_only_justifiable_reasons_to_crop_a_dogs/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Organic_Street_3389\",\n \"body\": \"Are you okay with people cutting off their own body parts then?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-13\",\n \"id\": \"jrsbcrn\",\n \"parent_id\": \"14y71jo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"GrannyLow\",\n \"body\": \"Sure, why not?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-13\",\n \"id\": \"jrst5np\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jrsbcrn\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"GrannyLow\",\n \"body\": \"It is morally wrong to cut off a dog's body parts for aesthetics.\\n\\nMy view can possibly be changed with situations where the cropping or docking actually benefits the dog.\\n\\nMy view may be changed by situations where a dog is very likely to be injured in a particular body part if it is not removed, but it would have to be a grave danger since the operation itself is an injury.\\n\\nMy view will not be changed with arbitrary breed standards. If breeders wanted a specific trait in a breed then it they should have bred it in. Breed standards should never require surgical removal of body parts.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-12\",\n \"id\": \"14y71jo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The only justifiable reasons to crop a dog's ears or dock a dog's tail is prior injuries or diseases.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/14y71jo/cmv_the_only_justifiable_reasons_to_crop_a_dogs/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Butter_Toe\",\n \"body\": \"I think there's a time and place for everything. I lost a dog to yotes because of his tail. Sad thing to see. Since then all my guardian dogs tails are serviced as pups.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-13\",\n \"id\": \"jrsf12z\",\n \"parent_id\": \"14y71jo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"GrannyLow\",\n \"body\": \"It is morally wrong to cut off a dog's body parts for aesthetics.\\n\\nMy view can possibly be changed with situations where the cropping or docking actually benefits the dog.\\n\\nMy view may be changed by situations where a dog is very likely to be injured in a particular body part if it is not removed, but it would have to be a grave danger since the operation itself is an injury.\\n\\nMy view will not be changed with arbitrary breed standards. If breeders wanted a specific trait in a breed then it they should have bred it in. Breed standards should never require surgical removal of body parts.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-12\",\n \"id\": \"14y71jo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The only justifiable reasons to crop a dog's ears or dock a dog's tail is prior injuries or diseases.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/14y71jo/cmv_the_only_justifiable_reasons_to_crop_a_dogs/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"RecognitionDapper814\",\n \"body\": \"Exactly. Breed \\\"standards\\\" can be cruel. But sometimes, tail docking is necessary. Knew a former police officer who had jailed some MCC members who threatened to kill him. He had had other K9 police dogs before, but this one was totally different. He bought a GSD puppy he had flown in from a breeder in Eastern Europe who specialized in breeding guard dogs used for patrol along the Russian border. He trained it to be viscious and often kept it crated. No one except him could come within 20 feet of this poor dog. It hurt its tail while in the crate, and the tail became infected and had to be amputated. Vets always had to anesthetize this dog to even give it shots. It was sad how scary this poor dog was.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-13\",\n \"id\": \"jrt3vii\",\n \"parent_id\": \"14y71jo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"GrannyLow\",\n \"body\": \"It is morally wrong to cut off a dog's body parts for aesthetics.\\n\\nMy view can possibly be changed with situations where the cropping or docking actually benefits the dog.\\n\\nMy view may be changed by situations where a dog is very likely to be injured in a particular body part if it is not removed, but it would have to be a grave danger since the operation itself is an injury.\\n\\nMy view will not be changed with arbitrary breed standards. If breeders wanted a specific trait in a breed then it they should have bred it in. Breed standards should never require surgical removal of body parts.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-12\",\n \"id\": \"14y71jo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The only justifiable reasons to crop a dog's ears or dock a dog's tail is prior injuries or diseases.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/14y71jo/cmv_the_only_justifiable_reasons_to_crop_a_dogs/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"TheAlabamaJedi\",\n \"body\": \"I feel that way about getting them fixed. Yet many will freak out if you dare to say it's cruel to remove a dog's family jewels.\\n\\nAt the end of the day it's a dog and we know what's best for it, and well we are the dominant species.\\n\\n If the trade off is scrounging around in the wild with testicals or being pampered in a comfy house then honestly it's in the best interest of the dog to cut the balls out. The dog doesn't have the mental ability to way the pros and cons and decide for itself. \\n\\nAlot of people get annoyed by a large dog swinging in it's big tail around. So they have it bobbed. If the trade off for the dog is either remain in the pound or have its tail bobbed then its best for the dog.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-13\",\n \"id\": \"jrt537c\",\n \"parent_id\": \"14y71jo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"GrannyLow\",\n \"body\": \">I feel that way about getting them fixed.\\n\\nThat's a fine way to feel if you are 100% perfect about not getting your dog knocked up or not letting your dog knock up anyone else's dog.\\n\\nIf you don't spay and neuter and then allow your dog to add to the millions of excess, unwanted animals out there, then you are in the wrong and creating suffering.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-13\",\n \"id\": \"jrvx8gk\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jrt537c\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"GrannyLow\",\n \"body\": \"It is morally wrong to cut off a dog's body parts for aesthetics.\\n\\nMy view can possibly be changed with situations where the cropping or docking actually benefits the dog.\\n\\nMy view may be changed by situations where a dog is very likely to be injured in a particular body part if it is not removed, but it would have to be a grave danger since the operation itself is an injury.\\n\\nMy view will not be changed with arbitrary breed standards. If breeders wanted a specific trait in a breed then it they should have bred it in. Breed standards should never require surgical removal of body parts.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-12\",\n \"id\": \"14y71jo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The only justifiable reasons to crop a dog's ears or dock a dog's tail is prior injuries or diseases.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/14y71jo/cmv_the_only_justifiable_reasons_to_crop_a_dogs/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"BadSexyRedhead0311\",\n \"body\": \"I've worked in the grooming field for a long time, and I mostly agree with this statement. Its ridiculous to make a dog go through the procedures needed for just the look. However there are some breeds/dogs who have constant problems and infections; etc., based on the way their ears fall and if it is necessary then Id say why not.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-13\",\n \"id\": \"jrtdy1s\",\n \"parent_id\": \"14y71jo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"GrannyLow\",\n \"body\": \"It is morally wrong to cut off a dog's body parts for aesthetics.\\n\\nMy view can possibly be changed with situations where the cropping or docking actually benefits the dog.\\n\\nMy view may be changed by situations where a dog is very likely to be injured in a particular body part if it is not removed, but it would have to be a grave danger since the operation itself is an injury.\\n\\nMy view will not be changed with arbitrary breed standards. If breeders wanted a specific trait in a breed then it they should have bred it in. Breed standards should never require surgical removal of body parts.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-12\",\n \"id\": \"14y71jo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The only justifiable reasons to crop a dog's ears or dock a dog's tail is prior injuries or diseases.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/14y71jo/cmv_the_only_justifiable_reasons_to_crop_a_dogs/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Thegrizzlyatoms\",\n \"body\": \"I generally agree with part of your statement- that it is wrong to cut off a dog's body part for aesthetics. I also believe that most docking/cropping on most commonly docked breeds is unnecessary, especially when these are generally suburban family pets.\\n\\nI disagree that the only justifiable reason to dock a dog's tail is prior injury. It's literally a preventative measure, that's the whole (and only morally justifiable imo) point of the operation. If you've ever seen puppies get docked, it's 2-5 minutes of whining and they go back to sleep with their littermates pretty much right away. Why wait for a more severe injury, which would lead to a more severe surgery on a now older, more trauma-prone and energetic dog?\\n\\nLet me tell you about my dogs to add some color to this case:\\n\\nI have an old GWP who has been my hunting, backpacking and general adventure buddy for a decade. I opted to not have him docked as a puppy, which I regret.\\n\\nHis tail often ends up a bit bloody, scraped and bruised at some point on any given weekend in the woods. These injuries (even small ones) concern me because they can lead to infection, it requires me to restrain him to treat it to keep it clean, which only adds to his misery.\\n\\nHe has had instances of seriously bruised/scraped/torn muscles in his tail that have resulted in vet visits, as well as Limber tail syndrome from cold water swims that require days or weeks of healing. If you've ever tried to get a hunting dog to chill out and heal for a week, it's impossible. They need to be active every day and when they can't, they are miserable mentally on top of their physical pain from the injury.\\n\\nA few minutes of pain as a puppy would have spared him days, weeks, and probably months of pain and misery if you added it all up over the past 12 years of his life.\\n\\nI recently picked up a Draht puppy whose lifestyle will be very similar to my old GWP, but she was docked by the breeder.\\n\\nDo you think it was morally wrong to have her docked, knowing with relative certainty that it would spare her a much higher degree and frequency of pain in the future?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-13\",\n \"id\": \"jrucwuv\",\n \"parent_id\": \"14y71jo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"GrannyLow\",\n \"body\": \"It is morally wrong to cut off a dog's body parts for aesthetics.\\n\\nMy view can possibly be changed with situations where the cropping or docking actually benefits the dog.\\n\\nMy view may be changed by situations where a dog is very likely to be injured in a particular body part if it is not removed, but it would have to be a grave danger since the operation itself is an injury.\\n\\nMy view will not be changed with arbitrary breed standards. If breeders wanted a specific trait in a breed then it they should have bred it in. Breed standards should never require surgical removal of body parts.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-12\",\n \"id\": \"14y71jo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The only justifiable reasons to crop a dog's ears or dock a dog's tail is prior injuries or diseases.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/14y71jo/cmv_the_only_justifiable_reasons_to_crop_a_dogs/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Any_Comfortable5669\",\n \"body\": \"Looks like even dogs are getting their own 'fashion police' now!\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-13\",\n \"id\": \"jrvgefu\",\n \"parent_id\": \"14y71jo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"GrannyLow\",\n \"body\": \"What do you mean by that?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-13\",\n \"id\": \"jrvlxg6\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jrvgefu\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"GrannyLow\",\n \"body\": \"It is morally wrong to cut off a dog's body parts for aesthetics.\\n\\nMy view can possibly be changed with situations where the cropping or docking actually benefits the dog.\\n\\nMy view may be changed by situations where a dog is very likely to be injured in a particular body part if it is not removed, but it would have to be a grave danger since the operation itself is an injury.\\n\\nMy view will not be changed with arbitrary breed standards. If breeders wanted a specific trait in a breed then it they should have bred it in. Breed standards should never require surgical removal of body parts.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-12\",\n \"id\": \"14y71jo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The only justifiable reasons to crop a dog's ears or dock a dog's tail is prior injuries or diseases.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/14y71jo/cmv_the_only_justifiable_reasons_to_crop_a_dogs/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Sea_Knee6224\",\n \"body\": \"I 100% agree with your view!\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-13\",\n \"id\": \"jrvhf9v\",\n \"parent_id\": \"14y71jo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"GrannyLow\",\n \"body\": \"It is morally wrong to cut off a dog's body parts for aesthetics.\\n\\nMy view can possibly be changed with situations where the cropping or docking actually benefits the dog.\\n\\nMy view may be changed by situations where a dog is very likely to be injured in a particular body part if it is not removed, but it would have to be a grave danger since the operation itself is an injury.\\n\\nMy view will not be changed with arbitrary breed standards. If breeders wanted a specific trait in a breed then it they should have bred it in. Breed standards should never require surgical removal of body parts.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-12\",\n \"id\": \"14y71jo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The only justifiable reasons to crop a dog's ears or dock a dog's tail is prior injuries or diseases.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/14y71jo/cmv_the_only_justifiable_reasons_to_crop_a_dogs/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"ThrowRA_aholemom\",\n \"body\": \"Not going to change your view. I've seen some horrific animal injuries and surgeries, but the only thing that ever turned my stomach was watching a vet tech dock a Doberman puppy's ears\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-13\",\n \"id\": \"jrw07qj\",\n \"parent_id\": \"14y71jo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"GrannyLow\",\n \"body\": \"It is morally wrong to cut off a dog's body parts for aesthetics.\\n\\nMy view can possibly be changed with situations where the cropping or docking actually benefits the dog.\\n\\nMy view may be changed by situations where a dog is very likely to be injured in a particular body part if it is not removed, but it would have to be a grave danger since the operation itself is an injury.\\n\\nMy view will not be changed with arbitrary breed standards. If breeders wanted a specific trait in a breed then it they should have bred it in. Breed standards should never require surgical removal of body parts.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-12\",\n \"id\": \"14y71jo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The only justifiable reasons to crop a dog's ears or dock a dog's tail is prior injuries or diseases.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/14y71jo/cmv_the_only_justifiable_reasons_to_crop_a_dogs/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"MightLongjumping9628\",\n \"body\": \"My next door neighbour bought her doberman and within months she’s got her ears cropped and posting her ear casts proudly on facebook 😗\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-14\",\n \"id\": \"jrwh6am\",\n \"parent_id\": \"14y71jo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"GrannyLow\",\n \"body\": \"It is morally wrong to cut off a dog's body parts for aesthetics.\\n\\nMy view can possibly be changed with situations where the cropping or docking actually benefits the dog.\\n\\nMy view may be changed by situations where a dog is very likely to be injured in a particular body part if it is not removed, but it would have to be a grave danger since the operation itself is an injury.\\n\\nMy view will not be changed with arbitrary breed standards. If breeders wanted a specific trait in a breed then it they should have bred it in. Breed standards should never require surgical removal of body parts.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-12\",\n \"id\": \"14y71jo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The only justifiable reasons to crop a dog's ears or dock a dog's tail is prior injuries or diseases.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/14y71jo/cmv_the_only_justifiable_reasons_to_crop_a_dogs/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Bmchauvette_123\",\n \"body\": \"To me, cropping is an amputation.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-15\",\n \"id\": \"js3sklm\",\n \"parent_id\": \"14y71jo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"GrannyLow\",\n \"body\": \"It is morally wrong to cut off a dog's body parts for aesthetics.\\n\\nMy view can possibly be changed with situations where the cropping or docking actually benefits the dog.\\n\\nMy view may be changed by situations where a dog is very likely to be injured in a particular body part if it is not removed, but it would have to be a grave danger since the operation itself is an injury.\\n\\nMy view will not be changed with arbitrary breed standards. If breeders wanted a specific trait in a breed then it they should have bred it in. Breed standards should never require surgical removal of body parts.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-12\",\n \"id\": \"14y71jo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: The only justifiable reasons to crop a dog's ears or dock a dog's tail is prior injuries or diseases.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/14y71jo/cmv_the_only_justifiable_reasons_to_crop_a_dogs/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"y2j1dft\",\n \"body\": \"100% agree.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-16\",\n \"id\": \"js6b56b\",\n \"parent_id\": \"14y71jo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ]\n]","isConversational":false},"2":{"kind":"string","value":"challenge"}}},{"rowIdx":48,"cells":{"0":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"MercurianAspirations","body":"I don't know, I don't think that being rational, articulate, or well-informed are necessarily all requirements for being correct. That they cannot articulate why their beliefs are correct doesn't make their other contributions to the cause less significant.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsb6qqu","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"Right, I can't refuse you a delta lol Δ\n\nThat was a good point. I think you are saying that sometimes we can get a trustworthy intuition that there is an injustice that we should act on. If we try to develop this into a theory it might just be a stumbling block to action.\n\nWell, I learned, I agree. I know it's a bit of an extreme case, but abused children can't define what is wrong with their situation but they know they are deeply distressed and want things to change - and I guess they feel there is something wrong with their abuser.\n\nSo yes, this is a problem with my position. Requiring theory before action can prevent or slow down action.\n\nBut this coin has two sides:\n\nCan we always trust our intuition about what is right/wrong? You might be a zealous nationalist who is trying to preserve your culture from a perceived threat or a fundamentalist Christian who really feels Satan is controlling schools or a radical feminist who believes women should not be friends with white men.\n\nSo although I must agree thinking can slow down activism I think it can also prevent bad or harmful activism which creates the wrong kind of change.\n\nSo I guess I will concede that the activist can overthink the issue too. But I think the problem is more often with underthinking.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsbnebc","parent_id":"jsb6qqu","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"DeltaBot","body":"Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/MercurianAspirations ([309∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/MercurianAspirations)).\n\n^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsbnhup","parent_id":"jsbnebc","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],"string":"[\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"MercurianAspirations\",\n \"body\": \"I don't know, I don't think that being rational, articulate, or well-informed are necessarily all requirements for being correct. That they cannot articulate why their beliefs are correct doesn't make their other contributions to the cause less significant.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsb6qqu\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"Right, I can't refuse you a delta lol Δ\\n\\nThat was a good point. I think you are saying that sometimes we can get a trustworthy intuition that there is an injustice that we should act on. If we try to develop this into a theory it might just be a stumbling block to action.\\n\\nWell, I learned, I agree. I know it's a bit of an extreme case, but abused children can't define what is wrong with their situation but they know they are deeply distressed and want things to change - and I guess they feel there is something wrong with their abuser.\\n\\nSo yes, this is a problem with my position. Requiring theory before action can prevent or slow down action.\\n\\nBut this coin has two sides:\\n\\nCan we always trust our intuition about what is right/wrong? You might be a zealous nationalist who is trying to preserve your culture from a perceived threat or a fundamentalist Christian who really feels Satan is controlling schools or a radical feminist who believes women should not be friends with white men.\\n\\nSo although I must agree thinking can slow down activism I think it can also prevent bad or harmful activism which creates the wrong kind of change.\\n\\nSo I guess I will concede that the activist can overthink the issue too. But I think the problem is more often with underthinking.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsbnebc\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jsb6qqu\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"DeltaBot\",\n \"body\": \"Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/MercurianAspirations ([309∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/MercurianAspirations)).\\n\\n^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsbnhup\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jsbnebc\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n]","isConversational":false},"1":{"kind":"list like","value":[[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"237583dh","body":"Maybe your view on what activism is has been skewed by Youtube?","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsb2wdn","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"Possibly, I responded to a similar point above. Have an upvote. Thanks","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsbgjnl","parent_id":"jsb2wdn","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"LucidMetal","body":"The average activist is just as dumb as the average person. Do you really expect the average person to have more than a tenuous grasp on every one of their beliefs and to be able to argue both in favorite or against any one of them?\n\nThat seems like much too high a bar. We can barely get humanity aligned on evolution and climate change.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsb32cq","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"It's a good point. Although I would say the bar should be higher for activists because they are trying to change policy. They are trying to get you and me to change our behavior - in some cases aggressively trying to get others to change.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsbgs75","parent_id":"jsb32cq","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"Kotoperek","body":"Yeah, but catching people off guard with ill-intended questions and then laughing at them getting emotional is also a strategy used against activism, and on both sides. You mentions SJWs, but if you type something like \"idiots at MAGA protests answer questions\" you'll get people on the right trying to answer simple questions and proving they have no clue what they are talking about or voting for. \n\nThere is a difference between activism as education (explaining to others why your position is the one they should also hold), and action based activism, where you go to a protest, boycott a business, or otherwise engage in an action with an inteded response from the authorities. And then you're not trying to educate people, you're protesting. So asking you to sit down and coherently explain your reasoning is a deliberate strategy to discredit you in the media in a situation where you're not required to explain yourself.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsb3a2o","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Novemberists","body":"This past week I've really kicked the beehive with the two incredibly hot takes:\n\n* If climate change activists shifted their position slightly and made the cause about reducing pollution which everyone can see happening and everyone can get behind.\n\n* It makes no sense for BLM to gatekeep and make their cause about the 15 unarmed black men who get killed by cops per year when the issue of the hundred thousand Americans who get brutalized by police is a much easier cause to promote.\n\nI kind of share Op's view but where we differ is that the failure to stand up to any scrutiny at all is because their primary goal is not to change things.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsb529m","parent_id":"jsb3a2o","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"stewshi","body":"\n> There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, \n\nThe street questioning videos you see of activist being questioned are usually highly edited. You can see this also on Jimmy Kimmel. They ask alot of people and only present the funny responses. These videos are not representative of the knowledge of protesters and are pretty much memes.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\nSame for a lot of groups. Christians will tell you it's gods will about alot of things because to them a insider it perfectly answers the question.\n\n\n>2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\nExample please\n\n>3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nLet's look at BLM. If you can up to me and said \" why are you protesting?\" And I say \" police brutality is bad\" that's a perfectly valid response. Ask climate activist and theyll say \" climate change is going to make it hard to live on earth\" these are valid responses. \n\n\n>However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\n\nDo you have to be an authority of Christianity to participate in the religion or do you have to believe the religion is the best course of action to reach your desired endpoint. Because I'd inatood outside of a church and fired random questions at christians alot of it would look like the meme videos made of protestors.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsb3t73","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Sreyes150","body":"You don’t need to be an authority, but you need to be able tonintelectually substantiate your opinion or you should really keep it to yourself.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsb5r3i","parent_id":"jsb3t73","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"swanshalom","body":"Do you have any specific examples you can link to?","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsb465i","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"mortusowo","body":">There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n\nI've seen a fair amount of these videos as I was interested in SJW cringe content when I was younger. Now that I am interested in activism particularly around LGBT issues, I have revisited some of that content. \n\nAnd now I realize that while some of it is being dumb and is cherrypicked for that reason (as in the person recording searched around and probably interviewed several dozen people before they got to a dumb one) sometimes it's actually an issue of asking a trap question. \n\nI'll give an example. There was a documentary with Matt Walsh called \"What is a woman?\" where he did this style of questioning for a good portion of his documentary. Several groups either didn't answer his question or played dumb. That's because there's no good way to answer that question without being sucked into a trap argument thats not going to be productive. It's not that the question is unanswerable, or those people are uneducated on those issues. It's just a trap. As a lot of that kind of content tends to be.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsb4rs0","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Sreyes150","body":"It’s not a trap to ask what a women is. It gets to the heart of the issue. You cal it a trip because the potential answer makes us unsure. It’s a great question for exactly that reason. \n\nIt exposes that the real argument for LGBT movement is there is no women there is no man these are basically bull shit terms that must be discarded to make way for the gender fluid version of reality they see. \n\nIt’s not a trap. It’s a question that reveals the true argument. That’s why it makes them look bad when the question is asked because they are not yet ready to intellectually admit that they are seeking the abolishment of the terms women and men. If we can’t even define what it is then it has no use.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsb65dn","parent_id":"jsb4rs0","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"merlinus12","body":"This is a difficult CMV to respond to, since it is basically just “Some people who do X are bad at X” which is true almost by definition.\n\nBut you also imply that only people who have become an ‘authority’ on a topic should become activists. And I don’t think that is necessarily the case. \n\nSure, there are some topics where you need to do a lot of work to understand the nuances and complexities (global banking systems, tax policy, etc). But sometimes the issue is simply “X is evil and should end.” You don’t need a PhD in criminal justice to know that human trafficking is bad, for instance. Lending your voice and platform to oppose things that are clearly wrong can be useful in raising awareness of a topic even if you aren’t an expert.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsb4six","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Sreyes150","body":"They literally said you don’t need to be an authority. Please read post carefully if you responding.\n\nYou need to be able to intelligently support and define your positions in a reasonable manner if you are actively telling others your view is correct.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsb6bvz","parent_id":"jsb4six","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"Squidocto","body":"Has been said but I’d like to emphasize: speaking articulately, on demand and on camera, is a skill—a skill most people do not possess. Having one’s head empty out when in the spotlight hits is, I suspect, a very common phenomenon","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsb7a4k","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"Good point.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsbnhde","parent_id":"jsb7a4k","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"Mestoph","body":"You mean if you watch videos titled \"SJW\" on YouTube you'll be exposed to selectively edited videos trying to make the \"activists\" look stupid? Say it ain't so...","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsb80yc","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"Sorry I should have clarified that the sjw videos are not my only reason. I just wanted to give a quick example of some of the people I am talking about. But you are right, these videos obviously misrepresent many activists.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsbnram","parent_id":"jsb80yc","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"VertigoOne","body":"What you're essentially asking is that every activist be more educated than the average populace, however the populace often shut down educated activists with mere badly understood slogans too.\n\nA good example of this was Brexit with \"Take back control\". Expert after expert could point out how fundamentally meaningless that phrase was, but that was what the population responded with.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsbaqh2","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"No, I think both sides needed to be thoughtful. What I say applies to both those on the right and left. \n\nI don't know a lot about the Brexit issue but I would suggest that everyone should think before they go out onto the streets.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsbqchx","parent_id":"jsbaqh2","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"vote4bort","body":">YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims\n\nYouTube is not real life. The clips on their are on there because they are entertaining, no one is uploading hours long reasoned, unemotional debates. That doesn't generate views. So the ones on their are already a cherry picked subset of these kinds of interactions and are often taken out of context or straight up edited to look worse. \n\n>There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n>2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\nHow much is many? There's always going to be a few outliers of any group but I'd say this is an incredibly hard statement to back up. Given that most activism is going on outside of your knowledge, irl where its not being filmed for YouTube how would you know about what those people do or don't know? \n\n>Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nPublic speaking is a skill. A skill many people don't have. And when a topic is emotive that can make it even harder to articulate a point. It's like lawyers, they're payed to argue professional because it's a skill not everyone has. Just because someone can't articulate the words in the moment doesn't mean they don't know what they're talking about. Like writing and essay vs an oral exam, some people are just better at one or the other. \n\nThere's no qualification or test to become an activist. Its just people who are passionate about something. I think it's unfair for hold them to the kinds of standards you would for someone who was a professional.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsbhvxe","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"UnauthorizedUsername","body":"I mean, it's sort of biased by your search for one thing.\n\nPeople who are pro- these topics tend to not call themselves SJW's -- that's a term almost exclusively used by people who mock and deride activists. Using that to guage how educated activists are for their case is using a *very* biased sample, and will be filled with people who've specifically looked for the dumbest or least media-savvy person in a crowd to prop up as the representative for the cause.\n\nBut you can find *plenty* of well-educated and well spoken activists on these causes, if you search for things that aren't right-wing insults.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsbk2t9","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"Fair point. I will say though that it's not just YouTube that my view is based on. But you are right, this source is biased.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsbspwx","parent_id":"jsbk2t9","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"Martardious","body":"SJW are just following the path set forth by religions.\n\nStep 1: Posit something easily refuted.\n\nStep 2: Deny all facts, observations and scientific findings that contradict the posit of step 1.\n\nStep 3: Hissy fit until people either agree or shut up.\n\nStep 4: (Doesn't apply in the west anymore) Burn those who still disagree.\n\nUltimately like anything with the religious right wing, the problem is they hate competition.\n\nCrazy non-reality based conjectures? Check.\n\nAccusations of grooming and molestations? Check\n\nPersecution complex? Check.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsbm77t","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"UnauthorizedUsername","body":"How is this in any way attempting to change the OP's view, and not just your own personal rant on SJWs?","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsbpjz9","parent_id":"jsbm77t","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"ralph-j","body":"> 1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n> \n> 2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n> \n> 3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nNot all activists need to be on the PR front of the movement, take part in debates etc. Movements and causes also need numbers.\n\nWhile having a more grounded view that addresses common counter-points is certainly commendable, I don't think that we ought to \"gatekeep\" who can be a considered a proper representative for their cause.\n\nSome topics can become very complex, like e.g. transgender equality. A lot of people who join our movement may not be familiar with a lot of the details, like the leading views on gender identity, gender dysphoria, medical care etc. They are simply in it because they want to support human rights and equality, and that is fine too.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsbmbad","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"PabloZocchi","body":"The objective was never try to change anyone's mind. Some activist groups actually tries to change something, but most of them pursuits other politicial interests such as grants, more political involvement in certain legislations, or even shady interests such as money laundry.\n\nI dont deny that maybe there is a good cause, but they end up using that cause in order to get benefits rather than actually changing something.\n\nSomething similar happened in Argentina with femminist activist and groups, which ended up in the creation of the ministery of the woman as a solution for the increasing number of deaths due to violence of women, and the sexual abuses, but instead of actually solving those issues, that ministery is spending huge amounts of money buying overpriced furniture and vehicles, those increasing figures i mentioned they didnt stopped, in fact, those are increasing dramatically but lots of the activists ended up in different possitions in the Congress as legislators or officials in different possitions inside the government living great with the money from the tax payers\n\nOther groups are just getting used by politicians when elections are near and polls are not that great, in exchange of including activists in their lines (like it happened with BLM and LGBTQ+ movements), at the end of the day, they are getting used for their credentials","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsbojr6","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"Foxhound97_","body":"Just a point I found interesting about the explain angle there are some people who are arguing from a position build on an existing agreed point e.g. systematic racism could be lead to talking to gentrification and red lining.\n\nIf this person is talking to someone who doesn't systematic racism and therefore doesn't believe gentrification or red lining is a problem is it this person responsibly to go though all effort to get them to understand a fundamental issue to talk about a more advanced one would they be wrong to not give there time.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsbp9jn","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"Yes, I suppose my main point (which I may have not made too clear I admit) was not that they be able to communicate their point to others. It was that activists think about their own position before trying to change the world. This is because they may have a bad idea that they are trying to push but they won't see its problems because they haven't examined it. The reason I gave examples of sjw not being able to argue was that, for me, it was an indication that they didn't think about their poisition.\n\nI have since modified my view. Someone pointed out that sometimes you can thing about your view but you simply might not be good at articulating it. \n\nAlthough, I still think a significant number of activists have not thought about their poisition. \n\nHave an upvote :)","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsbr4mj","parent_id":"jsbp9jn","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"PdawgTheBanEvader","body":"Greed is wanting too much money\n\nWanting to much money is greed.\n\n\n\nThats how definitions work","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsbzx91","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"zeroaegis","body":"The average person is not built for argumentation. You can support a movement without being able to fully articulate your side's entire agenda and you can have a full understanding of the issues and perfectly understand your position on everything without being able to properly articulate it all on the fly. \n\nThey types that \"interview\" these activists tend to be the types that built their channel/persona on being able to do that type of thing, so they have the practice and temperament to poke at arguments and confuse the average individual. Then they edit the footage to include the worst of the responses and promote that as the image of the entire other side of the argument. They're not looking for an actual debate, they're looking for people they can bully and make look bad. \n\nAll you have to do is find a few people in the crowd that have a hard time verbally articulating under pressure (usually not to hard, as it's not uncommon), apply pressure to get them flustered/frustrated, then you claim the other side is incompetent and has no idea what they're talking about.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsc89ke","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"parlimentery","body":"Granted, I heard the back story second hand, but the part I can confirm is that a former student of mine was on American Idol, didn't qualify but got shown on the segment where they show the people who didn't make it and was made to look like a total buffoon. They asked who his musical inspiration was, he said (I think) Louis Armstrong, and then they showed him a picture of Louis Armstrong on their phone asking who it was and he said he didn't know. Friends of his that were still going to the high school I worked at said that the actual exchange was that he said his inspiration was some rapper he likes, then they asked something like who does that song \"What a Wonderful World\", and the whole thing was recut. This is inevitably happening in those gotcha videos, combine with the fact that they are cherry picking the maybe 1in 20 interviews where someone said something dumb. Ensuring your cause never gets these kinds of videos made about you would require extensive education to everyone who shows up at your protest, and extreme care to refuse to answer questions that could possibly be recut to make you look dumb (perhaps not even possible). Your protest is going to have like 30 people at it.\n\nThis also seems to exclude neurodiverse people from your cause. I have an autistic friend who I consider to be very intelligent, but you need to be far more patient with her than a gotcha interviewer would be. I also met many people at the George Floyd protests who, when I talked to them, had little specifics on what policy changes they wanted to see, they were just sure they needed to see action to stop this from happening. Is that not a valid reason to try to make your voice heard? I discussed my positions with several of these people, and they seemed interested in researching them further, and in turn I learned a lot more about what qualified immunity is and what politicians in my state has already proposed legislation to end it. Those protests were a great learning opportunity for me and I think many other people.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jscuhiq","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"Solid_Local409","body":"You just described hermeneutics","date":"2023-07-18","id":"jsf35ns","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}]],"string":"[\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"237583dh\",\n \"body\": \"Maybe your view on what activism is has been skewed by Youtube?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsb2wdn\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"Possibly, I responded to a similar point above. Have an upvote. Thanks\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsbgjnl\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jsb2wdn\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"LucidMetal\",\n \"body\": \"The average activist is just as dumb as the average person. Do you really expect the average person to have more than a tenuous grasp on every one of their beliefs and to be able to argue both in favorite or against any one of them?\\n\\nThat seems like much too high a bar. We can barely get humanity aligned on evolution and climate change.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsb32cq\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"It's a good point. Although I would say the bar should be higher for activists because they are trying to change policy. They are trying to get you and me to change our behavior - in some cases aggressively trying to get others to change.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsbgs75\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jsb32cq\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Kotoperek\",\n \"body\": \"Yeah, but catching people off guard with ill-intended questions and then laughing at them getting emotional is also a strategy used against activism, and on both sides. You mentions SJWs, but if you type something like \\\"idiots at MAGA protests answer questions\\\" you'll get people on the right trying to answer simple questions and proving they have no clue what they are talking about or voting for. \\n\\nThere is a difference between activism as education (explaining to others why your position is the one they should also hold), and action based activism, where you go to a protest, boycott a business, or otherwise engage in an action with an inteded response from the authorities. And then you're not trying to educate people, you're protesting. So asking you to sit down and coherently explain your reasoning is a deliberate strategy to discredit you in the media in a situation where you're not required to explain yourself.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsb3a2o\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Novemberists\",\n \"body\": \"This past week I've really kicked the beehive with the two incredibly hot takes:\\n\\n* If climate change activists shifted their position slightly and made the cause about reducing pollution which everyone can see happening and everyone can get behind.\\n\\n* It makes no sense for BLM to gatekeep and make their cause about the 15 unarmed black men who get killed by cops per year when the issue of the hundred thousand Americans who get brutalized by police is a much easier cause to promote.\\n\\nI kind of share Op's view but where we differ is that the failure to stand up to any scrutiny at all is because their primary goal is not to change things.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsb529m\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jsb3a2o\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"stewshi\",\n \"body\": \"\\n> There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, \\n\\nThe street questioning videos you see of activist being questioned are usually highly edited. You can see this also on Jimmy Kimmel. They ask alot of people and only present the funny responses. These videos are not representative of the knowledge of protesters and are pretty much memes.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\nSame for a lot of groups. Christians will tell you it's gods will about alot of things because to them a insider it perfectly answers the question.\\n\\n\\n>2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\nExample please\\n\\n>3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nLet's look at BLM. If you can up to me and said \\\" why are you protesting?\\\" And I say \\\" police brutality is bad\\\" that's a perfectly valid response. Ask climate activist and theyll say \\\" climate change is going to make it hard to live on earth\\\" these are valid responses. \\n\\n\\n>However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\n\\nDo you have to be an authority of Christianity to participate in the religion or do you have to believe the religion is the best course of action to reach your desired endpoint. Because I'd inatood outside of a church and fired random questions at christians alot of it would look like the meme videos made of protestors.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsb3t73\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Sreyes150\",\n \"body\": \"You don’t need to be an authority, but you need to be able tonintelectually substantiate your opinion or you should really keep it to yourself.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsb5r3i\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jsb3t73\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"swanshalom\",\n \"body\": \"Do you have any specific examples you can link to?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsb465i\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"mortusowo\",\n \"body\": \">There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n\\nI've seen a fair amount of these videos as I was interested in SJW cringe content when I was younger. Now that I am interested in activism particularly around LGBT issues, I have revisited some of that content. \\n\\nAnd now I realize that while some of it is being dumb and is cherrypicked for that reason (as in the person recording searched around and probably interviewed several dozen people before they got to a dumb one) sometimes it's actually an issue of asking a trap question. \\n\\nI'll give an example. There was a documentary with Matt Walsh called \\\"What is a woman?\\\" where he did this style of questioning for a good portion of his documentary. Several groups either didn't answer his question or played dumb. That's because there's no good way to answer that question without being sucked into a trap argument thats not going to be productive. It's not that the question is unanswerable, or those people are uneducated on those issues. It's just a trap. As a lot of that kind of content tends to be.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsb4rs0\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Sreyes150\",\n \"body\": \"It’s not a trap to ask what a women is. It gets to the heart of the issue. You cal it a trip because the potential answer makes us unsure. It’s a great question for exactly that reason. \\n\\nIt exposes that the real argument for LGBT movement is there is no women there is no man these are basically bull shit terms that must be discarded to make way for the gender fluid version of reality they see. \\n\\nIt’s not a trap. It’s a question that reveals the true argument. That’s why it makes them look bad when the question is asked because they are not yet ready to intellectually admit that they are seeking the abolishment of the terms women and men. If we can’t even define what it is then it has no use.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsb65dn\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jsb4rs0\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"merlinus12\",\n \"body\": \"This is a difficult CMV to respond to, since it is basically just “Some people who do X are bad at X” which is true almost by definition.\\n\\nBut you also imply that only people who have become an ‘authority’ on a topic should become activists. And I don’t think that is necessarily the case. \\n\\nSure, there are some topics where you need to do a lot of work to understand the nuances and complexities (global banking systems, tax policy, etc). But sometimes the issue is simply “X is evil and should end.” You don’t need a PhD in criminal justice to know that human trafficking is bad, for instance. Lending your voice and platform to oppose things that are clearly wrong can be useful in raising awareness of a topic even if you aren’t an expert.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsb4six\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Sreyes150\",\n \"body\": \"They literally said you don’t need to be an authority. Please read post carefully if you responding.\\n\\nYou need to be able to intelligently support and define your positions in a reasonable manner if you are actively telling others your view is correct.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsb6bvz\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jsb4six\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Squidocto\",\n \"body\": \"Has been said but I’d like to emphasize: speaking articulately, on demand and on camera, is a skill—a skill most people do not possess. Having one’s head empty out when in the spotlight hits is, I suspect, a very common phenomenon\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsb7a4k\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"Good point.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsbnhde\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jsb7a4k\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Mestoph\",\n \"body\": \"You mean if you watch videos titled \\\"SJW\\\" on YouTube you'll be exposed to selectively edited videos trying to make the \\\"activists\\\" look stupid? Say it ain't so...\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsb80yc\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"Sorry I should have clarified that the sjw videos are not my only reason. I just wanted to give a quick example of some of the people I am talking about. But you are right, these videos obviously misrepresent many activists.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsbnram\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jsb80yc\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"VertigoOne\",\n \"body\": \"What you're essentially asking is that every activist be more educated than the average populace, however the populace often shut down educated activists with mere badly understood slogans too.\\n\\nA good example of this was Brexit with \\\"Take back control\\\". Expert after expert could point out how fundamentally meaningless that phrase was, but that was what the population responded with.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsbaqh2\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"No, I think both sides needed to be thoughtful. What I say applies to both those on the right and left. \\n\\nI don't know a lot about the Brexit issue but I would suggest that everyone should think before they go out onto the streets.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsbqchx\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jsbaqh2\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"vote4bort\",\n \"body\": \">YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims\\n\\nYouTube is not real life. The clips on their are on there because they are entertaining, no one is uploading hours long reasoned, unemotional debates. That doesn't generate views. So the ones on their are already a cherry picked subset of these kinds of interactions and are often taken out of context or straight up edited to look worse. \\n\\n>There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n>2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\nHow much is many? There's always going to be a few outliers of any group but I'd say this is an incredibly hard statement to back up. Given that most activism is going on outside of your knowledge, irl where its not being filmed for YouTube how would you know about what those people do or don't know? \\n\\n>Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nPublic speaking is a skill. A skill many people don't have. And when a topic is emotive that can make it even harder to articulate a point. It's like lawyers, they're payed to argue professional because it's a skill not everyone has. Just because someone can't articulate the words in the moment doesn't mean they don't know what they're talking about. Like writing and essay vs an oral exam, some people are just better at one or the other. \\n\\nThere's no qualification or test to become an activist. Its just people who are passionate about something. I think it's unfair for hold them to the kinds of standards you would for someone who was a professional.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsbhvxe\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"UnauthorizedUsername\",\n \"body\": \"I mean, it's sort of biased by your search for one thing.\\n\\nPeople who are pro- these topics tend to not call themselves SJW's -- that's a term almost exclusively used by people who mock and deride activists. Using that to guage how educated activists are for their case is using a *very* biased sample, and will be filled with people who've specifically looked for the dumbest or least media-savvy person in a crowd to prop up as the representative for the cause.\\n\\nBut you can find *plenty* of well-educated and well spoken activists on these causes, if you search for things that aren't right-wing insults.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsbk2t9\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"Fair point. I will say though that it's not just YouTube that my view is based on. But you are right, this source is biased.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsbspwx\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jsbk2t9\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Martardious\",\n \"body\": \"SJW are just following the path set forth by religions.\\n\\nStep 1: Posit something easily refuted.\\n\\nStep 2: Deny all facts, observations and scientific findings that contradict the posit of step 1.\\n\\nStep 3: Hissy fit until people either agree or shut up.\\n\\nStep 4: (Doesn't apply in the west anymore) Burn those who still disagree.\\n\\nUltimately like anything with the religious right wing, the problem is they hate competition.\\n\\nCrazy non-reality based conjectures? Check.\\n\\nAccusations of grooming and molestations? Check\\n\\nPersecution complex? Check.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsbm77t\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"UnauthorizedUsername\",\n \"body\": \"How is this in any way attempting to change the OP's view, and not just your own personal rant on SJWs?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsbpjz9\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jsbm77t\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"ralph-j\",\n \"body\": \"> 1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n> \\n> 2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n> \\n> 3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nNot all activists need to be on the PR front of the movement, take part in debates etc. Movements and causes also need numbers.\\n\\nWhile having a more grounded view that addresses common counter-points is certainly commendable, I don't think that we ought to \\\"gatekeep\\\" who can be a considered a proper representative for their cause.\\n\\nSome topics can become very complex, like e.g. transgender equality. A lot of people who join our movement may not be familiar with a lot of the details, like the leading views on gender identity, gender dysphoria, medical care etc. They are simply in it because they want to support human rights and equality, and that is fine too.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsbmbad\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"PabloZocchi\",\n \"body\": \"The objective was never try to change anyone's mind. Some activist groups actually tries to change something, but most of them pursuits other politicial interests such as grants, more political involvement in certain legislations, or even shady interests such as money laundry.\\n\\nI dont deny that maybe there is a good cause, but they end up using that cause in order to get benefits rather than actually changing something.\\n\\nSomething similar happened in Argentina with femminist activist and groups, which ended up in the creation of the ministery of the woman as a solution for the increasing number of deaths due to violence of women, and the sexual abuses, but instead of actually solving those issues, that ministery is spending huge amounts of money buying overpriced furniture and vehicles, those increasing figures i mentioned they didnt stopped, in fact, those are increasing dramatically but lots of the activists ended up in different possitions in the Congress as legislators or officials in different possitions inside the government living great with the money from the tax payers\\n\\nOther groups are just getting used by politicians when elections are near and polls are not that great, in exchange of including activists in their lines (like it happened with BLM and LGBTQ+ movements), at the end of the day, they are getting used for their credentials\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsbojr6\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Foxhound97_\",\n \"body\": \"Just a point I found interesting about the explain angle there are some people who are arguing from a position build on an existing agreed point e.g. systematic racism could be lead to talking to gentrification and red lining.\\n\\nIf this person is talking to someone who doesn't systematic racism and therefore doesn't believe gentrification or red lining is a problem is it this person responsibly to go though all effort to get them to understand a fundamental issue to talk about a more advanced one would they be wrong to not give there time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsbp9jn\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"Yes, I suppose my main point (which I may have not made too clear I admit) was not that they be able to communicate their point to others. It was that activists think about their own position before trying to change the world. This is because they may have a bad idea that they are trying to push but they won't see its problems because they haven't examined it. The reason I gave examples of sjw not being able to argue was that, for me, it was an indication that they didn't think about their poisition.\\n\\nI have since modified my view. Someone pointed out that sometimes you can thing about your view but you simply might not be good at articulating it. \\n\\nAlthough, I still think a significant number of activists have not thought about their poisition. \\n\\nHave an upvote :)\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsbr4mj\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jsbp9jn\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"PdawgTheBanEvader\",\n \"body\": \"Greed is wanting too much money\\n\\nWanting to much money is greed.\\n\\n\\n\\nThats how definitions work\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsbzx91\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"zeroaegis\",\n \"body\": \"The average person is not built for argumentation. You can support a movement without being able to fully articulate your side's entire agenda and you can have a full understanding of the issues and perfectly understand your position on everything without being able to properly articulate it all on the fly. \\n\\nThey types that \\\"interview\\\" these activists tend to be the types that built their channel/persona on being able to do that type of thing, so they have the practice and temperament to poke at arguments and confuse the average individual. Then they edit the footage to include the worst of the responses and promote that as the image of the entire other side of the argument. They're not looking for an actual debate, they're looking for people they can bully and make look bad. \\n\\nAll you have to do is find a few people in the crowd that have a hard time verbally articulating under pressure (usually not to hard, as it's not uncommon), apply pressure to get them flustered/frustrated, then you claim the other side is incompetent and has no idea what they're talking about.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsc89ke\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"parlimentery\",\n \"body\": \"Granted, I heard the back story second hand, but the part I can confirm is that a former student of mine was on American Idol, didn't qualify but got shown on the segment where they show the people who didn't make it and was made to look like a total buffoon. They asked who his musical inspiration was, he said (I think) Louis Armstrong, and then they showed him a picture of Louis Armstrong on their phone asking who it was and he said he didn't know. Friends of his that were still going to the high school I worked at said that the actual exchange was that he said his inspiration was some rapper he likes, then they asked something like who does that song \\\"What a Wonderful World\\\", and the whole thing was recut. This is inevitably happening in those gotcha videos, combine with the fact that they are cherry picking the maybe 1in 20 interviews where someone said something dumb. Ensuring your cause never gets these kinds of videos made about you would require extensive education to everyone who shows up at your protest, and extreme care to refuse to answer questions that could possibly be recut to make you look dumb (perhaps not even possible). Your protest is going to have like 30 people at it.\\n\\nThis also seems to exclude neurodiverse people from your cause. I have an autistic friend who I consider to be very intelligent, but you need to be far more patient with her than a gotcha interviewer would be. I also met many people at the George Floyd protests who, when I talked to them, had little specifics on what policy changes they wanted to see, they were just sure they needed to see action to stop this from happening. Is that not a valid reason to try to make your voice heard? I discussed my positions with several of these people, and they seemed interested in researching them further, and in turn I learned a lot more about what qualified immunity is and what politicians in my state has already proposed legislation to end it. Those protests were a great learning opportunity for me and I think many other people.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jscuhiq\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Solid_Local409\",\n \"body\": \"You just described hermeneutics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-18\",\n \"id\": \"jsf35ns\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ]\n]","isConversational":false},"2":{"kind":"string","value":"moderate"}}},{"rowIdx":49,"cells":{"0":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"Torin_3","body":"How much does a prospective activist need to reflect on their worldview before hitting the streets to engage in activism? \n\nA person could easily reflect on their worldview for their entire life without ever engaging in activism. I think we can agree that it's undesirable for everyone to reflect *forever*, because then there would be no activism, ever. Martin Luther King wouldn't have engaged in activism for the Civil Rights Movement by that standard, because he'd just reflect on his worldview all the time.\n\nIf we are going to say that most activists are insufficiently reflective, we need clear criteria for that, in my view. What are the criteria we're using, here?","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsb81hj","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"Great point. My mind was changed earlier to your view that it is possible to reflect too much. You simply can't have perfect knowledge before you act - although you can't be uninformed on the matter either because you would just be the blind leading the blind. \n\nTo give you a simple answer one criteria is that they know their opponent's position - not a charactered version of it. That they really listened to other voices. That they don't demonise the other before giving them a genuine chance. \n\nTheir opponents are not all simply sexists, homophobes, islamaphobes, or as it was in the past, agents of Satan.\n\n​\n\nHave a delta Δ","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsbovd7","parent_id":"jsb81hj","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"DeltaBot","body":"Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/Torin_3 ([10∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/Torin_3)).\n\n^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsboy0s","parent_id":"jsbovd7","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],"string":"[\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Torin_3\",\n \"body\": \"How much does a prospective activist need to reflect on their worldview before hitting the streets to engage in activism? \\n\\nA person could easily reflect on their worldview for their entire life without ever engaging in activism. I think we can agree that it's undesirable for everyone to reflect *forever*, because then there would be no activism, ever. Martin Luther King wouldn't have engaged in activism for the Civil Rights Movement by that standard, because he'd just reflect on his worldview all the time.\\n\\nIf we are going to say that most activists are insufficiently reflective, we need clear criteria for that, in my view. What are the criteria we're using, here?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsb81hj\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"Great point. My mind was changed earlier to your view that it is possible to reflect too much. You simply can't have perfect knowledge before you act - although you can't be uninformed on the matter either because you would just be the blind leading the blind. \\n\\nTo give you a simple answer one criteria is that they know their opponent's position - not a charactered version of it. That they really listened to other voices. That they don't demonise the other before giving them a genuine chance. \\n\\nTheir opponents are not all simply sexists, homophobes, islamaphobes, or as it was in the past, agents of Satan.\\n\\n​\\n\\nHave a delta Δ\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsbovd7\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jsb81hj\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"DeltaBot\",\n \"body\": \"Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/Torin_3 ([10∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/Torin_3)).\\n\\n^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsboy0s\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jsbovd7\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n]","isConversational":false},"1":{"kind":"list like","value":[[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"237583dh","body":"Maybe your view on what activism is has been skewed by Youtube?","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsb2wdn","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"Possibly, I responded to a similar point above. Have an upvote. Thanks","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsbgjnl","parent_id":"jsb2wdn","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"LucidMetal","body":"The average activist is just as dumb as the average person. Do you really expect the average person to have more than a tenuous grasp on every one of their beliefs and to be able to argue both in favorite or against any one of them?\n\nThat seems like much too high a bar. We can barely get humanity aligned on evolution and climate change.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsb32cq","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"It's a good point. Although I would say the bar should be higher for activists because they are trying to change policy. They are trying to get you and me to change our behavior - in some cases aggressively trying to get others to change.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsbgs75","parent_id":"jsb32cq","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"Kotoperek","body":"Yeah, but catching people off guard with ill-intended questions and then laughing at them getting emotional is also a strategy used against activism, and on both sides. You mentions SJWs, but if you type something like \"idiots at MAGA protests answer questions\" you'll get people on the right trying to answer simple questions and proving they have no clue what they are talking about or voting for. \n\nThere is a difference between activism as education (explaining to others why your position is the one they should also hold), and action based activism, where you go to a protest, boycott a business, or otherwise engage in an action with an inteded response from the authorities. And then you're not trying to educate people, you're protesting. So asking you to sit down and coherently explain your reasoning is a deliberate strategy to discredit you in the media in a situation where you're not required to explain yourself.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsb3a2o","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Novemberists","body":"This past week I've really kicked the beehive with the two incredibly hot takes:\n\n* If climate change activists shifted their position slightly and made the cause about reducing pollution which everyone can see happening and everyone can get behind.\n\n* It makes no sense for BLM to gatekeep and make their cause about the 15 unarmed black men who get killed by cops per year when the issue of the hundred thousand Americans who get brutalized by police is a much easier cause to promote.\n\nI kind of share Op's view but where we differ is that the failure to stand up to any scrutiny at all is because their primary goal is not to change things.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsb529m","parent_id":"jsb3a2o","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"stewshi","body":"\n> There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, \n\nThe street questioning videos you see of activist being questioned are usually highly edited. You can see this also on Jimmy Kimmel. They ask alot of people and only present the funny responses. These videos are not representative of the knowledge of protesters and are pretty much memes.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\nSame for a lot of groups. Christians will tell you it's gods will about alot of things because to them a insider it perfectly answers the question.\n\n\n>2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\nExample please\n\n>3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nLet's look at BLM. If you can up to me and said \" why are you protesting?\" And I say \" police brutality is bad\" that's a perfectly valid response. Ask climate activist and theyll say \" climate change is going to make it hard to live on earth\" these are valid responses. \n\n\n>However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\n\nDo you have to be an authority of Christianity to participate in the religion or do you have to believe the religion is the best course of action to reach your desired endpoint. Because I'd inatood outside of a church and fired random questions at christians alot of it would look like the meme videos made of protestors.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsb3t73","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Sreyes150","body":"You don’t need to be an authority, but you need to be able tonintelectually substantiate your opinion or you should really keep it to yourself.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsb5r3i","parent_id":"jsb3t73","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"swanshalom","body":"Do you have any specific examples you can link to?","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsb465i","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"mortusowo","body":">There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n\nI've seen a fair amount of these videos as I was interested in SJW cringe content when I was younger. Now that I am interested in activism particularly around LGBT issues, I have revisited some of that content. \n\nAnd now I realize that while some of it is being dumb and is cherrypicked for that reason (as in the person recording searched around and probably interviewed several dozen people before they got to a dumb one) sometimes it's actually an issue of asking a trap question. \n\nI'll give an example. There was a documentary with Matt Walsh called \"What is a woman?\" where he did this style of questioning for a good portion of his documentary. Several groups either didn't answer his question or played dumb. That's because there's no good way to answer that question without being sucked into a trap argument thats not going to be productive. It's not that the question is unanswerable, or those people are uneducated on those issues. It's just a trap. As a lot of that kind of content tends to be.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsb4rs0","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Sreyes150","body":"It’s not a trap to ask what a women is. It gets to the heart of the issue. You cal it a trip because the potential answer makes us unsure. It’s a great question for exactly that reason. \n\nIt exposes that the real argument for LGBT movement is there is no women there is no man these are basically bull shit terms that must be discarded to make way for the gender fluid version of reality they see. \n\nIt’s not a trap. It’s a question that reveals the true argument. That’s why it makes them look bad when the question is asked because they are not yet ready to intellectually admit that they are seeking the abolishment of the terms women and men. If we can’t even define what it is then it has no use.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsb65dn","parent_id":"jsb4rs0","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"merlinus12","body":"This is a difficult CMV to respond to, since it is basically just “Some people who do X are bad at X” which is true almost by definition.\n\nBut you also imply that only people who have become an ‘authority’ on a topic should become activists. And I don’t think that is necessarily the case. \n\nSure, there are some topics where you need to do a lot of work to understand the nuances and complexities (global banking systems, tax policy, etc). But sometimes the issue is simply “X is evil and should end.” You don’t need a PhD in criminal justice to know that human trafficking is bad, for instance. Lending your voice and platform to oppose things that are clearly wrong can be useful in raising awareness of a topic even if you aren’t an expert.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsb4six","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Sreyes150","body":"They literally said you don’t need to be an authority. Please read post carefully if you responding.\n\nYou need to be able to intelligently support and define your positions in a reasonable manner if you are actively telling others your view is correct.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsb6bvz","parent_id":"jsb4six","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"Squidocto","body":"Has been said but I’d like to emphasize: speaking articulately, on demand and on camera, is a skill—a skill most people do not possess. Having one’s head empty out when in the spotlight hits is, I suspect, a very common phenomenon","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsb7a4k","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"Good point.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsbnhde","parent_id":"jsb7a4k","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"Mestoph","body":"You mean if you watch videos titled \"SJW\" on YouTube you'll be exposed to selectively edited videos trying to make the \"activists\" look stupid? Say it ain't so...","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsb80yc","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"Sorry I should have clarified that the sjw videos are not my only reason. I just wanted to give a quick example of some of the people I am talking about. But you are right, these videos obviously misrepresent many activists.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsbnram","parent_id":"jsb80yc","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"VertigoOne","body":"What you're essentially asking is that every activist be more educated than the average populace, however the populace often shut down educated activists with mere badly understood slogans too.\n\nA good example of this was Brexit with \"Take back control\". Expert after expert could point out how fundamentally meaningless that phrase was, but that was what the population responded with.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsbaqh2","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"No, I think both sides needed to be thoughtful. What I say applies to both those on the right and left. \n\nI don't know a lot about the Brexit issue but I would suggest that everyone should think before they go out onto the streets.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsbqchx","parent_id":"jsbaqh2","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"vote4bort","body":">YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims\n\nYouTube is not real life. The clips on their are on there because they are entertaining, no one is uploading hours long reasoned, unemotional debates. That doesn't generate views. So the ones on their are already a cherry picked subset of these kinds of interactions and are often taken out of context or straight up edited to look worse. \n\n>There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n>2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\nHow much is many? There's always going to be a few outliers of any group but I'd say this is an incredibly hard statement to back up. Given that most activism is going on outside of your knowledge, irl where its not being filmed for YouTube how would you know about what those people do or don't know? \n\n>Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nPublic speaking is a skill. A skill many people don't have. And when a topic is emotive that can make it even harder to articulate a point. It's like lawyers, they're payed to argue professional because it's a skill not everyone has. Just because someone can't articulate the words in the moment doesn't mean they don't know what they're talking about. Like writing and essay vs an oral exam, some people are just better at one or the other. \n\nThere's no qualification or test to become an activist. Its just people who are passionate about something. I think it's unfair for hold them to the kinds of standards you would for someone who was a professional.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsbhvxe","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"UnauthorizedUsername","body":"I mean, it's sort of biased by your search for one thing.\n\nPeople who are pro- these topics tend to not call themselves SJW's -- that's a term almost exclusively used by people who mock and deride activists. Using that to guage how educated activists are for their case is using a *very* biased sample, and will be filled with people who've specifically looked for the dumbest or least media-savvy person in a crowd to prop up as the representative for the cause.\n\nBut you can find *plenty* of well-educated and well spoken activists on these causes, if you search for things that aren't right-wing insults.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsbk2t9","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"Fair point. I will say though that it's not just YouTube that my view is based on. But you are right, this source is biased.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsbspwx","parent_id":"jsbk2t9","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"Martardious","body":"SJW are just following the path set forth by religions.\n\nStep 1: Posit something easily refuted.\n\nStep 2: Deny all facts, observations and scientific findings that contradict the posit of step 1.\n\nStep 3: Hissy fit until people either agree or shut up.\n\nStep 4: (Doesn't apply in the west anymore) Burn those who still disagree.\n\nUltimately like anything with the religious right wing, the problem is they hate competition.\n\nCrazy non-reality based conjectures? Check.\n\nAccusations of grooming and molestations? Check\n\nPersecution complex? Check.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsbm77t","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"UnauthorizedUsername","body":"How is this in any way attempting to change the OP's view, and not just your own personal rant on SJWs?","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsbpjz9","parent_id":"jsbm77t","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"ralph-j","body":"> 1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n> \n> 2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n> \n> 3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nNot all activists need to be on the PR front of the movement, take part in debates etc. Movements and causes also need numbers.\n\nWhile having a more grounded view that addresses common counter-points is certainly commendable, I don't think that we ought to \"gatekeep\" who can be a considered a proper representative for their cause.\n\nSome topics can become very complex, like e.g. transgender equality. A lot of people who join our movement may not be familiar with a lot of the details, like the leading views on gender identity, gender dysphoria, medical care etc. They are simply in it because they want to support human rights and equality, and that is fine too.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsbmbad","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"PabloZocchi","body":"The objective was never try to change anyone's mind. Some activist groups actually tries to change something, but most of them pursuits other politicial interests such as grants, more political involvement in certain legislations, or even shady interests such as money laundry.\n\nI dont deny that maybe there is a good cause, but they end up using that cause in order to get benefits rather than actually changing something.\n\nSomething similar happened in Argentina with femminist activist and groups, which ended up in the creation of the ministery of the woman as a solution for the increasing number of deaths due to violence of women, and the sexual abuses, but instead of actually solving those issues, that ministery is spending huge amounts of money buying overpriced furniture and vehicles, those increasing figures i mentioned they didnt stopped, in fact, those are increasing dramatically but lots of the activists ended up in different possitions in the Congress as legislators or officials in different possitions inside the government living great with the money from the tax payers\n\nOther groups are just getting used by politicians when elections are near and polls are not that great, in exchange of including activists in their lines (like it happened with BLM and LGBTQ+ movements), at the end of the day, they are getting used for their credentials","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsbojr6","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"Foxhound97_","body":"Just a point I found interesting about the explain angle there are some people who are arguing from a position build on an existing agreed point e.g. systematic racism could be lead to talking to gentrification and red lining.\n\nIf this person is talking to someone who doesn't systematic racism and therefore doesn't believe gentrification or red lining is a problem is it this person responsibly to go though all effort to get them to understand a fundamental issue to talk about a more advanced one would they be wrong to not give there time.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsbp9jn","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"Yes, I suppose my main point (which I may have not made too clear I admit) was not that they be able to communicate their point to others. It was that activists think about their own position before trying to change the world. This is because they may have a bad idea that they are trying to push but they won't see its problems because they haven't examined it. The reason I gave examples of sjw not being able to argue was that, for me, it was an indication that they didn't think about their poisition.\n\nI have since modified my view. Someone pointed out that sometimes you can thing about your view but you simply might not be good at articulating it. \n\nAlthough, I still think a significant number of activists have not thought about their poisition. \n\nHave an upvote :)","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsbr4mj","parent_id":"jsbp9jn","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"PdawgTheBanEvader","body":"Greed is wanting too much money\n\nWanting to much money is greed.\n\n\n\nThats how definitions work","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsbzx91","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"zeroaegis","body":"The average person is not built for argumentation. You can support a movement without being able to fully articulate your side's entire agenda and you can have a full understanding of the issues and perfectly understand your position on everything without being able to properly articulate it all on the fly. \n\nThey types that \"interview\" these activists tend to be the types that built their channel/persona on being able to do that type of thing, so they have the practice and temperament to poke at arguments and confuse the average individual. Then they edit the footage to include the worst of the responses and promote that as the image of the entire other side of the argument. They're not looking for an actual debate, they're looking for people they can bully and make look bad. \n\nAll you have to do is find a few people in the crowd that have a hard time verbally articulating under pressure (usually not to hard, as it's not uncommon), apply pressure to get them flustered/frustrated, then you claim the other side is incompetent and has no idea what they're talking about.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsc89ke","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"parlimentery","body":"Granted, I heard the back story second hand, but the part I can confirm is that a former student of mine was on American Idol, didn't qualify but got shown on the segment where they show the people who didn't make it and was made to look like a total buffoon. They asked who his musical inspiration was, he said (I think) Louis Armstrong, and then they showed him a picture of Louis Armstrong on their phone asking who it was and he said he didn't know. Friends of his that were still going to the high school I worked at said that the actual exchange was that he said his inspiration was some rapper he likes, then they asked something like who does that song \"What a Wonderful World\", and the whole thing was recut. This is inevitably happening in those gotcha videos, combine with the fact that they are cherry picking the maybe 1in 20 interviews where someone said something dumb. Ensuring your cause never gets these kinds of videos made about you would require extensive education to everyone who shows up at your protest, and extreme care to refuse to answer questions that could possibly be recut to make you look dumb (perhaps not even possible). Your protest is going to have like 30 people at it.\n\nThis also seems to exclude neurodiverse people from your cause. I have an autistic friend who I consider to be very intelligent, but you need to be far more patient with her than a gotcha interviewer would be. I also met many people at the George Floyd protests who, when I talked to them, had little specifics on what policy changes they wanted to see, they were just sure they needed to see action to stop this from happening. Is that not a valid reason to try to make your voice heard? I discussed my positions with several of these people, and they seemed interested in researching them further, and in turn I learned a lot more about what qualified immunity is and what politicians in my state has already proposed legislation to end it. Those protests were a great learning opportunity for me and I think many other people.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jscuhiq","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"Solid_Local409","body":"You just described hermeneutics","date":"2023-07-18","id":"jsf35ns","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}]],"string":"[\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"237583dh\",\n \"body\": \"Maybe your view on what activism is has been skewed by Youtube?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsb2wdn\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"Possibly, I responded to a similar point above. Have an upvote. Thanks\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsbgjnl\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jsb2wdn\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"LucidMetal\",\n \"body\": \"The average activist is just as dumb as the average person. Do you really expect the average person to have more than a tenuous grasp on every one of their beliefs and to be able to argue both in favorite or against any one of them?\\n\\nThat seems like much too high a bar. We can barely get humanity aligned on evolution and climate change.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsb32cq\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"It's a good point. Although I would say the bar should be higher for activists because they are trying to change policy. They are trying to get you and me to change our behavior - in some cases aggressively trying to get others to change.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsbgs75\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jsb32cq\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Kotoperek\",\n \"body\": \"Yeah, but catching people off guard with ill-intended questions and then laughing at them getting emotional is also a strategy used against activism, and on both sides. You mentions SJWs, but if you type something like \\\"idiots at MAGA protests answer questions\\\" you'll get people on the right trying to answer simple questions and proving they have no clue what they are talking about or voting for. \\n\\nThere is a difference between activism as education (explaining to others why your position is the one they should also hold), and action based activism, where you go to a protest, boycott a business, or otherwise engage in an action with an inteded response from the authorities. And then you're not trying to educate people, you're protesting. So asking you to sit down and coherently explain your reasoning is a deliberate strategy to discredit you in the media in a situation where you're not required to explain yourself.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsb3a2o\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Novemberists\",\n \"body\": \"This past week I've really kicked the beehive with the two incredibly hot takes:\\n\\n* If climate change activists shifted their position slightly and made the cause about reducing pollution which everyone can see happening and everyone can get behind.\\n\\n* It makes no sense for BLM to gatekeep and make their cause about the 15 unarmed black men who get killed by cops per year when the issue of the hundred thousand Americans who get brutalized by police is a much easier cause to promote.\\n\\nI kind of share Op's view but where we differ is that the failure to stand up to any scrutiny at all is because their primary goal is not to change things.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsb529m\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jsb3a2o\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"stewshi\",\n \"body\": \"\\n> There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, \\n\\nThe street questioning videos you see of activist being questioned are usually highly edited. You can see this also on Jimmy Kimmel. They ask alot of people and only present the funny responses. These videos are not representative of the knowledge of protesters and are pretty much memes.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\nSame for a lot of groups. Christians will tell you it's gods will about alot of things because to them a insider it perfectly answers the question.\\n\\n\\n>2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\nExample please\\n\\n>3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nLet's look at BLM. If you can up to me and said \\\" why are you protesting?\\\" And I say \\\" police brutality is bad\\\" that's a perfectly valid response. Ask climate activist and theyll say \\\" climate change is going to make it hard to live on earth\\\" these are valid responses. \\n\\n\\n>However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\n\\nDo you have to be an authority of Christianity to participate in the religion or do you have to believe the religion is the best course of action to reach your desired endpoint. Because I'd inatood outside of a church and fired random questions at christians alot of it would look like the meme videos made of protestors.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsb3t73\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Sreyes150\",\n \"body\": \"You don’t need to be an authority, but you need to be able tonintelectually substantiate your opinion or you should really keep it to yourself.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsb5r3i\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jsb3t73\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"swanshalom\",\n \"body\": \"Do you have any specific examples you can link to?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsb465i\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"mortusowo\",\n \"body\": \">There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n\\nI've seen a fair amount of these videos as I was interested in SJW cringe content when I was younger. Now that I am interested in activism particularly around LGBT issues, I have revisited some of that content. \\n\\nAnd now I realize that while some of it is being dumb and is cherrypicked for that reason (as in the person recording searched around and probably interviewed several dozen people before they got to a dumb one) sometimes it's actually an issue of asking a trap question. \\n\\nI'll give an example. There was a documentary with Matt Walsh called \\\"What is a woman?\\\" where he did this style of questioning for a good portion of his documentary. Several groups either didn't answer his question or played dumb. That's because there's no good way to answer that question without being sucked into a trap argument thats not going to be productive. It's not that the question is unanswerable, or those people are uneducated on those issues. It's just a trap. As a lot of that kind of content tends to be.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsb4rs0\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Sreyes150\",\n \"body\": \"It’s not a trap to ask what a women is. It gets to the heart of the issue. You cal it a trip because the potential answer makes us unsure. It’s a great question for exactly that reason. \\n\\nIt exposes that the real argument for LGBT movement is there is no women there is no man these are basically bull shit terms that must be discarded to make way for the gender fluid version of reality they see. \\n\\nIt’s not a trap. It’s a question that reveals the true argument. That’s why it makes them look bad when the question is asked because they are not yet ready to intellectually admit that they are seeking the abolishment of the terms women and men. If we can’t even define what it is then it has no use.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsb65dn\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jsb4rs0\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"merlinus12\",\n \"body\": \"This is a difficult CMV to respond to, since it is basically just “Some people who do X are bad at X” which is true almost by definition.\\n\\nBut you also imply that only people who have become an ‘authority’ on a topic should become activists. And I don’t think that is necessarily the case. \\n\\nSure, there are some topics where you need to do a lot of work to understand the nuances and complexities (global banking systems, tax policy, etc). But sometimes the issue is simply “X is evil and should end.” You don’t need a PhD in criminal justice to know that human trafficking is bad, for instance. Lending your voice and platform to oppose things that are clearly wrong can be useful in raising awareness of a topic even if you aren’t an expert.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsb4six\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Sreyes150\",\n \"body\": \"They literally said you don’t need to be an authority. Please read post carefully if you responding.\\n\\nYou need to be able to intelligently support and define your positions in a reasonable manner if you are actively telling others your view is correct.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsb6bvz\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jsb4six\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Squidocto\",\n \"body\": \"Has been said but I’d like to emphasize: speaking articulately, on demand and on camera, is a skill—a skill most people do not possess. Having one’s head empty out when in the spotlight hits is, I suspect, a very common phenomenon\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsb7a4k\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"Good point.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsbnhde\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jsb7a4k\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Mestoph\",\n \"body\": \"You mean if you watch videos titled \\\"SJW\\\" on YouTube you'll be exposed to selectively edited videos trying to make the \\\"activists\\\" look stupid? Say it ain't so...\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsb80yc\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"Sorry I should have clarified that the sjw videos are not my only reason. I just wanted to give a quick example of some of the people I am talking about. But you are right, these videos obviously misrepresent many activists.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsbnram\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jsb80yc\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"VertigoOne\",\n \"body\": \"What you're essentially asking is that every activist be more educated than the average populace, however the populace often shut down educated activists with mere badly understood slogans too.\\n\\nA good example of this was Brexit with \\\"Take back control\\\". Expert after expert could point out how fundamentally meaningless that phrase was, but that was what the population responded with.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsbaqh2\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"No, I think both sides needed to be thoughtful. What I say applies to both those on the right and left. \\n\\nI don't know a lot about the Brexit issue but I would suggest that everyone should think before they go out onto the streets.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsbqchx\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jsbaqh2\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"vote4bort\",\n \"body\": \">YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims\\n\\nYouTube is not real life. The clips on their are on there because they are entertaining, no one is uploading hours long reasoned, unemotional debates. That doesn't generate views. So the ones on their are already a cherry picked subset of these kinds of interactions and are often taken out of context or straight up edited to look worse. \\n\\n>There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n>2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\nHow much is many? There's always going to be a few outliers of any group but I'd say this is an incredibly hard statement to back up. Given that most activism is going on outside of your knowledge, irl where its not being filmed for YouTube how would you know about what those people do or don't know? \\n\\n>Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nPublic speaking is a skill. A skill many people don't have. And when a topic is emotive that can make it even harder to articulate a point. It's like lawyers, they're payed to argue professional because it's a skill not everyone has. Just because someone can't articulate the words in the moment doesn't mean they don't know what they're talking about. Like writing and essay vs an oral exam, some people are just better at one or the other. \\n\\nThere's no qualification or test to become an activist. Its just people who are passionate about something. I think it's unfair for hold them to the kinds of standards you would for someone who was a professional.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsbhvxe\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"UnauthorizedUsername\",\n \"body\": \"I mean, it's sort of biased by your search for one thing.\\n\\nPeople who are pro- these topics tend to not call themselves SJW's -- that's a term almost exclusively used by people who mock and deride activists. Using that to guage how educated activists are for their case is using a *very* biased sample, and will be filled with people who've specifically looked for the dumbest or least media-savvy person in a crowd to prop up as the representative for the cause.\\n\\nBut you can find *plenty* of well-educated and well spoken activists on these causes, if you search for things that aren't right-wing insults.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsbk2t9\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"Fair point. I will say though that it's not just YouTube that my view is based on. But you are right, this source is biased.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsbspwx\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jsbk2t9\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Martardious\",\n \"body\": \"SJW are just following the path set forth by religions.\\n\\nStep 1: Posit something easily refuted.\\n\\nStep 2: Deny all facts, observations and scientific findings that contradict the posit of step 1.\\n\\nStep 3: Hissy fit until people either agree or shut up.\\n\\nStep 4: (Doesn't apply in the west anymore) Burn those who still disagree.\\n\\nUltimately like anything with the religious right wing, the problem is they hate competition.\\n\\nCrazy non-reality based conjectures? Check.\\n\\nAccusations of grooming and molestations? Check\\n\\nPersecution complex? Check.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsbm77t\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"UnauthorizedUsername\",\n \"body\": \"How is this in any way attempting to change the OP's view, and not just your own personal rant on SJWs?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsbpjz9\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jsbm77t\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"ralph-j\",\n \"body\": \"> 1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n> \\n> 2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n> \\n> 3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nNot all activists need to be on the PR front of the movement, take part in debates etc. Movements and causes also need numbers.\\n\\nWhile having a more grounded view that addresses common counter-points is certainly commendable, I don't think that we ought to \\\"gatekeep\\\" who can be a considered a proper representative for their cause.\\n\\nSome topics can become very complex, like e.g. transgender equality. A lot of people who join our movement may not be familiar with a lot of the details, like the leading views on gender identity, gender dysphoria, medical care etc. They are simply in it because they want to support human rights and equality, and that is fine too.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsbmbad\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"PabloZocchi\",\n \"body\": \"The objective was never try to change anyone's mind. Some activist groups actually tries to change something, but most of them pursuits other politicial interests such as grants, more political involvement in certain legislations, or even shady interests such as money laundry.\\n\\nI dont deny that maybe there is a good cause, but they end up using that cause in order to get benefits rather than actually changing something.\\n\\nSomething similar happened in Argentina with femminist activist and groups, which ended up in the creation of the ministery of the woman as a solution for the increasing number of deaths due to violence of women, and the sexual abuses, but instead of actually solving those issues, that ministery is spending huge amounts of money buying overpriced furniture and vehicles, those increasing figures i mentioned they didnt stopped, in fact, those are increasing dramatically but lots of the activists ended up in different possitions in the Congress as legislators or officials in different possitions inside the government living great with the money from the tax payers\\n\\nOther groups are just getting used by politicians when elections are near and polls are not that great, in exchange of including activists in their lines (like it happened with BLM and LGBTQ+ movements), at the end of the day, they are getting used for their credentials\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsbojr6\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Foxhound97_\",\n \"body\": \"Just a point I found interesting about the explain angle there are some people who are arguing from a position build on an existing agreed point e.g. systematic racism could be lead to talking to gentrification and red lining.\\n\\nIf this person is talking to someone who doesn't systematic racism and therefore doesn't believe gentrification or red lining is a problem is it this person responsibly to go though all effort to get them to understand a fundamental issue to talk about a more advanced one would they be wrong to not give there time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsbp9jn\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"Yes, I suppose my main point (which I may have not made too clear I admit) was not that they be able to communicate their point to others. It was that activists think about their own position before trying to change the world. This is because they may have a bad idea that they are trying to push but they won't see its problems because they haven't examined it. The reason I gave examples of sjw not being able to argue was that, for me, it was an indication that they didn't think about their poisition.\\n\\nI have since modified my view. Someone pointed out that sometimes you can thing about your view but you simply might not be good at articulating it. \\n\\nAlthough, I still think a significant number of activists have not thought about their poisition. \\n\\nHave an upvote :)\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsbr4mj\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jsbp9jn\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"PdawgTheBanEvader\",\n \"body\": \"Greed is wanting too much money\\n\\nWanting to much money is greed.\\n\\n\\n\\nThats how definitions work\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsbzx91\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"zeroaegis\",\n \"body\": \"The average person is not built for argumentation. You can support a movement without being able to fully articulate your side's entire agenda and you can have a full understanding of the issues and perfectly understand your position on everything without being able to properly articulate it all on the fly. \\n\\nThey types that \\\"interview\\\" these activists tend to be the types that built their channel/persona on being able to do that type of thing, so they have the practice and temperament to poke at arguments and confuse the average individual. Then they edit the footage to include the worst of the responses and promote that as the image of the entire other side of the argument. They're not looking for an actual debate, they're looking for people they can bully and make look bad. \\n\\nAll you have to do is find a few people in the crowd that have a hard time verbally articulating under pressure (usually not to hard, as it's not uncommon), apply pressure to get them flustered/frustrated, then you claim the other side is incompetent and has no idea what they're talking about.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsc89ke\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"parlimentery\",\n \"body\": \"Granted, I heard the back story second hand, but the part I can confirm is that a former student of mine was on American Idol, didn't qualify but got shown on the segment where they show the people who didn't make it and was made to look like a total buffoon. They asked who his musical inspiration was, he said (I think) Louis Armstrong, and then they showed him a picture of Louis Armstrong on their phone asking who it was and he said he didn't know. Friends of his that were still going to the high school I worked at said that the actual exchange was that he said his inspiration was some rapper he likes, then they asked something like who does that song \\\"What a Wonderful World\\\", and the whole thing was recut. This is inevitably happening in those gotcha videos, combine with the fact that they are cherry picking the maybe 1in 20 interviews where someone said something dumb. Ensuring your cause never gets these kinds of videos made about you would require extensive education to everyone who shows up at your protest, and extreme care to refuse to answer questions that could possibly be recut to make you look dumb (perhaps not even possible). Your protest is going to have like 30 people at it.\\n\\nThis also seems to exclude neurodiverse people from your cause. I have an autistic friend who I consider to be very intelligent, but you need to be far more patient with her than a gotcha interviewer would be. I also met many people at the George Floyd protests who, when I talked to them, had little specifics on what policy changes they wanted to see, they were just sure they needed to see action to stop this from happening. Is that not a valid reason to try to make your voice heard? I discussed my positions with several of these people, and they seemed interested in researching them further, and in turn I learned a lot more about what qualified immunity is and what politicians in my state has already proposed legislation to end it. Those protests were a great learning opportunity for me and I think many other people.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jscuhiq\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Solid_Local409\",\n \"body\": \"You just described hermeneutics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-18\",\n \"id\": \"jsf35ns\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ]\n]","isConversational":false},"2":{"kind":"string","value":"challenge"}}},{"rowIdx":50,"cells":{"0":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"Robert_Caro","body":">Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world.\n\nProbably the main thing I see on the internet is people writing about an issue they've thought about a lot. They've imagined conversations and arguments, but they've never actually spoken to another human being face-to-face about it. So they don't have \"reasonable arguments defending the basics of their position\" (is this even how human conversation works?) because they don't know what concerns people have. Because, again, they don't know any people. \n\nThe way you develop that muscle is by going out and talking to people. Seeing what they say, how they interact, how they feel, who they are, what they're concerned with. You simply can't do that alone in your bedroom thinking up stuff. \n\nBut people need time and space to learn how to interact with others. They need a little grace. Stocking a camera in their faces and laughing at them for not being eloquent enough to convince a pool of internet weirdos who 1) are already part of a community that's unsympathetic to them, and 2) don't worry about their own social awkwardness is the opposite of grace.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsbap3i","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"That's a great point. It may be a lack of communication skills rather than a lack of an argument. True.\n\nAlthough some of these activists have thrown out slurs at innocent people just because of their membership in a group. I think a lot of the unsympathy they have drawn on themselves. \n\nBut, yes great point. Have a delta: Δ","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsbpz5w","parent_id":"jsbap3i","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"DeltaBot","body":"Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/Robert_Caro ([8∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/Robert_Caro)).\n\n^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsbq29r","parent_id":"jsbpz5w","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],"string":"[\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Robert_Caro\",\n \"body\": \">Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world.\\n\\nProbably the main thing I see on the internet is people writing about an issue they've thought about a lot. They've imagined conversations and arguments, but they've never actually spoken to another human being face-to-face about it. So they don't have \\\"reasonable arguments defending the basics of their position\\\" (is this even how human conversation works?) because they don't know what concerns people have. Because, again, they don't know any people. \\n\\nThe way you develop that muscle is by going out and talking to people. Seeing what they say, how they interact, how they feel, who they are, what they're concerned with. You simply can't do that alone in your bedroom thinking up stuff. \\n\\nBut people need time and space to learn how to interact with others. They need a little grace. Stocking a camera in their faces and laughing at them for not being eloquent enough to convince a pool of internet weirdos who 1) are already part of a community that's unsympathetic to them, and 2) don't worry about their own social awkwardness is the opposite of grace.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsbap3i\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"That's a great point. It may be a lack of communication skills rather than a lack of an argument. True.\\n\\nAlthough some of these activists have thrown out slurs at innocent people just because of their membership in a group. I think a lot of the unsympathy they have drawn on themselves. \\n\\nBut, yes great point. Have a delta: Δ\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsbpz5w\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jsbap3i\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"DeltaBot\",\n \"body\": \"Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/Robert_Caro ([8∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/Robert_Caro)).\\n\\n^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsbq29r\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jsbpz5w\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n]","isConversational":false},"1":{"kind":"list like","value":[[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"237583dh","body":"Maybe your view on what activism is has been skewed by Youtube?","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsb2wdn","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"Possibly, I responded to a similar point above. Have an upvote. Thanks","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsbgjnl","parent_id":"jsb2wdn","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"LucidMetal","body":"The average activist is just as dumb as the average person. Do you really expect the average person to have more than a tenuous grasp on every one of their beliefs and to be able to argue both in favorite or against any one of them?\n\nThat seems like much too high a bar. We can barely get humanity aligned on evolution and climate change.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsb32cq","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"It's a good point. Although I would say the bar should be higher for activists because they are trying to change policy. They are trying to get you and me to change our behavior - in some cases aggressively trying to get others to change.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsbgs75","parent_id":"jsb32cq","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"Kotoperek","body":"Yeah, but catching people off guard with ill-intended questions and then laughing at them getting emotional is also a strategy used against activism, and on both sides. You mentions SJWs, but if you type something like \"idiots at MAGA protests answer questions\" you'll get people on the right trying to answer simple questions and proving they have no clue what they are talking about or voting for. \n\nThere is a difference between activism as education (explaining to others why your position is the one they should also hold), and action based activism, where you go to a protest, boycott a business, or otherwise engage in an action with an inteded response from the authorities. And then you're not trying to educate people, you're protesting. So asking you to sit down and coherently explain your reasoning is a deliberate strategy to discredit you in the media in a situation where you're not required to explain yourself.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsb3a2o","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Novemberists","body":"This past week I've really kicked the beehive with the two incredibly hot takes:\n\n* If climate change activists shifted their position slightly and made the cause about reducing pollution which everyone can see happening and everyone can get behind.\n\n* It makes no sense for BLM to gatekeep and make their cause about the 15 unarmed black men who get killed by cops per year when the issue of the hundred thousand Americans who get brutalized by police is a much easier cause to promote.\n\nI kind of share Op's view but where we differ is that the failure to stand up to any scrutiny at all is because their primary goal is not to change things.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsb529m","parent_id":"jsb3a2o","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"stewshi","body":"\n> There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, \n\nThe street questioning videos you see of activist being questioned are usually highly edited. You can see this also on Jimmy Kimmel. They ask alot of people and only present the funny responses. These videos are not representative of the knowledge of protesters and are pretty much memes.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\nSame for a lot of groups. Christians will tell you it's gods will about alot of things because to them a insider it perfectly answers the question.\n\n\n>2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\nExample please\n\n>3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nLet's look at BLM. If you can up to me and said \" why are you protesting?\" And I say \" police brutality is bad\" that's a perfectly valid response. Ask climate activist and theyll say \" climate change is going to make it hard to live on earth\" these are valid responses. \n\n\n>However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\n\nDo you have to be an authority of Christianity to participate in the religion or do you have to believe the religion is the best course of action to reach your desired endpoint. Because I'd inatood outside of a church and fired random questions at christians alot of it would look like the meme videos made of protestors.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsb3t73","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Sreyes150","body":"You don’t need to be an authority, but you need to be able tonintelectually substantiate your opinion or you should really keep it to yourself.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsb5r3i","parent_id":"jsb3t73","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"swanshalom","body":"Do you have any specific examples you can link to?","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsb465i","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"mortusowo","body":">There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n\nI've seen a fair amount of these videos as I was interested in SJW cringe content when I was younger. Now that I am interested in activism particularly around LGBT issues, I have revisited some of that content. \n\nAnd now I realize that while some of it is being dumb and is cherrypicked for that reason (as in the person recording searched around and probably interviewed several dozen people before they got to a dumb one) sometimes it's actually an issue of asking a trap question. \n\nI'll give an example. There was a documentary with Matt Walsh called \"What is a woman?\" where he did this style of questioning for a good portion of his documentary. Several groups either didn't answer his question or played dumb. That's because there's no good way to answer that question without being sucked into a trap argument thats not going to be productive. It's not that the question is unanswerable, or those people are uneducated on those issues. It's just a trap. As a lot of that kind of content tends to be.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsb4rs0","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Sreyes150","body":"It’s not a trap to ask what a women is. It gets to the heart of the issue. You cal it a trip because the potential answer makes us unsure. It’s a great question for exactly that reason. \n\nIt exposes that the real argument for LGBT movement is there is no women there is no man these are basically bull shit terms that must be discarded to make way for the gender fluid version of reality they see. \n\nIt’s not a trap. It’s a question that reveals the true argument. That’s why it makes them look bad when the question is asked because they are not yet ready to intellectually admit that they are seeking the abolishment of the terms women and men. If we can’t even define what it is then it has no use.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsb65dn","parent_id":"jsb4rs0","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"merlinus12","body":"This is a difficult CMV to respond to, since it is basically just “Some people who do X are bad at X” which is true almost by definition.\n\nBut you also imply that only people who have become an ‘authority’ on a topic should become activists. And I don’t think that is necessarily the case. \n\nSure, there are some topics where you need to do a lot of work to understand the nuances and complexities (global banking systems, tax policy, etc). But sometimes the issue is simply “X is evil and should end.” You don’t need a PhD in criminal justice to know that human trafficking is bad, for instance. Lending your voice and platform to oppose things that are clearly wrong can be useful in raising awareness of a topic even if you aren’t an expert.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsb4six","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Sreyes150","body":"They literally said you don’t need to be an authority. Please read post carefully if you responding.\n\nYou need to be able to intelligently support and define your positions in a reasonable manner if you are actively telling others your view is correct.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsb6bvz","parent_id":"jsb4six","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"Squidocto","body":"Has been said but I’d like to emphasize: speaking articulately, on demand and on camera, is a skill—a skill most people do not possess. Having one’s head empty out when in the spotlight hits is, I suspect, a very common phenomenon","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsb7a4k","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"Good point.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsbnhde","parent_id":"jsb7a4k","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"Mestoph","body":"You mean if you watch videos titled \"SJW\" on YouTube you'll be exposed to selectively edited videos trying to make the \"activists\" look stupid? Say it ain't so...","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsb80yc","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"Sorry I should have clarified that the sjw videos are not my only reason. I just wanted to give a quick example of some of the people I am talking about. But you are right, these videos obviously misrepresent many activists.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsbnram","parent_id":"jsb80yc","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"VertigoOne","body":"What you're essentially asking is that every activist be more educated than the average populace, however the populace often shut down educated activists with mere badly understood slogans too.\n\nA good example of this was Brexit with \"Take back control\". Expert after expert could point out how fundamentally meaningless that phrase was, but that was what the population responded with.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsbaqh2","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"No, I think both sides needed to be thoughtful. What I say applies to both those on the right and left. \n\nI don't know a lot about the Brexit issue but I would suggest that everyone should think before they go out onto the streets.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsbqchx","parent_id":"jsbaqh2","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"vote4bort","body":">YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims\n\nYouTube is not real life. The clips on their are on there because they are entertaining, no one is uploading hours long reasoned, unemotional debates. That doesn't generate views. So the ones on their are already a cherry picked subset of these kinds of interactions and are often taken out of context or straight up edited to look worse. \n\n>There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n>2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\nHow much is many? There's always going to be a few outliers of any group but I'd say this is an incredibly hard statement to back up. Given that most activism is going on outside of your knowledge, irl where its not being filmed for YouTube how would you know about what those people do or don't know? \n\n>Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nPublic speaking is a skill. A skill many people don't have. And when a topic is emotive that can make it even harder to articulate a point. It's like lawyers, they're payed to argue professional because it's a skill not everyone has. Just because someone can't articulate the words in the moment doesn't mean they don't know what they're talking about. Like writing and essay vs an oral exam, some people are just better at one or the other. \n\nThere's no qualification or test to become an activist. Its just people who are passionate about something. I think it's unfair for hold them to the kinds of standards you would for someone who was a professional.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsbhvxe","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"UnauthorizedUsername","body":"I mean, it's sort of biased by your search for one thing.\n\nPeople who are pro- these topics tend to not call themselves SJW's -- that's a term almost exclusively used by people who mock and deride activists. Using that to guage how educated activists are for their case is using a *very* biased sample, and will be filled with people who've specifically looked for the dumbest or least media-savvy person in a crowd to prop up as the representative for the cause.\n\nBut you can find *plenty* of well-educated and well spoken activists on these causes, if you search for things that aren't right-wing insults.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsbk2t9","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"Fair point. I will say though that it's not just YouTube that my view is based on. But you are right, this source is biased.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsbspwx","parent_id":"jsbk2t9","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"Martardious","body":"SJW are just following the path set forth by religions.\n\nStep 1: Posit something easily refuted.\n\nStep 2: Deny all facts, observations and scientific findings that contradict the posit of step 1.\n\nStep 3: Hissy fit until people either agree or shut up.\n\nStep 4: (Doesn't apply in the west anymore) Burn those who still disagree.\n\nUltimately like anything with the religious right wing, the problem is they hate competition.\n\nCrazy non-reality based conjectures? Check.\n\nAccusations of grooming and molestations? Check\n\nPersecution complex? Check.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsbm77t","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"UnauthorizedUsername","body":"How is this in any way attempting to change the OP's view, and not just your own personal rant on SJWs?","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsbpjz9","parent_id":"jsbm77t","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"ralph-j","body":"> 1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n> \n> 2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n> \n> 3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nNot all activists need to be on the PR front of the movement, take part in debates etc. Movements and causes also need numbers.\n\nWhile having a more grounded view that addresses common counter-points is certainly commendable, I don't think that we ought to \"gatekeep\" who can be a considered a proper representative for their cause.\n\nSome topics can become very complex, like e.g. transgender equality. A lot of people who join our movement may not be familiar with a lot of the details, like the leading views on gender identity, gender dysphoria, medical care etc. They are simply in it because they want to support human rights and equality, and that is fine too.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsbmbad","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"PabloZocchi","body":"The objective was never try to change anyone's mind. Some activist groups actually tries to change something, but most of them pursuits other politicial interests such as grants, more political involvement in certain legislations, or even shady interests such as money laundry.\n\nI dont deny that maybe there is a good cause, but they end up using that cause in order to get benefits rather than actually changing something.\n\nSomething similar happened in Argentina with femminist activist and groups, which ended up in the creation of the ministery of the woman as a solution for the increasing number of deaths due to violence of women, and the sexual abuses, but instead of actually solving those issues, that ministery is spending huge amounts of money buying overpriced furniture and vehicles, those increasing figures i mentioned they didnt stopped, in fact, those are increasing dramatically but lots of the activists ended up in different possitions in the Congress as legislators or officials in different possitions inside the government living great with the money from the tax payers\n\nOther groups are just getting used by politicians when elections are near and polls are not that great, in exchange of including activists in their lines (like it happened with BLM and LGBTQ+ movements), at the end of the day, they are getting used for their credentials","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsbojr6","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"Foxhound97_","body":"Just a point I found interesting about the explain angle there are some people who are arguing from a position build on an existing agreed point e.g. systematic racism could be lead to talking to gentrification and red lining.\n\nIf this person is talking to someone who doesn't systematic racism and therefore doesn't believe gentrification or red lining is a problem is it this person responsibly to go though all effort to get them to understand a fundamental issue to talk about a more advanced one would they be wrong to not give there time.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsbp9jn","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"Yes, I suppose my main point (which I may have not made too clear I admit) was not that they be able to communicate their point to others. It was that activists think about their own position before trying to change the world. This is because they may have a bad idea that they are trying to push but they won't see its problems because they haven't examined it. The reason I gave examples of sjw not being able to argue was that, for me, it was an indication that they didn't think about their poisition.\n\nI have since modified my view. Someone pointed out that sometimes you can thing about your view but you simply might not be good at articulating it. \n\nAlthough, I still think a significant number of activists have not thought about their poisition. \n\nHave an upvote :)","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsbr4mj","parent_id":"jsbp9jn","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"PdawgTheBanEvader","body":"Greed is wanting too much money\n\nWanting to much money is greed.\n\n\n\nThats how definitions work","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsbzx91","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"zeroaegis","body":"The average person is not built for argumentation. You can support a movement without being able to fully articulate your side's entire agenda and you can have a full understanding of the issues and perfectly understand your position on everything without being able to properly articulate it all on the fly. \n\nThey types that \"interview\" these activists tend to be the types that built their channel/persona on being able to do that type of thing, so they have the practice and temperament to poke at arguments and confuse the average individual. Then they edit the footage to include the worst of the responses and promote that as the image of the entire other side of the argument. They're not looking for an actual debate, they're looking for people they can bully and make look bad. \n\nAll you have to do is find a few people in the crowd that have a hard time verbally articulating under pressure (usually not to hard, as it's not uncommon), apply pressure to get them flustered/frustrated, then you claim the other side is incompetent and has no idea what they're talking about.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jsc89ke","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"parlimentery","body":"Granted, I heard the back story second hand, but the part I can confirm is that a former student of mine was on American Idol, didn't qualify but got shown on the segment where they show the people who didn't make it and was made to look like a total buffoon. They asked who his musical inspiration was, he said (I think) Louis Armstrong, and then they showed him a picture of Louis Armstrong on their phone asking who it was and he said he didn't know. Friends of his that were still going to the high school I worked at said that the actual exchange was that he said his inspiration was some rapper he likes, then they asked something like who does that song \"What a Wonderful World\", and the whole thing was recut. This is inevitably happening in those gotcha videos, combine with the fact that they are cherry picking the maybe 1in 20 interviews where someone said something dumb. Ensuring your cause never gets these kinds of videos made about you would require extensive education to everyone who shows up at your protest, and extreme care to refuse to answer questions that could possibly be recut to make you look dumb (perhaps not even possible). Your protest is going to have like 30 people at it.\n\nThis also seems to exclude neurodiverse people from your cause. I have an autistic friend who I consider to be very intelligent, but you need to be far more patient with her than a gotcha interviewer would be. I also met many people at the George Floyd protests who, when I talked to them, had little specifics on what policy changes they wanted to see, they were just sure they needed to see action to stop this from happening. Is that not a valid reason to try to make your voice heard? I discussed my positions with several of these people, and they seemed interested in researching them further, and in turn I learned a lot more about what qualified immunity is and what politicians in my state has already proposed legislation to end it. Those protests were a great learning opportunity for me and I think many other people.","date":"2023-07-17","id":"jscuhiq","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"LostSignal1914","body":"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\n\n**I am not claiming:**\n\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\n\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\n\n**I am claiming:**\n\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\n\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\n\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \n\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \n\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\n\n​\n\n​","date":"2023-07-17","id":"151zdbr","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/"},{"author":"Solid_Local409","body":"You just described hermeneutics","date":"2023-07-18","id":"jsf35ns","parent_id":"151zdbr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}]],"string":"[\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"237583dh\",\n \"body\": \"Maybe your view on what activism is has been skewed by Youtube?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsb2wdn\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"Possibly, I responded to a similar point above. Have an upvote. Thanks\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsbgjnl\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jsb2wdn\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"LucidMetal\",\n \"body\": \"The average activist is just as dumb as the average person. Do you really expect the average person to have more than a tenuous grasp on every one of their beliefs and to be able to argue both in favorite or against any one of them?\\n\\nThat seems like much too high a bar. We can barely get humanity aligned on evolution and climate change.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsb32cq\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"It's a good point. Although I would say the bar should be higher for activists because they are trying to change policy. They are trying to get you and me to change our behavior - in some cases aggressively trying to get others to change.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsbgs75\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jsb32cq\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Kotoperek\",\n \"body\": \"Yeah, but catching people off guard with ill-intended questions and then laughing at them getting emotional is also a strategy used against activism, and on both sides. You mentions SJWs, but if you type something like \\\"idiots at MAGA protests answer questions\\\" you'll get people on the right trying to answer simple questions and proving they have no clue what they are talking about or voting for. \\n\\nThere is a difference between activism as education (explaining to others why your position is the one they should also hold), and action based activism, where you go to a protest, boycott a business, or otherwise engage in an action with an inteded response from the authorities. And then you're not trying to educate people, you're protesting. So asking you to sit down and coherently explain your reasoning is a deliberate strategy to discredit you in the media in a situation where you're not required to explain yourself.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsb3a2o\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Novemberists\",\n \"body\": \"This past week I've really kicked the beehive with the two incredibly hot takes:\\n\\n* If climate change activists shifted their position slightly and made the cause about reducing pollution which everyone can see happening and everyone can get behind.\\n\\n* It makes no sense for BLM to gatekeep and make their cause about the 15 unarmed black men who get killed by cops per year when the issue of the hundred thousand Americans who get brutalized by police is a much easier cause to promote.\\n\\nI kind of share Op's view but where we differ is that the failure to stand up to any scrutiny at all is because their primary goal is not to change things.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsb529m\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jsb3a2o\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"stewshi\",\n \"body\": \"\\n> There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, \\n\\nThe street questioning videos you see of activist being questioned are usually highly edited. You can see this also on Jimmy Kimmel. They ask alot of people and only present the funny responses. These videos are not representative of the knowledge of protesters and are pretty much memes.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\nSame for a lot of groups. Christians will tell you it's gods will about alot of things because to them a insider it perfectly answers the question.\\n\\n\\n>2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\nExample please\\n\\n>3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nLet's look at BLM. If you can up to me and said \\\" why are you protesting?\\\" And I say \\\" police brutality is bad\\\" that's a perfectly valid response. Ask climate activist and theyll say \\\" climate change is going to make it hard to live on earth\\\" these are valid responses. \\n\\n\\n>However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\n\\nDo you have to be an authority of Christianity to participate in the religion or do you have to believe the religion is the best course of action to reach your desired endpoint. Because I'd inatood outside of a church and fired random questions at christians alot of it would look like the meme videos made of protestors.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsb3t73\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Sreyes150\",\n \"body\": \"You don’t need to be an authority, but you need to be able tonintelectually substantiate your opinion or you should really keep it to yourself.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsb5r3i\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jsb3t73\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"swanshalom\",\n \"body\": \"Do you have any specific examples you can link to?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsb465i\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"mortusowo\",\n \"body\": \">There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n\\nI've seen a fair amount of these videos as I was interested in SJW cringe content when I was younger. Now that I am interested in activism particularly around LGBT issues, I have revisited some of that content. \\n\\nAnd now I realize that while some of it is being dumb and is cherrypicked for that reason (as in the person recording searched around and probably interviewed several dozen people before they got to a dumb one) sometimes it's actually an issue of asking a trap question. \\n\\nI'll give an example. There was a documentary with Matt Walsh called \\\"What is a woman?\\\" where he did this style of questioning for a good portion of his documentary. Several groups either didn't answer his question or played dumb. That's because there's no good way to answer that question without being sucked into a trap argument thats not going to be productive. It's not that the question is unanswerable, or those people are uneducated on those issues. It's just a trap. As a lot of that kind of content tends to be.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsb4rs0\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Sreyes150\",\n \"body\": \"It’s not a trap to ask what a women is. It gets to the heart of the issue. You cal it a trip because the potential answer makes us unsure. It’s a great question for exactly that reason. \\n\\nIt exposes that the real argument for LGBT movement is there is no women there is no man these are basically bull shit terms that must be discarded to make way for the gender fluid version of reality they see. \\n\\nIt’s not a trap. It’s a question that reveals the true argument. That’s why it makes them look bad when the question is asked because they are not yet ready to intellectually admit that they are seeking the abolishment of the terms women and men. If we can’t even define what it is then it has no use.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsb65dn\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jsb4rs0\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"merlinus12\",\n \"body\": \"This is a difficult CMV to respond to, since it is basically just “Some people who do X are bad at X” which is true almost by definition.\\n\\nBut you also imply that only people who have become an ‘authority’ on a topic should become activists. And I don’t think that is necessarily the case. \\n\\nSure, there are some topics where you need to do a lot of work to understand the nuances and complexities (global banking systems, tax policy, etc). But sometimes the issue is simply “X is evil and should end.” You don’t need a PhD in criminal justice to know that human trafficking is bad, for instance. Lending your voice and platform to oppose things that are clearly wrong can be useful in raising awareness of a topic even if you aren’t an expert.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsb4six\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Sreyes150\",\n \"body\": \"They literally said you don’t need to be an authority. Please read post carefully if you responding.\\n\\nYou need to be able to intelligently support and define your positions in a reasonable manner if you are actively telling others your view is correct.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsb6bvz\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jsb4six\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Squidocto\",\n \"body\": \"Has been said but I’d like to emphasize: speaking articulately, on demand and on camera, is a skill—a skill most people do not possess. Having one’s head empty out when in the spotlight hits is, I suspect, a very common phenomenon\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsb7a4k\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"Good point.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsbnhde\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jsb7a4k\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Mestoph\",\n \"body\": \"You mean if you watch videos titled \\\"SJW\\\" on YouTube you'll be exposed to selectively edited videos trying to make the \\\"activists\\\" look stupid? Say it ain't so...\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsb80yc\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"Sorry I should have clarified that the sjw videos are not my only reason. I just wanted to give a quick example of some of the people I am talking about. But you are right, these videos obviously misrepresent many activists.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsbnram\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jsb80yc\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"VertigoOne\",\n \"body\": \"What you're essentially asking is that every activist be more educated than the average populace, however the populace often shut down educated activists with mere badly understood slogans too.\\n\\nA good example of this was Brexit with \\\"Take back control\\\". Expert after expert could point out how fundamentally meaningless that phrase was, but that was what the population responded with.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsbaqh2\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"No, I think both sides needed to be thoughtful. What I say applies to both those on the right and left. \\n\\nI don't know a lot about the Brexit issue but I would suggest that everyone should think before they go out onto the streets.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsbqchx\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jsbaqh2\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"vote4bort\",\n \"body\": \">YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims\\n\\nYouTube is not real life. The clips on their are on there because they are entertaining, no one is uploading hours long reasoned, unemotional debates. That doesn't generate views. So the ones on their are already a cherry picked subset of these kinds of interactions and are often taken out of context or straight up edited to look worse. \\n\\n>There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n>2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\nHow much is many? There's always going to be a few outliers of any group but I'd say this is an incredibly hard statement to back up. Given that most activism is going on outside of your knowledge, irl where its not being filmed for YouTube how would you know about what those people do or don't know? \\n\\n>Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nPublic speaking is a skill. A skill many people don't have. And when a topic is emotive that can make it even harder to articulate a point. It's like lawyers, they're payed to argue professional because it's a skill not everyone has. Just because someone can't articulate the words in the moment doesn't mean they don't know what they're talking about. Like writing and essay vs an oral exam, some people are just better at one or the other. \\n\\nThere's no qualification or test to become an activist. Its just people who are passionate about something. I think it's unfair for hold them to the kinds of standards you would for someone who was a professional.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsbhvxe\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"UnauthorizedUsername\",\n \"body\": \"I mean, it's sort of biased by your search for one thing.\\n\\nPeople who are pro- these topics tend to not call themselves SJW's -- that's a term almost exclusively used by people who mock and deride activists. Using that to guage how educated activists are for their case is using a *very* biased sample, and will be filled with people who've specifically looked for the dumbest or least media-savvy person in a crowd to prop up as the representative for the cause.\\n\\nBut you can find *plenty* of well-educated and well spoken activists on these causes, if you search for things that aren't right-wing insults.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsbk2t9\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"Fair point. I will say though that it's not just YouTube that my view is based on. But you are right, this source is biased.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsbspwx\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jsbk2t9\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Martardious\",\n \"body\": \"SJW are just following the path set forth by religions.\\n\\nStep 1: Posit something easily refuted.\\n\\nStep 2: Deny all facts, observations and scientific findings that contradict the posit of step 1.\\n\\nStep 3: Hissy fit until people either agree or shut up.\\n\\nStep 4: (Doesn't apply in the west anymore) Burn those who still disagree.\\n\\nUltimately like anything with the religious right wing, the problem is they hate competition.\\n\\nCrazy non-reality based conjectures? Check.\\n\\nAccusations of grooming and molestations? Check\\n\\nPersecution complex? Check.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsbm77t\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"UnauthorizedUsername\",\n \"body\": \"How is this in any way attempting to change the OP's view, and not just your own personal rant on SJWs?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsbpjz9\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jsbm77t\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"ralph-j\",\n \"body\": \"> 1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n> \\n> 2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n> \\n> 3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nNot all activists need to be on the PR front of the movement, take part in debates etc. Movements and causes also need numbers.\\n\\nWhile having a more grounded view that addresses common counter-points is certainly commendable, I don't think that we ought to \\\"gatekeep\\\" who can be a considered a proper representative for their cause.\\n\\nSome topics can become very complex, like e.g. transgender equality. A lot of people who join our movement may not be familiar with a lot of the details, like the leading views on gender identity, gender dysphoria, medical care etc. They are simply in it because they want to support human rights and equality, and that is fine too.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsbmbad\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"PabloZocchi\",\n \"body\": \"The objective was never try to change anyone's mind. Some activist groups actually tries to change something, but most of them pursuits other politicial interests such as grants, more political involvement in certain legislations, or even shady interests such as money laundry.\\n\\nI dont deny that maybe there is a good cause, but they end up using that cause in order to get benefits rather than actually changing something.\\n\\nSomething similar happened in Argentina with femminist activist and groups, which ended up in the creation of the ministery of the woman as a solution for the increasing number of deaths due to violence of women, and the sexual abuses, but instead of actually solving those issues, that ministery is spending huge amounts of money buying overpriced furniture and vehicles, those increasing figures i mentioned they didnt stopped, in fact, those are increasing dramatically but lots of the activists ended up in different possitions in the Congress as legislators or officials in different possitions inside the government living great with the money from the tax payers\\n\\nOther groups are just getting used by politicians when elections are near and polls are not that great, in exchange of including activists in their lines (like it happened with BLM and LGBTQ+ movements), at the end of the day, they are getting used for their credentials\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsbojr6\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Foxhound97_\",\n \"body\": \"Just a point I found interesting about the explain angle there are some people who are arguing from a position build on an existing agreed point e.g. systematic racism could be lead to talking to gentrification and red lining.\\n\\nIf this person is talking to someone who doesn't systematic racism and therefore doesn't believe gentrification or red lining is a problem is it this person responsibly to go though all effort to get them to understand a fundamental issue to talk about a more advanced one would they be wrong to not give there time.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsbp9jn\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"Yes, I suppose my main point (which I may have not made too clear I admit) was not that they be able to communicate their point to others. It was that activists think about their own position before trying to change the world. This is because they may have a bad idea that they are trying to push but they won't see its problems because they haven't examined it. The reason I gave examples of sjw not being able to argue was that, for me, it was an indication that they didn't think about their poisition.\\n\\nI have since modified my view. Someone pointed out that sometimes you can thing about your view but you simply might not be good at articulating it. \\n\\nAlthough, I still think a significant number of activists have not thought about their poisition. \\n\\nHave an upvote :)\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsbr4mj\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jsbp9jn\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"PdawgTheBanEvader\",\n \"body\": \"Greed is wanting too much money\\n\\nWanting to much money is greed.\\n\\n\\n\\nThats how definitions work\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsbzx91\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"zeroaegis\",\n \"body\": \"The average person is not built for argumentation. You can support a movement without being able to fully articulate your side's entire agenda and you can have a full understanding of the issues and perfectly understand your position on everything without being able to properly articulate it all on the fly. \\n\\nThey types that \\\"interview\\\" these activists tend to be the types that built their channel/persona on being able to do that type of thing, so they have the practice and temperament to poke at arguments and confuse the average individual. Then they edit the footage to include the worst of the responses and promote that as the image of the entire other side of the argument. They're not looking for an actual debate, they're looking for people they can bully and make look bad. \\n\\nAll you have to do is find a few people in the crowd that have a hard time verbally articulating under pressure (usually not to hard, as it's not uncommon), apply pressure to get them flustered/frustrated, then you claim the other side is incompetent and has no idea what they're talking about.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jsc89ke\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"parlimentery\",\n \"body\": \"Granted, I heard the back story second hand, but the part I can confirm is that a former student of mine was on American Idol, didn't qualify but got shown on the segment where they show the people who didn't make it and was made to look like a total buffoon. They asked who his musical inspiration was, he said (I think) Louis Armstrong, and then they showed him a picture of Louis Armstrong on their phone asking who it was and he said he didn't know. Friends of his that were still going to the high school I worked at said that the actual exchange was that he said his inspiration was some rapper he likes, then they asked something like who does that song \\\"What a Wonderful World\\\", and the whole thing was recut. This is inevitably happening in those gotcha videos, combine with the fact that they are cherry picking the maybe 1in 20 interviews where someone said something dumb. Ensuring your cause never gets these kinds of videos made about you would require extensive education to everyone who shows up at your protest, and extreme care to refuse to answer questions that could possibly be recut to make you look dumb (perhaps not even possible). Your protest is going to have like 30 people at it.\\n\\nThis also seems to exclude neurodiverse people from your cause. I have an autistic friend who I consider to be very intelligent, but you need to be far more patient with her than a gotcha interviewer would be. I also met many people at the George Floyd protests who, when I talked to them, had little specifics on what policy changes they wanted to see, they were just sure they needed to see action to stop this from happening. Is that not a valid reason to try to make your voice heard? I discussed my positions with several of these people, and they seemed interested in researching them further, and in turn I learned a lot more about what qualified immunity is and what politicians in my state has already proposed legislation to end it. Those protests were a great learning opportunity for me and I think many other people.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"jscuhiq\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"LostSignal1914\",\n \"body\": \"There are thousands of videos on YouTube of activists (or those associated with them) being engaged with and being exposed as having put almost no thought into the worldview that they preach. In fact, so much so that it has become a bit of a comedy genera. Just type SJW into YouTube and you'll see many of examples passionate activists not being able to respond to simple questions about their own claims.\\n\\n**I am not claiming:**\\n\\n1) That all activism is bad or irrational (I think sometimes it is very important).\\n\\n2) That the activists need to know EVERYTHING about their topic and be able to answer every question.\\n\\n**I am claiming:**\\n\\n1) There are many activists who can't answer basic questions with anything more than an oversimplified slogan.\\n\\n2) Have not thought about their message - at all.\\n\\n3) Need to be able to formulate a reasonable argument defending the basics of their position BEFORE telling everyone else to change the way they see and live in the world. \\n\\nAgain, I am not trying to paint *all* activists as irrational or wrong. However, there is good reason to believe there are a lot of irrational activists who have not done the cognitive work required to claim any authority on the matter they preach. \\n\\nI will try to upvote and reply to all respectful comments - even if I don't agree. But if I don't get the chance thank you for your input. I will at least try to read them all.\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-17\",\n \"id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Activists need to critically reflect more BEFORE they try to change everyone else's mind.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/151zdbr/cmv_activists_need_to_critically_reflect_more/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Solid_Local409\",\n \"body\": \"You just described hermeneutics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-07-18\",\n \"id\": \"jsf35ns\",\n \"parent_id\": \"151zdbr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ]\n]","isConversational":false},"2":{"kind":"string","value":"moderate"}}},{"rowIdx":51,"cells":{"0":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \n\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \n\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \n\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \n\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \n\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"15kmtfo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/"},{"author":"AbjectLetterhead2741","body":"It doesn't seem to be going well in Canada. Have you heard about cases like the armed forces members contacting their Veteran Affairs organisation for help with PTSD, but being offered euthanasia instead? Here's [one article](https://nationalpost.com/news/second-canadian-forces-member-alleges-veterans-canada-offered-medically-assisted-death-during-support-call) and [another article](https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/christine-gauthier-assisted-death-macaulay-1.6671721) about this.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"jv62s17","parent_id":"15kmtfo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"I will give you a !delta.\n\nNow it doesn't change Change my view. I suppose my view is on paper its good but I can see in practice the world ignores \"consent\". However I see nothing wrong wjrb suggesting it once. If twice then I think it is coercision . \n\nNow the reason I say once is that I see it like abortion. That's just me though.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"jv632bl","parent_id":"jv62s17","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"DeltaBot","body":"Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/AbjectLetterhead2741 ([1∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/AbjectLetterhead2741)).\n\n^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)","date":"2023-08-07","id":"jv6367y","parent_id":"jv632bl","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],"string":"[\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \\n\\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \\n\\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \\n\\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \\n\\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \\n\\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"AbjectLetterhead2741\",\n \"body\": \"It doesn't seem to be going well in Canada. Have you heard about cases like the armed forces members contacting their Veteran Affairs organisation for help with PTSD, but being offered euthanasia instead? Here's [one article](https://nationalpost.com/news/second-canadian-forces-member-alleges-veterans-canada-offered-medically-assisted-death-during-support-call) and [another article](https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/christine-gauthier-assisted-death-macaulay-1.6671721) about this.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"jv62s17\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"I will give you a !delta.\\n\\nNow it doesn't change Change my view. I suppose my view is on paper its good but I can see in practice the world ignores \\\"consent\\\". However I see nothing wrong wjrb suggesting it once. If twice then I think it is coercision . \\n\\nNow the reason I say once is that I see it like abortion. That's just me though.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"jv632bl\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jv62s17\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"DeltaBot\",\n \"body\": \"Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/AbjectLetterhead2741 ([1∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/AbjectLetterhead2741)).\\n\\n^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"jv6367y\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jv632bl\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n]","isConversational":false},"1":{"kind":"list like","value":[[{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \n\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \n\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \n\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \n\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \n\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"15kmtfo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/"},{"author":"Ansuz07","body":"So, while I agree with you on this, let me play devil's advocate.\n\nThere is nothing stopping you from taking your own life right now. With $50 and a trip to the hardware store, you can purchase the materials needed to end your life quickly and painlessly. It may be \"illegal\" but it is an entirely unenforceable law for you as the individual, so none of the arguments you've put forward really matter in practice.\n\nWhat you are advocating for, though, isn't the right to take your own life - it is the right for someone to _assist_ you in the taking of your own life. You want doctors or other health care professionals to have the power to help you commit suicide, which is a very different ask and a very different set of arguments than what you have presented. Just because you have the right to do something yourself doesn't mean that you have the right to have others assist you in that process.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"jv5zz0z","parent_id":"15kmtfo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"I'm not talking about you though. But the person helping. If two people freely agreed to a contract yes this should be legal. And here's the key. Freely. If you can't prove it was freely given then yes arrest the doctor.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"jv613gs","parent_id":"jv5zz0z","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \n\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \n\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \n\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \n\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \n\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"15kmtfo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/"},{"author":"firefireburnburn","body":"The issue is that once you allow the government to help some people via assisted suicide, it becomes the easiest way for the government to solve these problems? Fatally ill and going to suffer? Just kill them. Very ill, and treatment is expensive? just kill them. [Mentally ill and unable to get help](https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/shes-47-anorexic-wants-help-dying-canada-will-soon-allow-it-2023-07-15/)? just kill them. [disabled and need accommodations] (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/diabled-woman-canada-assisted-suicide-b2363156.html)? just kill them.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"jv60nzz","parent_id":"15kmtfo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"Which is why the caveat is freely given consent","date":"2023-08-07","id":"jv615dc","parent_id":"jv60nzz","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \n\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \n\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \n\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \n\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \n\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"15kmtfo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/"},{"author":"Finch20","body":"What exactly are the limitations you want to impose? Only the 1 year of required therapy?","date":"2023-08-07","id":"jv625vq","parent_id":"15kmtfo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"One year is a suggestion but either way I see nothing wrong. Its their choice. As long as they consent and are of sound mind","date":"2023-08-07","id":"jv62c65","parent_id":"jv625vq","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \n\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \n\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \n\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \n\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \n\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"15kmtfo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/"},{"author":"Rainbwned","body":">However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life \n\nThe argument against this is that if a person wants to die, they are not thinking rationally. And we should protect people from hurting themselves when they are not thinking rationally, right? \n\n \n\n>My second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. \n\nYou cannot be punished if you kill yourself. Its impossible to do so. \n\n​\n\n>My third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \n\nHow could you prove there was no coercion? One party member is dead.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"jv62962","parent_id":"15kmtfo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"We already do this with terminally ill. Before they die there is court checks etc","date":"2023-08-07","id":"jv62hu5","parent_id":"jv62962","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \n\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \n\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \n\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \n\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \n\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"15kmtfo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/"},{"author":"eggs-benedryl","body":"Where does the government benefit from this? At best, they could save a tax payer by fudning your mental health recovery. \n\nThey'd benefit from looking compassionate I suppose, but they'd also come off as the opposite. They don't benefit from a dead tax payer. It seems the government has an incentive to keep you alive, if albeit miserable.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"jv63nxp","parent_id":"15kmtfo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Square-Dragonfruit76","body":"Why should the government benefit!?","date":"2023-08-07","id":"jv65ji3","parent_id":"jv63nxp","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \n\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \n\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \n\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \n\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \n\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"15kmtfo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/"},{"author":"Okami_The_Agressor_0","body":"I don't think it should be legal but I think that there should be absolutely no punishments for attempting or succeeding in suicide. This is mainly cause I don't trust institutions to handle the ability to manipulate consent for death.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"jv67jvr","parent_id":"15kmtfo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \n\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \n\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \n\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \n\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \n\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"15kmtfo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/"},{"author":"MyDadisAZooKeeper","body":"I feel like legalizing euthanasia on a wider scale, like for people who just “hate life” , could have bad mental health consequences. If euthanasia just becomes a widely accepted practice, people with mental illnesses who DONT want to die could be enticed to kill themself by people or the services around them, “Oh you’ve had depression for 10 years? Maybe it’s time to kill yourself, you’ll never be happy”. \n\nWhile legalized euthanasia for incurable diseases like chronic pain, cancer, or illness is probably good, but doing it on a wider scale to where EVERYONE can do it (which is what I think you’re saying), that just sounds dystopian and depressing. \n\nDon’t know if that made sense but yeah, I don’t think suicide is the answer type beat.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"jv68jrh","parent_id":"15kmtfo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"agabagadagabobaga","body":"Makes me think of the suicide booth in Futurama","date":"2023-08-07","id":"jv6ftj7","parent_id":"jv68jrh","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \n\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \n\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \n\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \n\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \n\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"15kmtfo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/"},{"author":"ulsterloyalistfurry","body":"I think all the problems we're seeing right now in Canada disproves that the system can be trusted with this and modern ethics is being way too utilitarian with the value of life.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"jv6975t","parent_id":"15kmtfo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"biebiep","body":"Right? Because God forbid you'd have to work on something long term, in a disciplined fashion to fix it.\n\n\n\nIt's just as hedonistic as it is utilitarian to be honest. As soon as it doesn't feel fun anymore, you'd have the option to off yourself.\nMeans even more instant gratification and even less long term thinking.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"jv6d4c7","parent_id":"jv6975t","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \n\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \n\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \n\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \n\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \n\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"15kmtfo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/"},{"author":"No-Passenger-6205","body":"“The key is consent”\n\n(1) It is very difficult to create a system of consent that is not easily abused. The Netherlands is currently experiencing that issue.\n\n(2) It is very difficult to sort rational consent from mental health issues. A whole lot of teens have suicidal ideation, and we involuntarily commit them for it. Reason: their prefrontal cortexes are not fully developed, and they have a tendency towards impulsive behavior.\n\n(3) Consider a thought experiment in which Alice and Bob both present with a self-narrative that satisfies your definition of consent. Both are denied euthanasia. Alice recovers in her life situation and in five years is horrified that she might have killed herself. Bob does not and continues to wish that he had killed himself. Would it be better to focus resources on (a) letting Alice and Bob get their initial wish, or (b) helping Alice and Bob improve their situation?","date":"2023-08-07","id":"jv6a19o","parent_id":"15kmtfo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"incrediblys","body":">(2) It is very difficult to sort rational consent from mental health issues. A whole lot of teens have suicidal ideation, and we involuntarily commit them for it. Reason: their prefrontal cortexes are not fully developed, and they have a tendency towards impulsive behavior.\n\nEven adults can't think straight when they have a severe mental disorder.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"jv6b0gu","parent_id":"jv6a19o","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \n\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \n\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \n\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \n\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \n\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"15kmtfo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/"},{"author":"Martin_Samuelson","body":"Your view is \"I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\", but in [this comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/jv632bl/) you acknowledge that coercion could be possible.\n\nTherefore \"I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\" is now completely false.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"jv6azbh","parent_id":"15kmtfo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"I think its legal to drink alcohol doesn't mean I think its legal for babies to drink it. Legal is a simplified tern to explain my meaning which is expanded in the post","date":"2023-08-07","id":"jv6cjok","parent_id":"jv6azbh","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \n\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \n\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \n\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \n\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \n\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"15kmtfo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/"},{"author":"enolaholmes23","body":"I agree. While coerced euthanasia could be a concern, we already have a huge problem with the opposite, coerced treatment. I and too many of my friends have been traumatized by being forced into hospitals and \"treated\" with harmful drugs because others mistakenly thought we were dangerous to ourselves. If mental patients were allowed to say no to treatment it would be a huge step forward.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"jv6bcvo","parent_id":"15kmtfo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"changemyview-ModTeam","body":"Sorry, u/enolaholmes23 – your comment has been removed for breaking Rule 1:\n\n> **Direct responses to a CMV post must challenge at least one aspect of OP’s stated view (however minor), or ask a clarifying question**. Arguments in favor of the view OP is willing to change must be restricted to replies to other comments. [See the wiki page for more information](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules#wiki_rule_1). \n\nIf you would like to appeal, [**you must first check if your comment falls into the \"Top level comments that are against rule 1\" list**](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules#wiki_rule_1), review our appeals process [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/modstandards#wiki_appeal_process), then [message the moderators by clicking this link](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fchangemyview&subject=Rule%201%20Appeal%20enolaholmes23&message=enolaholmes23%20would%20like%20to%20appeal%20the%20removal%20of%20\\[their%20comment\\]\\(https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/-/jv6bcvo/\\)%20because\\.\\.\\.) within one week of this notice being posted. \n\nPlease note that multiple violations will lead to a ban, as explained in our [moderation standards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/modstandards).","date":"2023-08-07","id":"jv6xue6","parent_id":"jv6bcvo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \n\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \n\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \n\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \n\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \n\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"15kmtfo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/"},{"author":"PygmeePony","body":">Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'.\n\nIf the sherrif sits on their ass all day you vote them out. Or you pressure them into taking action. You don't go 'all batman' because that would result in chaos and vendettas. That's why euthanasia needs to be heavily regulated. We need to be sure there is full consent from both the patient and the doctor who is carrying out the procedure and that approved medication is being used.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"jv6cju9","parent_id":"15kmtfo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"So we vote Hitler out even if he's legally ousting people?","date":"2023-08-07","id":"jv6cqpe","parent_id":"jv6cju9","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \n\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \n\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \n\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \n\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \n\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"15kmtfo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/"},{"author":"KipchakVibeCheck","body":"Legal euthanasia in Canada has lead to people who are not depressed or terminally ill being referred to the MAID program (Medical Assistance In Dying) at alarming frequency. People who are disabled and want to live are asking for things like more money to live or a new wheelchair or all kinds of humane things that they’re being asked if they want to just die instead. [Poor people are being killed with the most meager excuses given] (https://apnews.com/article/covid-science-health-toronto-7c631558a457188d2bd2b5cfd360a867) In practice euthanasia is nothing but eugenics and institutionalized murder for a state to remove the “useless eaters” as a certain Austrian painter would call them.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"jv6fkjp","parent_id":"15kmtfo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \n\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \n\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \n\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \n\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \n\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"15kmtfo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/"},{"author":"shooketh_not_stireth","body":"> Edit. Another reason I support it is that if they choose to take matters into their own hands you get people shooting themselves or jumping off buildings and traumatizing people. Or the people who do crazy things so that cops can shoot them\n\nThis ironically is what I see as being wrong with legalized euthanasia. Believing that the government must approve of a free person's decision to end their own life is to believe that a person is not free and self-determinate on one of the most fundamental choices that they might make. \n\nThe legalization of euthanasia isn't legalizing suicide, it is legalizing the medical profession's assistance in that suicide.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"jv6ges1","parent_id":"15kmtfo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \n\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \n\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \n\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \n\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \n\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"15kmtfo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/"},{"author":"p0tat0p0tat0","body":"My problem with legalized euthanasia is that it will be impossible to prevent ableism in its application.\n\nWhen an able bodied person says they want to die/kill themselves, it’s treated as a problem. But when a disabled person says the exact same thing, they’re likely to be offered assistance.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"jv6iumz","parent_id":"15kmtfo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Narpity","body":"So your logic here is that some people might not get as good of service as others so nobody should be allowed to have any?","date":"2023-08-07","id":"jv7odu4","parent_id":"jv6iumz","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \n\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \n\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \n\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \n\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \n\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"15kmtfo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/"},{"author":"PrinceJamRoll","body":"This is tricky and I'm not sure how you do it responsibly if at all but to think of all the people that did end up taking their lives alone with the weight of taboo a d the darkness that comes in their final moments part of me wishes that they had been able to die surrounded by people and not feeling that they are committing the ultimate sin.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"jv6l1jy","parent_id":"15kmtfo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \n\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \n\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \n\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \n\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \n\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"15kmtfo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/"},{"author":"Ghauldidnothingwrong","body":"> My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.\n\nIt does if you're advocating to **include** someone else in your preparation and/or the action of taking your life. Something like this going into legislation would divide doctors and medical professionals. Will some doctors and medical professionals be okay with this? Yes, but there will be countless others where this goes against their morals, their religion, their personal beliefs in any capacity. They would be the ones \"pulling the trigger,\" or preparing you in some capacity when you're at the hospital or wherever this happens, and by law, they would have to be part of this. \n\n\nNow your freedom to die has impeded on the freedoms of every doctor who took the Hippocratic Oath and promised \"First do no harm.\" \n\n\nYou have all the freedom in the world to die, but pursuing something like this in the bigger picture **does** end up impeding on other peoples freedoms, especially the medical professionals who would be forced to support you through this sort of process if it was legalized.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"jv6o620","parent_id":"15kmtfo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \n\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \n\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \n\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \n\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \n\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"15kmtfo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/"},{"author":"Fox_Underground","body":"The problem is capitalism. We turned housing prisoners into a business and as a result there is a huge incentive to keep prisons packed to the rafters, regardless of whether the people inside actually deserve to be there. Do you really want to turn helping people die into a business?","date":"2023-08-07","id":"jv6opls","parent_id":"15kmtfo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \n\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \n\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \n\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \n\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \n\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"15kmtfo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/"},{"author":"hacksoncode","body":"It's already legal to kill yourself in all US states. Nothing is stopping you.\n\nInformation on how to do it simply, efficiently, inexpensively, and with as close as possible by any known method to 100% effectively and painlessly is readily available on the internet (c.f. inert gas asphyxia).\n\nI would argue that you're just caviling when you talk about people not physically capable of killing themselves in this way. \n\nBut fine: if we think these situations are common enough to have a special case for, let's allow \"assistance\" only to these people, and only to the degree necessary to set up the method, requiring the individual to activate it (Unless completely paralyzed? But then how do you get consent? Whatever that method is, it can be set up to activate the system.). \n\nIf someone doesn't have the guts to kill *themselves* it is an absolutely conclusive indication they don't *really* think dying is better than life, and certainly no one else should be doing it for them.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"jv6p0zd","parent_id":"15kmtfo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \n\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \n\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \n\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \n\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \n\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"15kmtfo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/"},{"author":"wc27","body":"I don’t think my taxes should go to medically assisted suicide. We have plenty of other healthcare costs that I’d be happy if my taxes could go towards it, including therapy to help you get passed your suicidal thoughts.\n\nFurthermore, If you want to commit suicide but don’t have the will power to do it and need assistance from the government then I don’t think you are really committed to that path anyways. We shouldn’t make it easier for people to make that decision.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"jv6pk83","parent_id":"15kmtfo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \n\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \n\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \n\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \n\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \n\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"15kmtfo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/"},{"author":"StaggeringWinslow","body":"Many years ago, I read a doctor's perspective on the potential unintended consequences of legalised euthanasia. While I'm not sure if I agree with it, I'll do my best to reconvey the argument. \n\nA doctor's role, when treating a critical patient, is to save or extend their life. That's it. It's the only priority; it's the only objective. Simple. \n\nIf euthanasia is legal, there's now another option lurking in the back of the doctor's mind: to give up, to stop wasting resources on a patient that might not have much chance of survival, to recommend that they're euthanised. \n\nDo we want to force doctors to juggle those factors? Do we want doctors to be deciding whether a particular patient lives or dies? That's a huge burden. Do we want doctors to focus solely on saving lives, or do we want them to be in a position to decide who lives and who dies? Do we want doctors to be forced to recommend killing patients in certain circumstances? Is that fair?","date":"2023-08-07","id":"jv6v20l","parent_id":"15kmtfo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \n\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \n\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \n\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \n\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \n\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"15kmtfo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/"},{"author":"youngelos5607","body":"I’ve worked for the government since I was 17, and trust me, *YOU DO NOT WANT THEM INCHARGE OF SOMETHING LIKE THIS*\n\nPiss off the wrong big pharma entity and it’s only a matter of greasing the right palms and pulling the right strings to have you made out to be clinically insane and dangerous and then it’s off to doggie heaven.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"jv6via0","parent_id":"15kmtfo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \n\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \n\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \n\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \n\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \n\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"15kmtfo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/"},{"author":"yoaprk","body":"As much as you frame it as a legal problem, discussing the practicalities of legalized euthanasia, from your replies to the other comments I can tell that you are more concerned about the philosophical and moral motivations and implications of legalized euthanasia. Thus your title \"I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\" is clickbaity and misleading: you do in fact see practical problems arising from legalized euthanasia, and these problems have not been shown to be immediately solvable. On the other hand, you mean what you said when you said \"I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\": you completely believe in the morality of legalized euthanasia, and you see no moral problems in the motivations and implications.\n\nSince we are on about philosophical and moral motivations, I summarise your point of view as this: freedom of choice is of higher value than (one's own) life. In particular, the freedom to choose death. You do not buy into the \"sanctity of life\" philosophy or belief that is upheld by the traditional Christian worldview, which continues to influence European and American culture today. I may, arrogantly, say that you view life as property. Let me explain. You are against murder, which is intentional destruction of another person's property; you believe in no legal consequences for killing during self-defence, which is simply collateral damage; you believe in legalized euthanasia, which is paying and authorising someone to clear your property; you believe in not stopping people who want to kill themselves, which is them destroying their own property.\n\nI agree that freedom of choice is of higher value than (one's own) life. Ironically though, one has to be alive to have such a freedom of choice. Thus my CMV argument: a hypothetical scenario. 18-year-old James wants to die. (He requests legalized euthanasia. He wants to die until he is 19, so the one-year period is over and he is euthanized.) We have granted 18-year-old James and 19-year-old James the freedom to choose to die. Now 20-year-old James no longer has the freedom to choose to continue living. Neither does 35-year-old James. Neither does 40-year-old James nor 70-year-old James. By granting 18-year-old James and 19-year-old James the freedom to choose to die, we have denied 20-year-old James, etc. the freedom to choose to continue living. Thus the freedom to choose to die, exercising it once, denies life and all future freedoms to choose anything else. Is such a freedom to choose to die so valuable, that it should be above life and all future freedoms?\n\n(Reapply above argument, but change legalized euthanasia to allowing him to commit suicide without stopping him. The point is about giving people freedom to choose to die, not the practicalities of whether euthanasia is legalized.)\n\nMoving on to moral implications: 1)who shall have the arduous task of performing/ordering the legalized euthanasia? 2)who shall have the arduous task of giving therapy during the one-year (don't worry about the actual length of time) period before the euthanasia is performed? \n\n1)Taking a life usually takes a toll on mental health. Consider all the soldiers who were \"shellshocked\" after the world wars. Consider that executions are performed with multiple (five-ish?) people, 4 with blanks and 1 with the live bullet, all firing together, just so to reduce the guilt of the executioners who had nothing to do with the decision to execute, simply following orders. Consider that killing someone in self-defence, though not punishable by law, still leaves the person with guilt for a long, long time. Consider that many women have to wrestle with guilt after undergoing abortions, regardless of whether they think the aborted baby is alive or just a bunch of cells. Consider that many people have turned vegan simply considering that animals are being killed to be meat. Who shall be appointed to perform the euthenasia? Who shall be appointed to order the euthanasia? How will this affect their mental health? Let's say they did it for money. Let's say they were simply appointed. This will not eliminate the effect on their mental health. Let's say the person shares your values and does it willingly and enthusiastically. After retirement the person changes view and suddenly feels like they've wrongly killed so many people their whole life.\n\nOf course, my 2 arguments above can be rebutted by a single sentence: \"freedom of choice, no freedom from consequences.\" They chose it, they suffer the consequences. So my question to you is is this really what you believe? If you were a policymaker/lawmaker who pushed for legalized euthanasia, can you simply say that the people who chose euthanasia get what they asked for? And the people who chose to perform/order the euthanasia suffer the consequences of their own actions? \n\n2)the therapist during the one year period is under so much stress. Let's say after one year they are not well and euthanasia goes on as planned. Is the therapist to blame? Even if it's not the therapist's fault, will the deceased's family not blame the therapist? Will the therapist not blame himself? Oh, who knows, the deceased may even be blaming the therapist while receiving the euthanasia! I mean, this is the same case for suicide. But with a set time frame and deadline (what a context for a pun!). What is the goal of the therapy? To stop the person from wanting euthanasia? Definitely not YOUR goal. But the therapist, knowing about the euthanasia, cannot help but keep it in mind. What about keep the euthanasia confidential and not let the therapist know that they are taking a \"euthanasia patient\"? In normal circumstances if the therapist gains the patient's trust the patient would let the therapist know either way.\n\nThat's all, was fun typing.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"jv6vpg1","parent_id":"15kmtfo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \n\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \n\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \n\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \n\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \n\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"15kmtfo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/"},{"author":"prepend","body":"You mention \"if the government has failed them.\"\n\nWhat does this mean? How would the government failing someone affect their will to live? What is the government's duty?\n\nGovernments vary substantially by country, region, state, city, etc. I don't think it's fair, or wise, to rely on government operating properly and fulfilling their duty to keep someone alive.\n\nJust because government fails to perform its duty, that shouldn't mean someone dies. That might mean someone who lives in a great city with lots of resources would get \"fixed\" by the government, while someone else in another city with inadequate resources would not get \"fixed\" and therefore would die.\n\nThere's lots of systemic problems and biases and prejudices and it seems like the system you propose would compound these problems and result in harm to the most vulnerable populations and most exploited minorities.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"jv6zfpj","parent_id":"15kmtfo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \n\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \n\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \n\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \n\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \n\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"15kmtfo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/"},{"author":"ChopinCJ","body":"The equipment one needs to painlessly end their life in the comfort of their own home with near-guaranteed success is cheap and widely available. That's what autonomy looks like, not forcing someone to pay out of pocket for a doctor to do the exact same shit.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"jv72yo2","parent_id":"15kmtfo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \n\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \n\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \n\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \n\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \n\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"15kmtfo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/"},{"author":"JJJSchmidt_etAl","body":"In general, the right to make your own choices should come first. However, there can be some perverse incentives which we have to keep in mind.\n\nWhat happens when medical professionals push euthanasia because it's more cost effective and easier for them?\n\n[The Guardian - This article is more than 1 year old Are Canadians being driven to assisted suicide by poverty or healthcare crisis?](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/11/canada-cases-right-to-die-laws)","date":"2023-08-07","id":"jv74s1d","parent_id":"15kmtfo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"Is it not coat effective to have a repeat customer?","date":"2023-08-07","id":"jv76mid","parent_id":"jv74s1d","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \n\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \n\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \n\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \n\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \n\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"15kmtfo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/"},{"author":"Bostonlbi","body":"I watched an interesting “Fact-checked debate” about this recently. It’s sorta specific to Canada, but a lot is generally applicable: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJAklSh_rjk","date":"2023-08-07","id":"jv78vde","parent_id":"15kmtfo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \n\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \n\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \n\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \n\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \n\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"15kmtfo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/"},{"author":"Stevite","body":"The only people who really care if you kill your self, besides your friends and family ( maybe) and some religious zealots, are the people who stand to make money by keeping you alive. Life insurance companies, hospitals, nursing homes, etc. Can’t have grandma off herself when Medicare will pay for heart surgery, a lengthy ICU stay and rehab. Oh, and that’s before the nursing homes bleeds you for every penny, leaving you destitute. I forgot to mention the drugs…all the drugs. You’re worth more alive than dead. The only reason for your continued existence is to feed the machine. The ethical arguments about suicide are bullshit. All you gotta do is follow the money","date":"2023-08-07","id":"jv7cx37","parent_id":"15kmtfo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \n\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \n\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \n\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \n\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \n\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"15kmtfo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/"},{"author":"Recent_Ad_4358","body":"Patients experience tremendous guilt for being a burden on their loved ones and might consent to being euthanized when they otherwise would not because of external pressure. Many, MANY men leave their terminally ill wives, so what’s stopping them from simply pressuring these women into killings themselves? Not every terminally ill person is in a great place in their family or community. There is a lot more to terminal illness and end of life than simply a rational decision to kill oneself. \nI think a better solution is greatly increase proper palliative care and the quality of life for the terminally ill.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"jv7mo84","parent_id":"15kmtfo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \n\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \n\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \n\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \n\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \n\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"15kmtfo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/"},{"author":"Top_Airline_4476","body":"move to canada","date":"2023-08-07","id":"jv80eap","parent_id":"15kmtfo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"Proves you didn't read the post. I literally said im in Canada","date":"2023-08-07","id":"jv834q4","parent_id":"jv80eap","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \n\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \n\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \n\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \n\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \n\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"15kmtfo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/"},{"author":"jmilan3","body":"I do not see the humanity in forcing a person to suffer until they die naturally, sometimes they suffer in absolutely horrific, unbearable physical and or emotional pain. I don’t want to die like that. Let me go quickly.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"jv81i1t","parent_id":"15kmtfo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \n\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \n\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \n\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \n\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \n\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"15kmtfo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/"},{"author":"Art_Music306","body":"If you’d do it for a dog, out of mercy, I hope you’d do the same for me. It’s the definition of humane. Laws are not always so kind.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"jv82fw1","parent_id":"15kmtfo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \n\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \n\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \n\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \n\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \n\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"15kmtfo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/"},{"author":"golf-lip","body":"And you don't think the people administering euthanasia to people who want to kill themselves for whatever reason wouldn't affect that Healthcare professionals mental state like your argument about ptsd from people jumping off buildings?","date":"2023-08-07","id":"jv85dkm","parent_id":"15kmtfo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"Its no different than any other worker in emergency or palliative care and what not. And I work in health care. look up respiratory therapists. A lot of them pull the plug all the time. We health care workers know what we sign up for. Banning care just because the worker is uncomfortable is like banning abortion because the doctor is pro life.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"jv88bec","parent_id":"jv85dkm","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \n\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \n\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \n\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \n\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \n\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"15kmtfo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/"},{"author":"panty_lover_1234","body":"nobody with brains disagrees. only the christians and muslims care, but they're not really thinking humans.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"jv8cgbk","parent_id":"15kmtfo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \n\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \n\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \n\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \n\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \n\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"15kmtfo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/"},{"author":"tangofoxtrot1989","body":"Legitimate question. Could healthcare professionals who’ve taken the Hippocratic oath actually assist with this?\n\nI suppose it’s all under the aegis of what “harm” is insofar as “do no harm” is concerned but I’d be curious to hear thoughts from someone who’s sworn that oath.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"jv8etrk","parent_id":"15kmtfo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \n\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \n\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \n\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \n\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \n\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"15kmtfo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/"},{"author":"Bobolinsky","body":"The Canadian government is offering assisted suicide because their wating lists for surgeries that would alleviate pain are too long.\n\nAssisted suicide is also a much cheaper option for the Canadian government.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"jv8m2ke","parent_id":"15kmtfo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \n\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \n\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \n\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \n\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \n\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"15kmtfo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/"},{"author":"GorillaBrown","body":"What's your stance of minors going through human anatomy altering, transition surgical procedures?","date":"2023-08-07","id":"jv8n5xy","parent_id":"15kmtfo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \n\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \n\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \n\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \n\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \n\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"15kmtfo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/"},{"author":"abhople","body":"Freedom and consent is one thing. But the moment you get government sign a law into having a doctor assist you to die, the line between freedom and law is blurred. This sets an example into signing new laws of involving kids into the mix. “Maid” in canada does the same where kids can consent to this without parent’s permission. Anything legal does not mean it is right.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"jv8wqb3","parent_id":"15kmtfo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \n\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \n\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \n\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \n\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \n\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"15kmtfo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/"},{"author":"AFuckingTrainwreck_","body":"I agree solely in the case of terminal illness. \n\nTo your point of freedom and consent, people in that state of mind do not think clearly and cannot reasonably weigh their options. It's the same reason someone under the influence cannot consent to sex, and children for that matter. To **that** point, what if someone makes the decision whilst under the influence? \n\nAs someone with multiple previous suicide attempts, in the case of depression or other mental illness causing suicidality, it should not be allowed to go on. We need to help the people get better, not end their life, and their very possible bright future. In one of my attempts I was under heavy influence of drugs, and was not in the right state of mind to make a literal life-ending decision. There is a solution to our crisis. This is not the way.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"jv8ybfy","parent_id":"15kmtfo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"why is the suffering of a cancer patient Ok to end but not someone suffering depression?.\n\nI'm sorry that happened to you. But not everyone is depressed because of drugs. you are saying possible bright future. So what. Its not your future. You are basically telling people to gamble on your terms. Are you going to bear the consequences when there is no bright future? Of course not. There's no possible way..\n\nI'm sorry I just don't see why freedom shouldn't be valued the most. I can't and should tell people what to so with their bodies if its not affecting others. We don't stop alcoholics. Drug users. Smokers. \n\nwhy should medical procedures be any different/","date":"2023-08-07","id":"jv8z3e1","parent_id":"jv8ybfy","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \n\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \n\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \n\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \n\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \n\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"15kmtfo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/"},{"author":"Top_Airline_4476","body":"i read it after dumb dumb","date":"2023-08-07","id":"jv96tot","parent_id":"15kmtfo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \n\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \n\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \n\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \n\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \n\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"15kmtfo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/"},{"author":"ShadowDurza","body":"Well...\n\nThere are certain cases that can really make make you think.\n\nThere are people with physical and mental deformities so severe that they pretty much spend 50-60 years of their life in a fetal position in a crib. Human torsos basically.","date":"2023-08-08","id":"jv9fsrn","parent_id":"15kmtfo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \n\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \n\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \n\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \n\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \n\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"15kmtfo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/"},{"author":"LebaneseDemonLobster","body":"A good point here might be that it's difficult to consistently reject legalised euthanasia while also approving of state capital punishment.","date":"2023-08-08","id":"jv9ql6r","parent_id":"15kmtfo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \n\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \n\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \n\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \n\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \n\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"15kmtfo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/"},{"author":"Tide__Hunter","body":"Under ideal circumstances, I think that people being allowed to ask for and receive a painless and calm death if that is what they really want is perfectly acceptable. The problem I have with legal euthanasia is the same problem I have with the death penalty: It's never ideal. \n\nYou talk about being in Canada, and there's been some pretty big controversies about that. Many of the people who have been put on the path of euthanasia or who have been suggested euthanasia are not people who want to end their own life at all. Rather, the system was a complete and utter failure, and euthanasia gave those who should be helping them an excuse to just tell them to die instead. \n\nSomebody here already mentioned veterans, but those aren't all. [This Guardian article](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/11/canada-cases-right-to-die-laws) on the topic offers a rather nuanced take on this situation. To summarize though, there were some high profile cases of Canadian women with a condition called multiple chemical sensitivity, which rendered them incapable of working, and the income they were receiving due to disability payments was way below the poverty line. Because they were unable to receive suitable housing to compensate for their conditions while living on a minuscule amount of income, they used MAID to die. \n\nThe article makes it clear, experts said that these situations should be used to push for better care for those with debilitating conditions. From my perspective however, MAID's role in this situation was to shield the Canadian government from responsibility. As one of the women feature in that story said, “The government sees \\[her\\] as expendable trash, a complainer, useless and a pain in the ass.” MAID was there to take the \"expendable trash\" out, after she had nowhere left to turn. \n\nI don't necessarily think there should not be any legal access to euthanasia. But under the current systems, much more emphasis should be placed on mitigation of the circumstances that lead to people seeking it. Its existence feels like it gives the Canadian government room *to* fail its people, since if the level of care isn't enough to keep them from being in constant waking misery, even when they could do more to keep people from that point, they can just get funneled into the lethal injection line.","date":"2023-08-08","id":"jv9z88e","parent_id":"15kmtfo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \n\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \n\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \n\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \n\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \n\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"15kmtfo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/"},{"author":"Gauntlets28","body":"I think my main concern is whether elderly people could be coerced by their unpleasant relatives into being euthanised. I can absolutely foresee a world in which that could happen, particularly if someone in a position of power over them wants to get hold of the inheritance.","date":"2023-08-08","id":"jva1ua1","parent_id":"15kmtfo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \n\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \n\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \n\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \n\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \n\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"15kmtfo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/"},{"author":"pinkpunkpugtb","body":"nobody with brains disagrees.","date":"2023-08-08","id":"jvau05t","parent_id":"15kmtfo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \n\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \n\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \n\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \n\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \n\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"15kmtfo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/"},{"author":"AnxietyOctopus","body":"The only way this works is if you have entirely free and accessible healthcare. Right now, even in Canada (where I’m also from) it’s a lot easier to get treatment for mental health issues if you have money. If we start offering medically assisted dying for depressed people the way things stand now? You are killing poor people because it’s cheaper than getting us the help we need. \nThis is a personal issue for me; I’ve been chronically depressed and suicidal since I was twelve. I’m thirty-three. It’s only in the last three years that I found a medication that stabilizes me, and that’s a fucking revelation. If assisted suicide had been available for me throughout my twenties I would be dead. And even though I wanted to die, I didn’t actually want to die. I wanted to stop feeling the way I felt, and suicide seemed like the easiest way to make it all stop. The medical system would have failed me a lot harder than it already did if it had offered me that out.","date":"2023-08-08","id":"jvbj19x","parent_id":"15kmtfo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Pantyraid-7","body":"Bless you. Thanks for sticking it out. The world needs more you","date":"2023-08-08","id":"jvc05oa","parent_id":"jvbj19x","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \n\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \n\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \n\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \n\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \n\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"15kmtfo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/"},{"author":"TooRational101","body":"Thank the self righteous Christians who have no trouble telling us what we can and can’t do. These bloody assholes create laws to block us from what should be a basic human right.","date":"2023-08-08","id":"jvbx9ki","parent_id":"15kmtfo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \n\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \n\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \n\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \n\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \n\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"15kmtfo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/"},{"author":"ItsMalikBro","body":"The problem is there is a clear financial incentive to encourage people to kill themselves. \n\n\nThe majority of your healthcare cost comes during the final 5 years of your life. If your government can convince you suicide is the answer, then they save insane amounts of money. Improving the length and quality of your life just means a bigger fiscal burden for the government. \n\n\nIt is unsurprising then that Canada keeps expanding the eligibility of their suicide program. \n\n\n>My second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands.\n\nThe government has an incentive to \"fail\" and keep failing. If failing saves Canada tons of money and resources, so why would they ever \"fix\" things?","date":"2023-08-08","id":"jvc4nyk","parent_id":"15kmtfo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \n\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \n\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \n\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \n\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \n\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"15kmtfo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/"},{"author":"azure_monster","body":"While I personally do not have much to comment on this issue, I thought this video might Interest you.\n\n[VOX: A fact-checked debate about euthanasia](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TJAklSh_rjk&t=511s&pp=ygUYdm94IGV1dGhhbmFzaWEgaW4gY2FuYWRh)","date":"2023-08-08","id":"jvc8geq","parent_id":"15kmtfo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \n\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \n\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \n\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \n\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \n\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"15kmtfo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/"},{"author":"Sher-Locked3224","body":"I do agree with this whole concept. \n\nBut think of this from the perspective of law, \n\nIt will be immensely difficult to draw a contract completely legal. This method could be used wrongfully by sooo many wrong doers.","date":"2023-08-09","id":"jveuowd","parent_id":"15kmtfo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \n\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \n\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \n\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \n\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \n\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"15kmtfo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/"},{"author":"Narrow-Help9352","body":"***\"Sarco Pod Promises a Humane Death within 5 to 10 Minutes\"*** \n\nThe Dutch were already selected a few years ago to develop the global future of death tech! Check it out for yourselves ➡➡➡ [The Sacro Project](http://www.exitinternational.net/sarco/)","date":"2023-08-09","id":"jvgjmc4","parent_id":"15kmtfo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \n\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \n\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \n\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \n\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \n\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"15kmtfo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/"},{"author":"Neeko673","body":"Should only be allowed to those with diagnosed painful and fatal diseases. People that are suicidal or mentally Ill just take one bad day in a different state of mind to take their life. The fact people have to do it themselves and cant ensure success keeps 99% of people from even attempting","date":"2023-08-09","id":"jvgogqs","parent_id":"15kmtfo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Neeko673","body":"Plus nearly over 50% of trans people would now be dead if this was allowed. Somewhere near 50% have attempted suicide or were about to. Imagine if you had this 100% fail safe option just by signing a form","date":"2023-08-09","id":"jvgoszp","parent_id":"jvgogqs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \n\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \n\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \n\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \n\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \n\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"15kmtfo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/"},{"author":"CristianMorenoI","body":"I think that everyone is free to choose any decision about themselves, if someone is bored with themselves, this person could decide if that moment will end on a specific day, nobody knows if this person had deep wounds inside and maybe nobody can heal. From another point of view, if the Doctor doesn't want to do it, he is free to decide if he wants to or not, remembering that the Doctors promised to save lives, not kill people.","date":"2023-08-09","id":"jvgzyk9","parent_id":"15kmtfo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \n\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \n\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \n\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \n\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \n\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"15kmtfo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/"},{"author":"Unlucky-Soup6983","body":"I agree with you. If a person wants to die they should have that choice. If they can't do it alone they should be able to get help. But someone should have proof that they actually wanted to.otherwise people will be able to say they killed someone because they wanted to die.","date":"2023-08-09","id":"jvhs7cd","parent_id":"15kmtfo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \n\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \n\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \n\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \n\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \n\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"15kmtfo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/"},{"author":"Crafty-Bunch-2675","body":">So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \n\nThere is no specific time limit on \"fixing your life\" Some of the most famous businessmen\n\nSome people on incel forums speak of \"ending it\" because of the lack of intimacy in their life. Some of these people have complicated issues of financial struggle, bad habits and lack of self esteem which would all have to be resolved in order to fix \"the issue\" that is something that could take several years.\n\nOnce you put a timelines on the therapy needed, you are also setting up an incentive to shorten the timeline.\n\n>My second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands.\n\nSome of the reasons for MAID I have seen in the news are economic things like a person facing homelessness.\n\nDo you really think legalized euthanasia will give the government **more** incentive to take care of its people or less ?\n\nThe answer is less. All this will do is make the govt more lazy to solve socioeconomic problems. \n\n>My third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent.\n\nAs many others have pointed out; by the very nature of what s**cide is ...it is an unenforceable law. There is nothing stopping a person from doing it if they want. There is no way to \"arrest\" a person for s**cide. So there is no freedom or consent in question.\n\nThe only thing legalized Euthanasia does is pervert the function of government and medicine by giving the government and the medical industry an incentive to stop trying to help people. That is why it is so dangerous.\n\nWhy spend millions of dollars on cancer research when you can just offer MAID to cancer patients once they become terminal ?\n\nIn fact.. we can even take it a logical step further.. why offer any medical assistance to a gravely ill person, when you could just coach them into accepting MAID instead ? Less effort right?\n\nAnd on the government side:\n\nWhy spend millions of dollars to provide socioeconomic structures for citizens to lead fulfilling lives... when you can just offer MAID instead ?\n\nTLDR;\n**Self deletion is an unenforceable law, there is no question of freedom or consent. Legalized euthanasia on the other hand, take that power away from the individual and gives it to an external body. Once you do that, it removes all incentives to improve society because it is easier to remove the weak than to try to improve conditions for everybody**","date":"2023-08-11","id":"jvpqfyx","parent_id":"15kmtfo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \n\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \n\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \n\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \n\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \n\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"15kmtfo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/"},{"author":"seekenG123","body":"Hi can anyone tell me the best way to do this. is morphine one of the best or can you use other meds","date":"2023-09-29","id":"k2q87iu","parent_id":"15kmtfo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"donotholdyourbreath","body":"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \n\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \n\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \n\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \n\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \n\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.","date":"2023-08-07","id":"15kmtfo","parent_id":null,"score":1,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/"},{"author":"clatscanemike","body":"People are just so stubborn and Satanic.","date":"2023-11-12","id":"k8wki3m","parent_id":"15kmtfo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}]],"string":"[\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \\n\\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \\n\\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \\n\\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \\n\\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \\n\\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Ansuz07\",\n \"body\": \"So, while I agree with you on this, let me play devil's advocate.\\n\\nThere is nothing stopping you from taking your own life right now. With $50 and a trip to the hardware store, you can purchase the materials needed to end your life quickly and painlessly. It may be \\\"illegal\\\" but it is an entirely unenforceable law for you as the individual, so none of the arguments you've put forward really matter in practice.\\n\\nWhat you are advocating for, though, isn't the right to take your own life - it is the right for someone to _assist_ you in the taking of your own life. You want doctors or other health care professionals to have the power to help you commit suicide, which is a very different ask and a very different set of arguments than what you have presented. Just because you have the right to do something yourself doesn't mean that you have the right to have others assist you in that process.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"jv5zz0z\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"I'm not talking about you though. But the person helping. If two people freely agreed to a contract yes this should be legal. And here's the key. Freely. If you can't prove it was freely given then yes arrest the doctor.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"jv613gs\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jv5zz0z\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \\n\\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \\n\\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \\n\\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \\n\\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \\n\\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"firefireburnburn\",\n \"body\": \"The issue is that once you allow the government to help some people via assisted suicide, it becomes the easiest way for the government to solve these problems? Fatally ill and going to suffer? Just kill them. Very ill, and treatment is expensive? just kill them. [Mentally ill and unable to get help](https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/shes-47-anorexic-wants-help-dying-canada-will-soon-allow-it-2023-07-15/)? just kill them. [disabled and need accommodations] (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/diabled-woman-canada-assisted-suicide-b2363156.html)? just kill them.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"jv60nzz\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"Which is why the caveat is freely given consent\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"jv615dc\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jv60nzz\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \\n\\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \\n\\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \\n\\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \\n\\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \\n\\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Finch20\",\n \"body\": \"What exactly are the limitations you want to impose? Only the 1 year of required therapy?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"jv625vq\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"One year is a suggestion but either way I see nothing wrong. Its their choice. As long as they consent and are of sound mind\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"jv62c65\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jv625vq\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \\n\\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \\n\\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \\n\\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \\n\\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \\n\\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Rainbwned\",\n \"body\": \">However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life \\n\\nThe argument against this is that if a person wants to die, they are not thinking rationally. And we should protect people from hurting themselves when they are not thinking rationally, right? \\n\\n \\n\\n>My second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. \\n\\nYou cannot be punished if you kill yourself. Its impossible to do so. \\n\\n​\\n\\n>My third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \\n\\nHow could you prove there was no coercion? One party member is dead.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"jv62962\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"We already do this with terminally ill. Before they die there is court checks etc\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"jv62hu5\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jv62962\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \\n\\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \\n\\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \\n\\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \\n\\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \\n\\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"eggs-benedryl\",\n \"body\": \"Where does the government benefit from this? At best, they could save a tax payer by fudning your mental health recovery. \\n\\nThey'd benefit from looking compassionate I suppose, but they'd also come off as the opposite. They don't benefit from a dead tax payer. It seems the government has an incentive to keep you alive, if albeit miserable.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"jv63nxp\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Square-Dragonfruit76\",\n \"body\": \"Why should the government benefit!?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"jv65ji3\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jv63nxp\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \\n\\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \\n\\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \\n\\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \\n\\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \\n\\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Okami_The_Agressor_0\",\n \"body\": \"I don't think it should be legal but I think that there should be absolutely no punishments for attempting or succeeding in suicide. This is mainly cause I don't trust institutions to handle the ability to manipulate consent for death.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"jv67jvr\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \\n\\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \\n\\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \\n\\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \\n\\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \\n\\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"MyDadisAZooKeeper\",\n \"body\": \"I feel like legalizing euthanasia on a wider scale, like for people who just “hate life” , could have bad mental health consequences. If euthanasia just becomes a widely accepted practice, people with mental illnesses who DONT want to die could be enticed to kill themself by people or the services around them, “Oh you’ve had depression for 10 years? Maybe it’s time to kill yourself, you’ll never be happy”. \\n\\nWhile legalized euthanasia for incurable diseases like chronic pain, cancer, or illness is probably good, but doing it on a wider scale to where EVERYONE can do it (which is what I think you’re saying), that just sounds dystopian and depressing. \\n\\nDon’t know if that made sense but yeah, I don’t think suicide is the answer type beat.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"jv68jrh\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"agabagadagabobaga\",\n \"body\": \"Makes me think of the suicide booth in Futurama\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"jv6ftj7\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jv68jrh\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \\n\\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \\n\\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \\n\\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \\n\\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \\n\\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"ulsterloyalistfurry\",\n \"body\": \"I think all the problems we're seeing right now in Canada disproves that the system can be trusted with this and modern ethics is being way too utilitarian with the value of life.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"jv6975t\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"biebiep\",\n \"body\": \"Right? Because God forbid you'd have to work on something long term, in a disciplined fashion to fix it.\\n\\n\\n\\nIt's just as hedonistic as it is utilitarian to be honest. As soon as it doesn't feel fun anymore, you'd have the option to off yourself.\\nMeans even more instant gratification and even less long term thinking.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"jv6d4c7\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jv6975t\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \\n\\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \\n\\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \\n\\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \\n\\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \\n\\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"No-Passenger-6205\",\n \"body\": \"“The key is consent”\\n\\n(1) It is very difficult to create a system of consent that is not easily abused. The Netherlands is currently experiencing that issue.\\n\\n(2) It is very difficult to sort rational consent from mental health issues. A whole lot of teens have suicidal ideation, and we involuntarily commit them for it. Reason: their prefrontal cortexes are not fully developed, and they have a tendency towards impulsive behavior.\\n\\n(3) Consider a thought experiment in which Alice and Bob both present with a self-narrative that satisfies your definition of consent. Both are denied euthanasia. Alice recovers in her life situation and in five years is horrified that she might have killed herself. Bob does not and continues to wish that he had killed himself. Would it be better to focus resources on (a) letting Alice and Bob get their initial wish, or (b) helping Alice and Bob improve their situation?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"jv6a19o\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"incrediblys\",\n \"body\": \">(2) It is very difficult to sort rational consent from mental health issues. A whole lot of teens have suicidal ideation, and we involuntarily commit them for it. Reason: their prefrontal cortexes are not fully developed, and they have a tendency towards impulsive behavior.\\n\\nEven adults can't think straight when they have a severe mental disorder.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"jv6b0gu\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jv6a19o\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \\n\\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \\n\\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \\n\\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \\n\\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \\n\\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Martin_Samuelson\",\n \"body\": \"Your view is \\\"I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\\\", but in [this comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/jv632bl/) you acknowledge that coercion could be possible.\\n\\nTherefore \\\"I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\\\" is now completely false.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"jv6azbh\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"I think its legal to drink alcohol doesn't mean I think its legal for babies to drink it. Legal is a simplified tern to explain my meaning which is expanded in the post\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"jv6cjok\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jv6azbh\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \\n\\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \\n\\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \\n\\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \\n\\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \\n\\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"enolaholmes23\",\n \"body\": \"I agree. While coerced euthanasia could be a concern, we already have a huge problem with the opposite, coerced treatment. I and too many of my friends have been traumatized by being forced into hospitals and \\\"treated\\\" with harmful drugs because others mistakenly thought we were dangerous to ourselves. If mental patients were allowed to say no to treatment it would be a huge step forward.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"jv6bcvo\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"changemyview-ModTeam\",\n \"body\": \"Sorry, u/enolaholmes23 – your comment has been removed for breaking Rule 1:\\n\\n> **Direct responses to a CMV post must challenge at least one aspect of OP’s stated view (however minor), or ask a clarifying question**. Arguments in favor of the view OP is willing to change must be restricted to replies to other comments. [See the wiki page for more information](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules#wiki_rule_1). \\n\\nIf you would like to appeal, [**you must first check if your comment falls into the \\\"Top level comments that are against rule 1\\\" list**](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules#wiki_rule_1), review our appeals process [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/modstandards#wiki_appeal_process), then [message the moderators by clicking this link](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fchangemyview&subject=Rule%201%20Appeal%20enolaholmes23&message=enolaholmes23%20would%20like%20to%20appeal%20the%20removal%20of%20\\\\[their%20comment\\\\]\\\\(https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/-/jv6bcvo/\\\\)%20because\\\\.\\\\.\\\\.) within one week of this notice being posted. \\n\\nPlease note that multiple violations will lead to a ban, as explained in our [moderation standards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/modstandards).\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"jv6xue6\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jv6bcvo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \\n\\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \\n\\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \\n\\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \\n\\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \\n\\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"PygmeePony\",\n \"body\": \">Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'.\\n\\nIf the sherrif sits on their ass all day you vote them out. Or you pressure them into taking action. You don't go 'all batman' because that would result in chaos and vendettas. That's why euthanasia needs to be heavily regulated. We need to be sure there is full consent from both the patient and the doctor who is carrying out the procedure and that approved medication is being used.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"jv6cju9\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"So we vote Hitler out even if he's legally ousting people?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"jv6cqpe\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jv6cju9\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \\n\\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \\n\\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \\n\\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \\n\\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \\n\\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"KipchakVibeCheck\",\n \"body\": \"Legal euthanasia in Canada has lead to people who are not depressed or terminally ill being referred to the MAID program (Medical Assistance In Dying) at alarming frequency. People who are disabled and want to live are asking for things like more money to live or a new wheelchair or all kinds of humane things that they’re being asked if they want to just die instead. [Poor people are being killed with the most meager excuses given] (https://apnews.com/article/covid-science-health-toronto-7c631558a457188d2bd2b5cfd360a867) In practice euthanasia is nothing but eugenics and institutionalized murder for a state to remove the “useless eaters” as a certain Austrian painter would call them.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"jv6fkjp\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \\n\\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \\n\\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \\n\\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \\n\\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \\n\\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"shooketh_not_stireth\",\n \"body\": \"> Edit. Another reason I support it is that if they choose to take matters into their own hands you get people shooting themselves or jumping off buildings and traumatizing people. Or the people who do crazy things so that cops can shoot them\\n\\nThis ironically is what I see as being wrong with legalized euthanasia. Believing that the government must approve of a free person's decision to end their own life is to believe that a person is not free and self-determinate on one of the most fundamental choices that they might make. \\n\\nThe legalization of euthanasia isn't legalizing suicide, it is legalizing the medical profession's assistance in that suicide.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"jv6ges1\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \\n\\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \\n\\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \\n\\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \\n\\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \\n\\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"p0tat0p0tat0\",\n \"body\": \"My problem with legalized euthanasia is that it will be impossible to prevent ableism in its application.\\n\\nWhen an able bodied person says they want to die/kill themselves, it’s treated as a problem. But when a disabled person says the exact same thing, they’re likely to be offered assistance.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"jv6iumz\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Narpity\",\n \"body\": \"So your logic here is that some people might not get as good of service as others so nobody should be allowed to have any?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"jv7odu4\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jv6iumz\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \\n\\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \\n\\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \\n\\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \\n\\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \\n\\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"PrinceJamRoll\",\n \"body\": \"This is tricky and I'm not sure how you do it responsibly if at all but to think of all the people that did end up taking their lives alone with the weight of taboo a d the darkness that comes in their final moments part of me wishes that they had been able to die surrounded by people and not feeling that they are committing the ultimate sin.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"jv6l1jy\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \\n\\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \\n\\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \\n\\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \\n\\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \\n\\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Ghauldidnothingwrong\",\n \"body\": \"> My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.\\n\\nIt does if you're advocating to **include** someone else in your preparation and/or the action of taking your life. Something like this going into legislation would divide doctors and medical professionals. Will some doctors and medical professionals be okay with this? Yes, but there will be countless others where this goes against their morals, their religion, their personal beliefs in any capacity. They would be the ones \\\"pulling the trigger,\\\" or preparing you in some capacity when you're at the hospital or wherever this happens, and by law, they would have to be part of this. \\n\\n\\nNow your freedom to die has impeded on the freedoms of every doctor who took the Hippocratic Oath and promised \\\"First do no harm.\\\" \\n\\n\\nYou have all the freedom in the world to die, but pursuing something like this in the bigger picture **does** end up impeding on other peoples freedoms, especially the medical professionals who would be forced to support you through this sort of process if it was legalized.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"jv6o620\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \\n\\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \\n\\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \\n\\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \\n\\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \\n\\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Fox_Underground\",\n \"body\": \"The problem is capitalism. We turned housing prisoners into a business and as a result there is a huge incentive to keep prisons packed to the rafters, regardless of whether the people inside actually deserve to be there. Do you really want to turn helping people die into a business?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"jv6opls\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \\n\\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \\n\\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \\n\\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \\n\\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \\n\\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"hacksoncode\",\n \"body\": \"It's already legal to kill yourself in all US states. Nothing is stopping you.\\n\\nInformation on how to do it simply, efficiently, inexpensively, and with as close as possible by any known method to 100% effectively and painlessly is readily available on the internet (c.f. inert gas asphyxia).\\n\\nI would argue that you're just caviling when you talk about people not physically capable of killing themselves in this way. \\n\\nBut fine: if we think these situations are common enough to have a special case for, let's allow \\\"assistance\\\" only to these people, and only to the degree necessary to set up the method, requiring the individual to activate it (Unless completely paralyzed? But then how do you get consent? Whatever that method is, it can be set up to activate the system.). \\n\\nIf someone doesn't have the guts to kill *themselves* it is an absolutely conclusive indication they don't *really* think dying is better than life, and certainly no one else should be doing it for them.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"jv6p0zd\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \\n\\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \\n\\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \\n\\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \\n\\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \\n\\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"wc27\",\n \"body\": \"I don’t think my taxes should go to medically assisted suicide. We have plenty of other healthcare costs that I’d be happy if my taxes could go towards it, including therapy to help you get passed your suicidal thoughts.\\n\\nFurthermore, If you want to commit suicide but don’t have the will power to do it and need assistance from the government then I don’t think you are really committed to that path anyways. We shouldn’t make it easier for people to make that decision.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"jv6pk83\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \\n\\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \\n\\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \\n\\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \\n\\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \\n\\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"StaggeringWinslow\",\n \"body\": \"Many years ago, I read a doctor's perspective on the potential unintended consequences of legalised euthanasia. While I'm not sure if I agree with it, I'll do my best to reconvey the argument. \\n\\nA doctor's role, when treating a critical patient, is to save or extend their life. That's it. It's the only priority; it's the only objective. Simple. \\n\\nIf euthanasia is legal, there's now another option lurking in the back of the doctor's mind: to give up, to stop wasting resources on a patient that might not have much chance of survival, to recommend that they're euthanised. \\n\\nDo we want to force doctors to juggle those factors? Do we want doctors to be deciding whether a particular patient lives or dies? That's a huge burden. Do we want doctors to focus solely on saving lives, or do we want them to be in a position to decide who lives and who dies? Do we want doctors to be forced to recommend killing patients in certain circumstances? Is that fair?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"jv6v20l\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \\n\\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \\n\\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \\n\\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \\n\\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \\n\\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"youngelos5607\",\n \"body\": \"I’ve worked for the government since I was 17, and trust me, *YOU DO NOT WANT THEM INCHARGE OF SOMETHING LIKE THIS*\\n\\nPiss off the wrong big pharma entity and it’s only a matter of greasing the right palms and pulling the right strings to have you made out to be clinically insane and dangerous and then it’s off to doggie heaven.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"jv6via0\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \\n\\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \\n\\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \\n\\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \\n\\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \\n\\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"yoaprk\",\n \"body\": \"As much as you frame it as a legal problem, discussing the practicalities of legalized euthanasia, from your replies to the other comments I can tell that you are more concerned about the philosophical and moral motivations and implications of legalized euthanasia. Thus your title \\\"I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\\\" is clickbaity and misleading: you do in fact see practical problems arising from legalized euthanasia, and these problems have not been shown to be immediately solvable. On the other hand, you mean what you said when you said \\\"I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\\\": you completely believe in the morality of legalized euthanasia, and you see no moral problems in the motivations and implications.\\n\\nSince we are on about philosophical and moral motivations, I summarise your point of view as this: freedom of choice is of higher value than (one's own) life. In particular, the freedom to choose death. You do not buy into the \\\"sanctity of life\\\" philosophy or belief that is upheld by the traditional Christian worldview, which continues to influence European and American culture today. I may, arrogantly, say that you view life as property. Let me explain. You are against murder, which is intentional destruction of another person's property; you believe in no legal consequences for killing during self-defence, which is simply collateral damage; you believe in legalized euthanasia, which is paying and authorising someone to clear your property; you believe in not stopping people who want to kill themselves, which is them destroying their own property.\\n\\nI agree that freedom of choice is of higher value than (one's own) life. Ironically though, one has to be alive to have such a freedom of choice. Thus my CMV argument: a hypothetical scenario. 18-year-old James wants to die. (He requests legalized euthanasia. He wants to die until he is 19, so the one-year period is over and he is euthanized.) We have granted 18-year-old James and 19-year-old James the freedom to choose to die. Now 20-year-old James no longer has the freedom to choose to continue living. Neither does 35-year-old James. Neither does 40-year-old James nor 70-year-old James. By granting 18-year-old James and 19-year-old James the freedom to choose to die, we have denied 20-year-old James, etc. the freedom to choose to continue living. Thus the freedom to choose to die, exercising it once, denies life and all future freedoms to choose anything else. Is such a freedom to choose to die so valuable, that it should be above life and all future freedoms?\\n\\n(Reapply above argument, but change legalized euthanasia to allowing him to commit suicide without stopping him. The point is about giving people freedom to choose to die, not the practicalities of whether euthanasia is legalized.)\\n\\nMoving on to moral implications: 1)who shall have the arduous task of performing/ordering the legalized euthanasia? 2)who shall have the arduous task of giving therapy during the one-year (don't worry about the actual length of time) period before the euthanasia is performed? \\n\\n1)Taking a life usually takes a toll on mental health. Consider all the soldiers who were \\\"shellshocked\\\" after the world wars. Consider that executions are performed with multiple (five-ish?) people, 4 with blanks and 1 with the live bullet, all firing together, just so to reduce the guilt of the executioners who had nothing to do with the decision to execute, simply following orders. Consider that killing someone in self-defence, though not punishable by law, still leaves the person with guilt for a long, long time. Consider that many women have to wrestle with guilt after undergoing abortions, regardless of whether they think the aborted baby is alive or just a bunch of cells. Consider that many people have turned vegan simply considering that animals are being killed to be meat. Who shall be appointed to perform the euthenasia? Who shall be appointed to order the euthanasia? How will this affect their mental health? Let's say they did it for money. Let's say they were simply appointed. This will not eliminate the effect on their mental health. Let's say the person shares your values and does it willingly and enthusiastically. After retirement the person changes view and suddenly feels like they've wrongly killed so many people their whole life.\\n\\nOf course, my 2 arguments above can be rebutted by a single sentence: \\\"freedom of choice, no freedom from consequences.\\\" They chose it, they suffer the consequences. So my question to you is is this really what you believe? If you were a policymaker/lawmaker who pushed for legalized euthanasia, can you simply say that the people who chose euthanasia get what they asked for? And the people who chose to perform/order the euthanasia suffer the consequences of their own actions? \\n\\n2)the therapist during the one year period is under so much stress. Let's say after one year they are not well and euthanasia goes on as planned. Is the therapist to blame? Even if it's not the therapist's fault, will the deceased's family not blame the therapist? Will the therapist not blame himself? Oh, who knows, the deceased may even be blaming the therapist while receiving the euthanasia! I mean, this is the same case for suicide. But with a set time frame and deadline (what a context for a pun!). What is the goal of the therapy? To stop the person from wanting euthanasia? Definitely not YOUR goal. But the therapist, knowing about the euthanasia, cannot help but keep it in mind. What about keep the euthanasia confidential and not let the therapist know that they are taking a \\\"euthanasia patient\\\"? In normal circumstances if the therapist gains the patient's trust the patient would let the therapist know either way.\\n\\nThat's all, was fun typing.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"jv6vpg1\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \\n\\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \\n\\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \\n\\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \\n\\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \\n\\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"prepend\",\n \"body\": \"You mention \\\"if the government has failed them.\\\"\\n\\nWhat does this mean? How would the government failing someone affect their will to live? What is the government's duty?\\n\\nGovernments vary substantially by country, region, state, city, etc. I don't think it's fair, or wise, to rely on government operating properly and fulfilling their duty to keep someone alive.\\n\\nJust because government fails to perform its duty, that shouldn't mean someone dies. That might mean someone who lives in a great city with lots of resources would get \\\"fixed\\\" by the government, while someone else in another city with inadequate resources would not get \\\"fixed\\\" and therefore would die.\\n\\nThere's lots of systemic problems and biases and prejudices and it seems like the system you propose would compound these problems and result in harm to the most vulnerable populations and most exploited minorities.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"jv6zfpj\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \\n\\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \\n\\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \\n\\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \\n\\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \\n\\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"ChopinCJ\",\n \"body\": \"The equipment one needs to painlessly end their life in the comfort of their own home with near-guaranteed success is cheap and widely available. That's what autonomy looks like, not forcing someone to pay out of pocket for a doctor to do the exact same shit.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"jv72yo2\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \\n\\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \\n\\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \\n\\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \\n\\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \\n\\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"JJJSchmidt_etAl\",\n \"body\": \"In general, the right to make your own choices should come first. However, there can be some perverse incentives which we have to keep in mind.\\n\\nWhat happens when medical professionals push euthanasia because it's more cost effective and easier for them?\\n\\n[The Guardian - This article is more than 1 year old Are Canadians being driven to assisted suicide by poverty or healthcare crisis?](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/11/canada-cases-right-to-die-laws)\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"jv74s1d\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"Is it not coat effective to have a repeat customer?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"jv76mid\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jv74s1d\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \\n\\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \\n\\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \\n\\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \\n\\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \\n\\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Bostonlbi\",\n \"body\": \"I watched an interesting “Fact-checked debate” about this recently. It’s sorta specific to Canada, but a lot is generally applicable: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJAklSh_rjk\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"jv78vde\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \\n\\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \\n\\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \\n\\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \\n\\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \\n\\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Stevite\",\n \"body\": \"The only people who really care if you kill your self, besides your friends and family ( maybe) and some religious zealots, are the people who stand to make money by keeping you alive. Life insurance companies, hospitals, nursing homes, etc. Can’t have grandma off herself when Medicare will pay for heart surgery, a lengthy ICU stay and rehab. Oh, and that’s before the nursing homes bleeds you for every penny, leaving you destitute. I forgot to mention the drugs…all the drugs. You’re worth more alive than dead. The only reason for your continued existence is to feed the machine. The ethical arguments about suicide are bullshit. All you gotta do is follow the money\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"jv7cx37\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \\n\\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \\n\\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \\n\\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \\n\\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \\n\\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Recent_Ad_4358\",\n \"body\": \"Patients experience tremendous guilt for being a burden on their loved ones and might consent to being euthanized when they otherwise would not because of external pressure. Many, MANY men leave their terminally ill wives, so what’s stopping them from simply pressuring these women into killings themselves? Not every terminally ill person is in a great place in their family or community. There is a lot more to terminal illness and end of life than simply a rational decision to kill oneself. \\nI think a better solution is greatly increase proper palliative care and the quality of life for the terminally ill.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"jv7mo84\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \\n\\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \\n\\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \\n\\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \\n\\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \\n\\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Top_Airline_4476\",\n \"body\": \"move to canada\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"jv80eap\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"Proves you didn't read the post. I literally said im in Canada\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"jv834q4\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jv80eap\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \\n\\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \\n\\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \\n\\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \\n\\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \\n\\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"jmilan3\",\n \"body\": \"I do not see the humanity in forcing a person to suffer until they die naturally, sometimes they suffer in absolutely horrific, unbearable physical and or emotional pain. I don’t want to die like that. Let me go quickly.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"jv81i1t\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \\n\\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \\n\\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \\n\\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \\n\\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \\n\\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Art_Music306\",\n \"body\": \"If you’d do it for a dog, out of mercy, I hope you’d do the same for me. It’s the definition of humane. Laws are not always so kind.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"jv82fw1\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \\n\\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \\n\\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \\n\\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \\n\\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \\n\\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"golf-lip\",\n \"body\": \"And you don't think the people administering euthanasia to people who want to kill themselves for whatever reason wouldn't affect that Healthcare professionals mental state like your argument about ptsd from people jumping off buildings?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"jv85dkm\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"Its no different than any other worker in emergency or palliative care and what not. And I work in health care. look up respiratory therapists. A lot of them pull the plug all the time. We health care workers know what we sign up for. Banning care just because the worker is uncomfortable is like banning abortion because the doctor is pro life.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"jv88bec\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jv85dkm\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \\n\\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \\n\\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \\n\\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \\n\\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \\n\\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"panty_lover_1234\",\n \"body\": \"nobody with brains disagrees. only the christians and muslims care, but they're not really thinking humans.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"jv8cgbk\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \\n\\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \\n\\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \\n\\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \\n\\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \\n\\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"tangofoxtrot1989\",\n \"body\": \"Legitimate question. Could healthcare professionals who’ve taken the Hippocratic oath actually assist with this?\\n\\nI suppose it’s all under the aegis of what “harm” is insofar as “do no harm” is concerned but I’d be curious to hear thoughts from someone who’s sworn that oath.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"jv8etrk\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \\n\\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \\n\\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \\n\\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \\n\\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \\n\\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Bobolinsky\",\n \"body\": \"The Canadian government is offering assisted suicide because their wating lists for surgeries that would alleviate pain are too long.\\n\\nAssisted suicide is also a much cheaper option for the Canadian government.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"jv8m2ke\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \\n\\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \\n\\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \\n\\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \\n\\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \\n\\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"GorillaBrown\",\n \"body\": \"What's your stance of minors going through human anatomy altering, transition surgical procedures?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"jv8n5xy\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \\n\\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \\n\\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \\n\\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \\n\\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \\n\\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"abhople\",\n \"body\": \"Freedom and consent is one thing. But the moment you get government sign a law into having a doctor assist you to die, the line between freedom and law is blurred. This sets an example into signing new laws of involving kids into the mix. “Maid” in canada does the same where kids can consent to this without parent’s permission. Anything legal does not mean it is right.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"jv8wqb3\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \\n\\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \\n\\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \\n\\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \\n\\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \\n\\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"AFuckingTrainwreck_\",\n \"body\": \"I agree solely in the case of terminal illness. \\n\\nTo your point of freedom and consent, people in that state of mind do not think clearly and cannot reasonably weigh their options. It's the same reason someone under the influence cannot consent to sex, and children for that matter. To **that** point, what if someone makes the decision whilst under the influence? \\n\\nAs someone with multiple previous suicide attempts, in the case of depression or other mental illness causing suicidality, it should not be allowed to go on. We need to help the people get better, not end their life, and their very possible bright future. In one of my attempts I was under heavy influence of drugs, and was not in the right state of mind to make a literal life-ending decision. There is a solution to our crisis. This is not the way.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"jv8ybfy\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"why is the suffering of a cancer patient Ok to end but not someone suffering depression?.\\n\\nI'm sorry that happened to you. But not everyone is depressed because of drugs. you are saying possible bright future. So what. Its not your future. You are basically telling people to gamble on your terms. Are you going to bear the consequences when there is no bright future? Of course not. There's no possible way..\\n\\nI'm sorry I just don't see why freedom shouldn't be valued the most. I can't and should tell people what to so with their bodies if its not affecting others. We don't stop alcoholics. Drug users. Smokers. \\n\\nwhy should medical procedures be any different/\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"jv8z3e1\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jv8ybfy\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \\n\\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \\n\\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \\n\\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \\n\\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \\n\\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Top_Airline_4476\",\n \"body\": \"i read it after dumb dumb\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"jv96tot\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \\n\\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \\n\\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \\n\\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \\n\\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \\n\\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"ShadowDurza\",\n \"body\": \"Well...\\n\\nThere are certain cases that can really make make you think.\\n\\nThere are people with physical and mental deformities so severe that they pretty much spend 50-60 years of their life in a fetal position in a crib. Human torsos basically.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-08\",\n \"id\": \"jv9fsrn\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \\n\\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \\n\\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \\n\\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \\n\\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \\n\\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"LebaneseDemonLobster\",\n \"body\": \"A good point here might be that it's difficult to consistently reject legalised euthanasia while also approving of state capital punishment.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-08\",\n \"id\": \"jv9ql6r\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \\n\\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \\n\\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \\n\\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \\n\\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \\n\\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Tide__Hunter\",\n \"body\": \"Under ideal circumstances, I think that people being allowed to ask for and receive a painless and calm death if that is what they really want is perfectly acceptable. The problem I have with legal euthanasia is the same problem I have with the death penalty: It's never ideal. \\n\\nYou talk about being in Canada, and there's been some pretty big controversies about that. Many of the people who have been put on the path of euthanasia or who have been suggested euthanasia are not people who want to end their own life at all. Rather, the system was a complete and utter failure, and euthanasia gave those who should be helping them an excuse to just tell them to die instead. \\n\\nSomebody here already mentioned veterans, but those aren't all. [This Guardian article](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/11/canada-cases-right-to-die-laws) on the topic offers a rather nuanced take on this situation. To summarize though, there were some high profile cases of Canadian women with a condition called multiple chemical sensitivity, which rendered them incapable of working, and the income they were receiving due to disability payments was way below the poverty line. Because they were unable to receive suitable housing to compensate for their conditions while living on a minuscule amount of income, they used MAID to die. \\n\\nThe article makes it clear, experts said that these situations should be used to push for better care for those with debilitating conditions. From my perspective however, MAID's role in this situation was to shield the Canadian government from responsibility. As one of the women feature in that story said, “The government sees \\\\[her\\\\] as expendable trash, a complainer, useless and a pain in the ass.” MAID was there to take the \\\"expendable trash\\\" out, after she had nowhere left to turn. \\n\\nI don't necessarily think there should not be any legal access to euthanasia. But under the current systems, much more emphasis should be placed on mitigation of the circumstances that lead to people seeking it. Its existence feels like it gives the Canadian government room *to* fail its people, since if the level of care isn't enough to keep them from being in constant waking misery, even when they could do more to keep people from that point, they can just get funneled into the lethal injection line.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-08\",\n \"id\": \"jv9z88e\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \\n\\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \\n\\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \\n\\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \\n\\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \\n\\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Gauntlets28\",\n \"body\": \"I think my main concern is whether elderly people could be coerced by their unpleasant relatives into being euthanised. I can absolutely foresee a world in which that could happen, particularly if someone in a position of power over them wants to get hold of the inheritance.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-08\",\n \"id\": \"jva1ua1\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \\n\\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \\n\\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \\n\\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \\n\\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \\n\\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"pinkpunkpugtb\",\n \"body\": \"nobody with brains disagrees.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-08\",\n \"id\": \"jvau05t\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \\n\\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \\n\\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \\n\\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \\n\\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \\n\\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"AnxietyOctopus\",\n \"body\": \"The only way this works is if you have entirely free and accessible healthcare. Right now, even in Canada (where I’m also from) it’s a lot easier to get treatment for mental health issues if you have money. If we start offering medically assisted dying for depressed people the way things stand now? You are killing poor people because it’s cheaper than getting us the help we need. \\nThis is a personal issue for me; I’ve been chronically depressed and suicidal since I was twelve. I’m thirty-three. It’s only in the last three years that I found a medication that stabilizes me, and that’s a fucking revelation. If assisted suicide had been available for me throughout my twenties I would be dead. And even though I wanted to die, I didn’t actually want to die. I wanted to stop feeling the way I felt, and suicide seemed like the easiest way to make it all stop. The medical system would have failed me a lot harder than it already did if it had offered me that out.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-08\",\n \"id\": \"jvbj19x\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Pantyraid-7\",\n \"body\": \"Bless you. Thanks for sticking it out. The world needs more you\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-08\",\n \"id\": \"jvc05oa\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvbj19x\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \\n\\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \\n\\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \\n\\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \\n\\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \\n\\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"TooRational101\",\n \"body\": \"Thank the self righteous Christians who have no trouble telling us what we can and can’t do. These bloody assholes create laws to block us from what should be a basic human right.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-08\",\n \"id\": \"jvbx9ki\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \\n\\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \\n\\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \\n\\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \\n\\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \\n\\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"ItsMalikBro\",\n \"body\": \"The problem is there is a clear financial incentive to encourage people to kill themselves. \\n\\n\\nThe majority of your healthcare cost comes during the final 5 years of your life. If your government can convince you suicide is the answer, then they save insane amounts of money. Improving the length and quality of your life just means a bigger fiscal burden for the government. \\n\\n\\nIt is unsurprising then that Canada keeps expanding the eligibility of their suicide program. \\n\\n\\n>My second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands.\\n\\nThe government has an incentive to \\\"fail\\\" and keep failing. If failing saves Canada tons of money and resources, so why would they ever \\\"fix\\\" things?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-08\",\n \"id\": \"jvc4nyk\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \\n\\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \\n\\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \\n\\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \\n\\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \\n\\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"azure_monster\",\n \"body\": \"While I personally do not have much to comment on this issue, I thought this video might Interest you.\\n\\n[VOX: A fact-checked debate about euthanasia](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TJAklSh_rjk&t=511s&pp=ygUYdm94IGV1dGhhbmFzaWEgaW4gY2FuYWRh)\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-08\",\n \"id\": \"jvc8geq\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \\n\\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \\n\\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \\n\\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \\n\\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \\n\\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Sher-Locked3224\",\n \"body\": \"I do agree with this whole concept. \\n\\nBut think of this from the perspective of law, \\n\\nIt will be immensely difficult to draw a contract completely legal. This method could be used wrongfully by sooo many wrong doers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-09\",\n \"id\": \"jveuowd\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \\n\\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \\n\\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \\n\\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \\n\\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \\n\\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Narrow-Help9352\",\n \"body\": \"***\\\"Sarco Pod Promises a Humane Death within 5 to 10 Minutes\\\"*** \\n\\nThe Dutch were already selected a few years ago to develop the global future of death tech! Check it out for yourselves ➡➡➡ [The Sacro Project](http://www.exitinternational.net/sarco/)\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-09\",\n \"id\": \"jvgjmc4\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \\n\\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \\n\\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \\n\\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \\n\\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \\n\\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Neeko673\",\n \"body\": \"Should only be allowed to those with diagnosed painful and fatal diseases. People that are suicidal or mentally Ill just take one bad day in a different state of mind to take their life. The fact people have to do it themselves and cant ensure success keeps 99% of people from even attempting\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-09\",\n \"id\": \"jvgogqs\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Neeko673\",\n \"body\": \"Plus nearly over 50% of trans people would now be dead if this was allowed. Somewhere near 50% have attempted suicide or were about to. Imagine if you had this 100% fail safe option just by signing a form\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-09\",\n \"id\": \"jvgoszp\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvgogqs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \\n\\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \\n\\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \\n\\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \\n\\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \\n\\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CristianMorenoI\",\n \"body\": \"I think that everyone is free to choose any decision about themselves, if someone is bored with themselves, this person could decide if that moment will end on a specific day, nobody knows if this person had deep wounds inside and maybe nobody can heal. From another point of view, if the Doctor doesn't want to do it, he is free to decide if he wants to or not, remembering that the Doctors promised to save lives, not kill people.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-09\",\n \"id\": \"jvgzyk9\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \\n\\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \\n\\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \\n\\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \\n\\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \\n\\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Unlucky-Soup6983\",\n \"body\": \"I agree with you. If a person wants to die they should have that choice. If they can't do it alone they should be able to get help. But someone should have proof that they actually wanted to.otherwise people will be able to say they killed someone because they wanted to die.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-09\",\n \"id\": \"jvhs7cd\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \\n\\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \\n\\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \\n\\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \\n\\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \\n\\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Crafty-Bunch-2675\",\n \"body\": \">So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \\n\\nThere is no specific time limit on \\\"fixing your life\\\" Some of the most famous businessmen\\n\\nSome people on incel forums speak of \\\"ending it\\\" because of the lack of intimacy in their life. Some of these people have complicated issues of financial struggle, bad habits and lack of self esteem which would all have to be resolved in order to fix \\\"the issue\\\" that is something that could take several years.\\n\\nOnce you put a timelines on the therapy needed, you are also setting up an incentive to shorten the timeline.\\n\\n>My second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands.\\n\\nSome of the reasons for MAID I have seen in the news are economic things like a person facing homelessness.\\n\\nDo you really think legalized euthanasia will give the government **more** incentive to take care of its people or less ?\\n\\nThe answer is less. All this will do is make the govt more lazy to solve socioeconomic problems. \\n\\n>My third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent.\\n\\nAs many others have pointed out; by the very nature of what s**cide is ...it is an unenforceable law. There is nothing stopping a person from doing it if they want. There is no way to \\\"arrest\\\" a person for s**cide. So there is no freedom or consent in question.\\n\\nThe only thing legalized Euthanasia does is pervert the function of government and medicine by giving the government and the medical industry an incentive to stop trying to help people. That is why it is so dangerous.\\n\\nWhy spend millions of dollars on cancer research when you can just offer MAID to cancer patients once they become terminal ?\\n\\nIn fact.. we can even take it a logical step further.. why offer any medical assistance to a gravely ill person, when you could just coach them into accepting MAID instead ? Less effort right?\\n\\nAnd on the government side:\\n\\nWhy spend millions of dollars to provide socioeconomic structures for citizens to lead fulfilling lives... when you can just offer MAID instead ?\\n\\nTLDR;\\n**Self deletion is an unenforceable law, there is no question of freedom or consent. Legalized euthanasia on the other hand, take that power away from the individual and gives it to an external body. Once you do that, it removes all incentives to improve society because it is easier to remove the weak than to try to improve conditions for everybody**\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-11\",\n \"id\": \"jvpqfyx\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \\n\\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \\n\\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \\n\\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \\n\\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \\n\\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"seekenG123\",\n \"body\": \"Hi can anyone tell me the best way to do this. is morphine one of the best or can you use other meds\",\n \"date\": \"2023-09-29\",\n \"id\": \"k2q87iu\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"donotholdyourbreath\",\n \"body\": \"hat's it. My view is simple. However, to expand why I think so. I think if someone wants to die, they have a fatal condition or they hate life. Now, I know some things are temporary, and that it can be fixed. So I propose that government give them one year of therapy etc. If they still want to die they should be allowed to. \\n\\nMy second reason is, if the government has failed them, then the least the government can do is not punish the helper and them for taking matters into their own hands. Morally speaking, for example, if there was a town for whatever reason, think wild west, with no sherrif or the sheriff is literally sitting on his/her ass all day, I have no problem morally if everyone went all 'batman'. \\n\\nMy third reason is, and probably the most important one, freedom and consent. If it's proven that there was no coercision etc. then the doctor or whoever shouldn't be arrested. \\n\\nThats why I believe it's better to legalize it. There would be institutions to make sure that \\n\\nNow for background. I'm in canada. We already have checks in place for fatal conditions, I see nothing wrong with expanding it. \\n\\nBut really the heart of the matter is, I don't see why the government should have a say what I do with my body. I am of the principle if it doesn't remove someone elses freedoms or rights, then it should be ok. I took nothing from my neighbour by dying. Breaking in and entering takes away their right to safety. My freedom to die does not impede on your freedoms.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-07\",\n \"id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: I see nothing wrong with legalized euthanasia\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15kmtfo/cmv_i_see_nothing_wrong_with_legalized_euthanasia/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"clatscanemike\",\n \"body\": \"People are just so stubborn and Satanic.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-11-12\",\n \"id\": \"k8wki3m\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15kmtfo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ]\n]","isConversational":false},"2":{"kind":"string","value":"challenge"}}},{"rowIdx":52,"cells":{"0":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Kotoperek","body":"The problem with debating Christianity from outside of the Christian paradigm won't convince Christians, but once you enter their paradigm, you've already lost the debate. \n\nThere is a fundamental conflict of basic axioms. You cannot prove or disprove the existence of God with 100% certainty, that's the basis of faith. To be a Christian you have to *believe* that God exists without absolute proof and take that as a starting point of any argument, not something to be proven. On the other hand, if you do *not believe* that God exists, you can also never provide a 100% certain proof, because negatives are notoriously hard to prove. The lack of evidence for the existence of God is not strictly logically evidence for the non-existence of God, but for many people it is enough to not *believe* in his existence. \n\nSo once you argue with a Christian as if God existend, you've lost the debate by accepting their basic axiom. If you insist on your lack of belief, they ask for proof and will never be satisfied with whatever reasons you give since they are at odds with their *fundamental view of the world*. Those debates are unwinnable either direction - the Christians won't convince a confident atheist for the same reasons. You don't have to justify your lack of faith. Some people have it, some people don't. You can criticise it very consistently as a non-believer, but you won't \"win\" (as in - convince) with believers. It's not some genius, foolproof plot, it's just defaulting to different base assumptions and then making you feel like these assumptions are the same.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzkhl4","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">So once you argue with a Christian as if God existend, you've lost the debate by accepting their basic axiom. If you insist on your lack of belief, they ask for proof and will never be satisfied with whatever reasons you give since they are at odds with their fundamental view of the world. Those debates are unwinnable either direction - the Christians won't convince a confident atheist for the same reasons. \n\n!delta\n\nClosed-minded people cannot be defeated by open-minded people. But if they're up against a closed-minded person on the other side, then the fight will be entertaining to watch.\n\n>You don't have to justify your lack of faith. Some people have it, some people don't. You can criticise it very consistently as a non-believer, but you won't \"win\" (as in - convince) with believers. It's not some genius, foolproof plot, it's just defaulting to different base assumptions and then making you feel like these assumptions are the same.\n\nI consider my lack of faith as a disability akin to being unable to read. Being unable to believe is a huge drag on my life and forces me to defend my view in debates I can't win.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzodlr","parent_id":"jvzkhl4","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"DeltaBot","body":"Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/Kotoperek ([30∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/Kotoperek)).\n\n^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzog25","parent_id":"jvzodlr","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],"string":"[\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Kotoperek\",\n \"body\": \"The problem with debating Christianity from outside of the Christian paradigm won't convince Christians, but once you enter their paradigm, you've already lost the debate. \\n\\nThere is a fundamental conflict of basic axioms. You cannot prove or disprove the existence of God with 100% certainty, that's the basis of faith. To be a Christian you have to *believe* that God exists without absolute proof and take that as a starting point of any argument, not something to be proven. On the other hand, if you do *not believe* that God exists, you can also never provide a 100% certain proof, because negatives are notoriously hard to prove. The lack of evidence for the existence of God is not strictly logically evidence for the non-existence of God, but for many people it is enough to not *believe* in his existence. \\n\\nSo once you argue with a Christian as if God existend, you've lost the debate by accepting their basic axiom. If you insist on your lack of belief, they ask for proof and will never be satisfied with whatever reasons you give since they are at odds with their *fundamental view of the world*. Those debates are unwinnable either direction - the Christians won't convince a confident atheist for the same reasons. You don't have to justify your lack of faith. Some people have it, some people don't. You can criticise it very consistently as a non-believer, but you won't \\\"win\\\" (as in - convince) with believers. It's not some genius, foolproof plot, it's just defaulting to different base assumptions and then making you feel like these assumptions are the same.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzkhl4\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">So once you argue with a Christian as if God existend, you've lost the debate by accepting their basic axiom. If you insist on your lack of belief, they ask for proof and will never be satisfied with whatever reasons you give since they are at odds with their fundamental view of the world. Those debates are unwinnable either direction - the Christians won't convince a confident atheist for the same reasons. \\n\\n!delta\\n\\nClosed-minded people cannot be defeated by open-minded people. But if they're up against a closed-minded person on the other side, then the fight will be entertaining to watch.\\n\\n>You don't have to justify your lack of faith. Some people have it, some people don't. You can criticise it very consistently as a non-believer, but you won't \\\"win\\\" (as in - convince) with believers. It's not some genius, foolproof plot, it's just defaulting to different base assumptions and then making you feel like these assumptions are the same.\\n\\nI consider my lack of faith as a disability akin to being unable to read. Being unable to believe is a huge drag on my life and forces me to defend my view in debates I can't win.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzodlr\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzkhl4\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"DeltaBot\",\n \"body\": \"Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/Kotoperek ([30∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/Kotoperek)).\\n\\n^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzog25\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzodlr\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n]","isConversational":false},"1":{"kind":"list like","value":[[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"DeadCupcakes23","body":"Why does it matter if Christianity has a rebuttal for something? You can criticise the bible and Christianity based on what it says and the actions done in its name (context depending).\n\nPeople have moral values without Christianity and most things people appreciate nowadays are not inherent to Christianity, for example the bible allows slavery.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzggd4","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">Why does it matter if Christianity has a rebuttal for something? You can criticise the bible and Christianity based on what it says and the actions done in its name (context depending).\n\nBecause losing a debate due to their rebuttals makes me look stupid. Also, if you follow the links to their arguments, even the atrocities done in its name don't count because those fall under \"false prophets\". \n\nIt's like the Bible was written with this possibility in mind to entrap us.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzh2ui","parent_id":"jvzggd4","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"tipoima","body":"Christianity *was* fabricated, but not by geniuses. \nYou're fighting against over two thousand years worth of apologetics, where all the weakest arguments have been pruned away. \nHowever, as expected of something that isn't actually true, those arguments are often plainly wrong, be it due to logical fallacies, appeals to unknown, obtuse philosophy you probably don't know you don't subscribe to, no-true-scotsmanning, e.t.c.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzh8ep","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">However, as expected of something that isn't actually true, those arguments are often plainly wrong, be it due to logical fallacies, appeals to unknown, obtuse philosophy you probably don't know you don't subscribe to, no-true-scotsmanning, e.t.c.\n\nThis is exactly what they do. The problem is that \"I don't know\" is not an acceptable answer to them ([see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvhr81y/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)), whereas they already have something up their sleeve to entrap me. \n\nAs you mentioned, with 2000 years of experience creating answers, I even if I am able to point out something wrong or intellectually dishonest, they'll still have an answer for that, forcing me to spend yet more time and effort to come up with an answer. And I am not intelligent enough to create an answer for everything they throw at me, so I'm trapped.\n\nIt's an uphill battle, and one that can easily be lost. Until we can come up with a rebuttal they can't defeat, there will always be a risk that secular society and LGBT rights might be defeated.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzhurp","parent_id":"jvzh8ep","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Watchyobackistan","body":"Not really, most of their \"rebuttals\" are stuff like \"god doesn't give us all the answers\" and \"Don't worry jesus loves you\" Non-answers.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzhdab","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"MercurianAspirations","body":"But why should you give a shit? If you have conviction in your own beliefs, it shouldn't matter whether or not you can convince others using your super debater skillz or not. After all, if somebody were sufficiently dumb or insane, it would be impossible to convince them of the truth, no matter how clear and apparent the truth were; therefore, whether or not a thing is widely believed and people are readily convinced of its truth is not a guide to truth. When there was only one person on the earth who believed in heliocentrism they were still right, and the geocentrists were still wrong. The geocentrists had answers for every single objection, and they won every single debate, yet, they were still wrong. \n\nMoreover, it isn't that Christianity is super well designed or anything. It's just that people who have strongly held convictions are not available to be convinced by facts and logic. That's just how people are: they do not actually change their minds that much.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzhezx","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">But why should you give a shit?\n\nBecause I don't want my stances to look stupid. I was once likened to an anti-vaxxer for not being able to provide evidence to back my lack of faith.\n\n> If you have conviction in your own beliefs, it shouldn't matter whether or not you can convince others using your super debater skillz or not. \n\nConviction in your own beliefs doesn't make one right. Besides, their side also has a firm conviction in their beliefs.\n\n>When there was only one person on the earth who believed in heliocentrism they were still right, and the geocentrists were still wrong. The geocentrists had answers for every single objection, and they won every single debate, yet, they were still wrong.\n\nScience doesn't care about number of believers, what matters is the evidence. And in the case of heliocentrism, it was proven right by overwhelming evidence. I wish I had overwhelming evidence to back my lack of faith.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzih4p","parent_id":"jvzhezx","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Mr-Bitter","body":"Send your brother my way. I know of a way to convince him that it was Satan that wrote the Bible and can kill every single one of his arguments. I would thoroughly enjoy a civilized religious debate.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzhg91","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"ApocalypseYay","body":">CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\n\nThis makes zero sense. Rebuttals require logic and facts, and there are only apologia and special pleasing fallacy described herein. \n\nLet's start from the basic - where is the evidence for chris, the alleged son of god, and somehow also god, that killed himself to please himself? There is zero historical evidence for this event, before we even get to the easily debunked claims of miracles, or the plainly immoral laws being promulgated as divine commandments.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzhig9","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">where is the evidence for chris,\n\n[Most historians accept that Jesus Christ existed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus). The rest of the biblical story isn't accepted by historians.\n\n>before we even get to the easily debunked claims of miracles,\n\n[I miserably failed at convincing someone that I don't believe in miracles](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvai6qm/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). How would you convince him?\n\n> or the plainly immoral laws being promulgated as divine commandments.\n\nHow would you convince them that their side is immoral? They have methods up their sleeve to dismiss the malice conducted in the name of Christianity, and justify the anti-LGBT commandments.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzj8qx","parent_id":"jvzhig9","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"physioworld","body":"The most important concept you have to remember is the burden of proof. It’s not up to you to prove the Christianity ISNT TRUE, it’s up to them to prove that it IS TRUE. So if they can’t prove their own religion you need to accept it, you don’t have to worry about disproving their beliefs. \n\nA good way to illustrate this, is whether they would accept comparable claims with comparable evidence from other religions. So if they claim that Christianity is true because it says so in the bible, ask whether you should also accept Islam because it says so in the Quran.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzhlry","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">The most important concept you have to remember is the burden of proof. It’s not up to you to prove the Christianity ISNT TRUE, it’s up to them to prove that it IS TRUE. So if they can’t prove their own religion you need to accept it, you don’t have to worry about disproving their beliefs.\n\nBut that's the problem - they consider themselves as proving it is true. For example, one guy who told me of miracles he received - [and I lacked a sufficient rebuttal to convince him he's wrong](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvai6qm/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzjexi","parent_id":"jvzhlry","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Adam__B","body":"You don’t have to defend not believing in something that is invisible, utterly silent, immeasurable, illogical, unscientific, undetectable and untestable. The burden is on them to prove a positive, not you a negative.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzi1gp","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"OrangeBlancmange","body":"Why do you think you are losing? They obviously haven’t convinced you in these arguments and just falling back to faith (which is all they really have) doesn’t ‘win’ anything in any meaningful way. You won’t be able to argue them out of their faith so you can’t ‘win’ either. Ultimately it’s not an argument in the philosophical sense - they aren’t engaging in good faith and simply will not change their minds regardless of what you say.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzi24f","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"> they aren’t engaging in good faith and simply will not change their minds regardless of what you say.\n\nBad faith arguments are like doping in sports - they make it easier for them to win. You just need to be a good enough debater to win despite the disadvantage.\n\n>Why do you think you are losing? \n\nBecause I failed to be that \"good enough debater\". Any argument I can throw at them is utterly crushed and thrown back at me.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzk4ge","parent_id":"jvzi24f","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Cayowin","body":"How did you lose that debate?\n\nSlavery - Christians used the bible to promote the slave trade\n\n[https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/01/a-harvard-exhibit-on-slavery-and-christianity/#:\\~:text=In%20the%20modern%20era%2C%20Christianity,often%20used%20to%20justify%20slavery](https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/01/a-harvard-exhibit-on-slavery-and-christianity/#:~:text=In%20the%20modern%20era%2C%20Christianity,often%20used%20to%20justify%20slavery).\n\nYes there were abolitionists, but if the same text can be used to both justify and condemn an action how is that text a good moral guide?\n\nThe bible explicitly allows the owning of humans as property. So either god is not unchanging or he changed his mind. \n\n1 Peter 2:18, Saint Peter writes \"Slaves, be subject to your masters with all reverence, not only to those who are good and equitable but also to those who are perverse.\"\n\nYes they have prepared apologetics, it just means you need to do more research. Remember they have no evidence for their claims beyond personal gut feelings and a collection of contradictory, fictional and historic works.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzi8a8","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">Slavery - Christians used the bible to promote the slave trade\n\nI've miserably failed when using the \"what about slavery argument\" - it's in the link following \"It all started 3 years ago\". Sure, I could point out the pro-slavery parts, but they'll have a reason why that bit is irrelevant or misinterpreted. It's exhausting, finding every argument to throw at them, and having each one of those utterly crushed with more rebuttals thrown your way.\n\n>Yes they have prepared apologetics, it just means you need to do more research. Remember they have no evidence for their claims beyond personal gut feelings and a collection of contradictory, fictional and historic works.\r \n\r\n\nI tried pointing out to someone that I don't believe in his \"miracle\". [My attempt failed miserably](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvai6qm/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzkhnt","parent_id":"jvzi8a8","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Augnelli","body":"What is the rebuttal for the Ark? What did the carnivores eat? How did the Kangaroos and Koalas make it up from Australia? What about fresh water fish? How much space was designated for JUST the elephants food?\n\nYou don't need to debate every detail, just enough to invalidate the core; the truth on which they base their faith.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzikz2","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">What is the rebuttal for the Ark? What did the carnivores eat? How did the Kangaroos and Koalas make it up from Australia? What about fresh water fish? How much space was designated for JUST the elephants food?\n\nThat's the problem - even since the medieval era, most Christians disavowed biblical literalism, because biblical literalism is easier to poke holes into. Instead, they've come up with apologia, and now, with over 2000 years of apologia to defend against, it's become an unwinnable fight.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzlcvy","parent_id":"jvzikz2","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"ch0cko","body":"No. I am a frequent debater on subs like r/DebateReligion and r/DebateAnAtheist and everything you've said here is just... no. The vast majority of arguments for theism or counterarguments against arguments against theism, generally lead to special pleading or other fallacies.\n\nHere's one post I recently made: [https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/15pjew5/extraordinary\\_claims\\_need\\_extraordinary\\_evidence/](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/15pjew5/extraordinary_claims_need_extraordinary_evidence/) which then links to another one of my posts that goes more in-depth: [https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/15ey939/if\\_religious\\_beliefs\\_were\\_subject\\_to\\_consistent/](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/15ey939/if_religious_beliefs_were_subject_to_consistent/)\n\nA lot of what Christianity said is very similar to other religions and old mythologies. It has a generic reward-punishment system/carrot and stick system, that is, a hell and heaven. On top of that, all of the claims in Christianity hold no good evidence with most being anecdotal. Most arguments for Christianity are not Christian-specific and more so just theism in general. Even then, those thesitic arguments lead to either, 1. fallacies, or 2. only making theism \"more likely,\" but even then, these arguments have counters.\n\nThey were not geniuses. A little clever, but they essentially copied other religions and mythologies and is a cookie-cutter religion. Christianity isn't wide spread just because of how \"logical\" and \"sound\" it is; indoctrination or generationally passing the idea down is a big part of it. There are also contradictions in the Bible which can be found at this website: [https://www.lyingforjesus.org/Bible-Contradictions/](https://www.lyingforjesus.org/Bible-Contradictions/)","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzirf5","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">They were not geniuses. A little clever, but they essentially copied other beliefs and mythologies and is a cookie-cutter religion. Christianity isn't widespread just because of how \"logical\" and \"sound\" it is; indoctrination or generationally passing the idea down is a big part of it. There are also contradictions in the Bible which can be found at this website: https://www.lyingforjesus.org/Bible-Contradictions/\n\nI wasn't implying that Christianity was \"logical\" and \"sound\". I was implying it was successful because it has so many tricks up its sleeve. It may be full of lies, but for every one I point out, I'll get one or more rebuttals thrown my way.\n\nThink of it as being like in the middle of a dense minefield. Whoever laid the minefield might not have a \"logical\" and \"sound\" reason for it, but any step you could take will blow up in your face.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzlzr1","parent_id":"jvzirf5","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"xper0072","body":"Just because someone has an answer for everything doesn't mean that the answer is a good answer. Your inability to properly debate the topic does not mean that the other side is correct in any way.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzj07m","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">Your inability to properly debate the topic does not mean that the other side is correct in any way.\n\nI wasn't saying the other side was correct. My point is that they are impossible to defeat and are good at ensnaring their critics.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzmc3l","parent_id":"jvzj07m","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"razvanght","body":"In my experience, Christian s believe that God is real because they feel He is real. Then you can ask them whether a person of a different religion can also use the same method (I feel Zeus is real because I feel Him) to conclude that a different god is real. Christians generally agree that that person used the same method (feeling based) to reach an opposite conclusion (Zeus, not God, is real). In my discussions at least, this argument works in that it gives people pause. Of course, it does not change their belief immediately because they have been holding it for some time but I feel like it adds a seed of doubt.\n\nDo you know the official Christian response against this line of argument?","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzj0m8","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">In my experience, Christian s believe that God is real because they feel He is real. Then you can ask them whether a person of a different religion can also use the same method (I feel Zeus is real because I feel Him) to conclude that a different god is real. \n\nHow can I get them to accept the argument that \"oh I don't feel God is real, so don't force me to go to church\"? Because that argument always failed me in the past. Also, on a tangent, how are you able to \"feel\" Zeus?\n\n>adds a seed of doubt.\n\nPlanting seeds of doubt is a great political strategy. For example, in Australia, we have an upcoming referendum on constitutional indigenous recognition - and because the No side is so good at planting seeds of doubt, the Yes side is losing despite having academia and the arts sector on its side. \n\nBut back to the point, I tried planting seeds of doubt and failed miserably. The Christians I've had to defend my opinions from don't merely consider themselves as \"feelings based\", they consider their views as backed by literature (the Bible).","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzmy3i","parent_id":"jvzj0m8","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Apprehensive_Box3199","body":"I dropped my Catholicism at 21 after learning basic logic at University. In year 6 whilst at a Catholic school, we were given a Catholic Catechism - literally the manual for being a good Catholic. Most of the book is written in question-and-answer format. This is indoctrination 101. The first 3 questions are, and I quote:\n\n>1. Question: Who made the world? \n Answer: God made the world. \n> \n>2. Q. Who is God? \n> \n> A. God is the Creator of heaven and earth and of all things and the Supreme Lord of all. \n> \n>3. Q. How do we know there is a God? \n> \n> A. We know that there is a God by the things that He made.\n\nRight there; in the first 3 question-and-answers is a Circular Argument. The entire basis of the Catechism is premised on a Circular Argument. If nothing else, the entire point of Catholicism is to justify the original statement that God exists.\n\nI looked through the whole of the Catechism highlighting anything I still believed. I highlighted a single sentence in the preface about doing unto others etc... NOTHING else.\n\nBefore you have a go at me for not knowing what a circular argument until I was 21 - I went to Catholic schools for all of high school and it is in their best interests NOT to teach that and it was the 80s. That's my excuse and I sticking to it.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzjc23","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">Right there; in the first 3 question-and-answers is a Circular Argument. The entire basis of the Catechism is premised on a Circular Argument. If nothing else, the entire point of Catholicism is to justify the original statement that God exists. \n> \n>I looked through the whole of the Catechism highlighting anything I still believed. I highlighted a single sentence in the preface about doing unto others etc... NOTHING else. \n> \n>Before you have a go at me for not knowing what a circular argument until I was 21 - I went to Catholic schools for all of high school and it is in their best interests NOT to teach that and it was the 80s. That's my excuse and I sticking to it.\n\nIn my experience, pointing out the circular argument leads to one of 2 outcomes:\n\n1. Getting more apologia that I am unable to defeat\n2. The \"*Do you have a better explanation?*\" rebuttal","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvznrln","parent_id":"jvzjc23","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Simbabz","body":"The most important story of the bible is Jesus ressurecction, the gospels contradict each other in the telling of the story, hardly designed by geniuses.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzktxv","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">The most important story of the bible is Jesus ressurecction, the gospels contradict each other in the telling of the story, hardly designed by geniuses.\n\nNot sure what Protestants say, but Catholicism claims that slight differences with the same overall story prove it's written by real people observing the same things. We can accuse them of using a dodgy argument, but it still wouldn't undermine their side.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzp1ei","parent_id":"jvzktxv","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"vote4bort","body":"I think you're just trying way too hard in these debates and starting from the wrong point. You're coming at them like religion is something that can be proved through debate when it fundamentally can't. \nThe religious rebuttal for every point will always be essentially the same. That is they'll say \"well I believe this I so\". And you can't argue with that because its not a statement that can be argued against.\n\nWhat can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzkuyc","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.\n\nThe problem is when they think they have evidence and you think they don't. [Here's an example with a Protestant](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jv9g3kt/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3), and we can't agree on anything.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzp2i6","parent_id":"jvzkuyc","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"sapphireminds","body":"You seem to be a poor debater. You are accepting a lot of arguments as true when they aren't. \n\nAll children are born atheists. Coincidentally, they just happen to usually believe in the god(s) their parents/community believes it. \n\nAnd personally, if there is a god with the power ascribed to it by the bible, I would refuse to worship it. \n\nYou also need to educate yourself about the null hypothesis.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzl8ri","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">You seem to be a poor debater. You are accepting a lot of arguments as true when they aren't.\r\n\nI don't accept their arguments as true. I accept them as difficult to defeat.\n\n>And personally, if there is a god with the power ascribed to it by the bible, I would refuse to worship it.\n\nI wouldn't want to worship such a God either. [I've told a Protestant that if I were to accept that he indeed received a miracle, it would still prove that the Christian god is unjust](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvkkegk/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). But that argument still failed to sway him.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzqf91","parent_id":"jvzl8ri","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"-paperbrain-","body":"What you seem to be saying is just that you are not able, with the mere power of logic, to get Christians to abandon their belief.\n\nI hate to break it to you, but this is not a particular quality of Christianity. Anything people are dug in on will face this hill. Not only will you encounter it with every religion, but you won't argue many people out of their political doctrine, flat earth belief, or whether they side with Ross or Rachel on friends. People have rebuttals for everything about many totally conflicting positions. It's part of having strong beliefs and giving it some thought. And religions in particular have had a long time and tons of resources to give it thought.\n\nThat doesn't mean there's no room for criticism. Just that your expectation about change is ridiculously optimistic.\n\nHowever, regardless of how your personal debates are going, people are leaving Christianity in droves, partly because they don't find those rebuttals to critique to be logically, morally or emotionally satisfying. The fastest growing religious affiliation is \"none\".","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzlzcb","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">That doesn't mean there's no room for criticism. Just that your expectation about change is ridiculously optimistic.\n\nSometimes, I'm challenged to debate when I'm not looking for one (see my first link in the post details). I wasn't expecting to change anyone's views, just successfully defend my decision, and I failed even that.\n\n>However, regardless of how your personal debates are going, people are leaving Christianity in droves, partly because they don't find those rebuttals to critique to be logically, morally or emotionally satisfying. The fastest growing religious affiliation is \"none\".\n\n[Christianity is still growing overall](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_population_growth). Even if it's not growing in the Western World, this shrinkage is negated by growth outside the Western World.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzs5r5","parent_id":"jvzlzcb","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"wrongfulness","body":"What a waste of time","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzmu4k","parent_id":"15purrs","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"The_White_Ram","body":"This isn't hard. Christianity literally endorses slavery.\n\nIf you believe slavery is wrong then that's the only argument you need.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzniyg","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">This isn't hard. Christianity literally endorses slavery. \n> \n>If you believe slavery is wrong then that's the only argument you need.\n\nI tried using such an argument. [It backfired](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvztyn7","parent_id":"jvzniyg","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"ElPwnero","body":"I like the one Muslims use:\\\nThe word of allah is perfect and if you find inconsistencies, then it’s your human brain that’s incapable of understanding the true meaning.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzoket","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">I like the one Muslims use:\r \n> \n>The word of allah is perfect and if you find inconsistencies, then it’s your human brain that’s incapable of understanding the true meaning.\n\nI mean, they're basically insulting your intelligence. But isn't that a great bad faith tactic, dodging accountability by accusing your opponent of being too dumb to understand? I can't imagine myself faring any better debating a Muslim than debating a Christian.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzvglo","parent_id":"jvzoket","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"indigoneutrino","body":"The interesting thing is I've had the opposite experience. Plenty of experiences online and in person where they can barely rebut *anything* to the point that I've had a minister apologise she can't answer my questions satisfactorily. I've seen no-one rebut or even explain why the crucifixion makes sense without legitimising blood sacrifice. It just constantly defaults to \"Jesus paid for our sins,\" without explaining why the death of an innocent third party was accepted as a valid payment within a supposedly just system.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzppfh","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Pichkuchu","body":">It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted\n\nJust because you got outwitted doesn't mean the other side was right, they were, in fact, blatantly wrong. Christianity is just as guilty of atrocities as any religion. Keep in mind that Christianity is 2000 years old and they enslaved people until 1860 and they had to be \"convinced\" by war to give it up. They genocided native populations in America and colonized Asia and Africa. There was inquisition. They burned people for heresy, including scientists. They weren't different from other big religions or even pagans. The modern view of the world and humanity encompasses non Christian populations too and one could argue that it's in fact the result of secularism.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzqu5n","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"StrangeAssonance","body":"I’m curious why you think one has to prove God exists? \n\nAlso, when Jesus was on earth the Jews kept asking for a sign from Him. They were blind to what he was doing with His ministry. The world is blind, so when you try to have these arguments that you feel you can’t win, I think you aren’t ever going to win them. I can show you God through my words and deeds but if you are blind to that, you won’t see what’s there to see.\n\nJesus repeatedly talks about how blind and deaf people are to God and his word.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzr1ue","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">Also, when Jesus was on earth the Jews kept asking for a sign from Him. They were blind to what he was doing with His ministry. The world is blind, so when you try to have these arguments that you feel you can’t win, I think you aren’t ever going to win them. I can show you God through my words and deeds but if you are blind to that, you won’t see what’s there to see.\n\nThis is why I see my inability to believe as a disability comparable to being unable to read.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzzkhs","parent_id":"jvzr1ue","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"mo_ff","body":"You can have faith that your monthly bills will be paid whilst you have no money or means to do so OR you can actually have the money. One will work. The other will leave you with no utilities. Full stop.\n\nIn a debate with a Christian you would encounter, \"Oh, but have you no faith a brother in Christ would not help you?\" And then a large quantity of scriptural examples would be brought forth from whatever version of the bible they are most familiar with.\n\nAs others have stated, the deck is stacked. If you can approach the conversation with your family in a civil manor, stop going to church. Believe what makes you happy and mentally healthy so long as it doesn't hurt others.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzr2rx","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"HansPGruber","body":"You need to read some Thomas Paine my friend. A renegade if the atomic age.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzrn0v","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Morasain","body":"Couple things.\n\nThe first thing is that burden of proof is with the person making a claim - Christians in this case.\n\nThe second thing is - you don't need to refute the religion itself, because you can't.\n\nUsually, if you bring up things like pastors being molesters, or the crusades, or witch burnings, Christians will commit a No True Scotsman fallacy. \"These pastors aren't *real* Christians.\" You don't need to refute that argument because it is in itself wrong - but if you want, you can always go the path of saying that everyone in the church is, in the end, appointed by God.\n\nThe easiest way to reject Christianity is to instead reject God, though. You don't even need to prove that he's bad or anything - you need to use your own morality to reject the idea that a god like depicted in Christianity can be a god you want to believe in.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzrwx0","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"hdhddf","body":"you don't need to convince them, they're arguing from a position of ignorance and indoctrination, you can't argue with that because their arguments aren't built on logic or sound reasoning.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzs63u","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Huffers1010","body":"Let's do it by example. What did they have a rebuttal for that you couldn't respond to?\n\nMy suspicion is that they really didn't.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzt6nt","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"misersoze","body":"Just say: “hey I also met a Muslim, a Mormon, a Jew and a Hindu. They all make the exact same arguments as you do about why their religion is the correct one and they all say they have the one true religion. So why should I join yours over their’s”.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvztpz1","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Potential_Cod_8473","body":"They might win a debate but the world still is a shitty place full of diseases, suffering, birth defeacts. \n\nIt only prove how dishonest someone is to defend a claim it was created my omnipotent and omniscient being. \n\nChristianity was falsified many times\nAdam and Eve? Fairytale\nGreat Flood? Fairytale\nBabel's tower? Fairytale\nExocus? Fairytale \nRessurection? Really improbable\n\nThe fact that the scripture has to be interpreted in the face of new evidence like why would omnipotent God need 4 bilions years to create highly imperfect and miserable beings or why universe is 93 bilion light years wide and we are limited by a speed of light is a powerful evidence against revelation.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvztt3e","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"the_internet_clown","body":"Just because someone says something in response doesn’t make it a good rebuttal","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzugyn","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Relevant_Maybe6747","body":"Christianity doesn’t have a rebuttal against Judaism - they’ve tried and tried to kill us and never succeeded","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzuj4l","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Is that really a good argument though? By that logic, Islam doesn't have a rebuttal against Christianity either (or vice versa).","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw075ml","parent_id":"jvzuj4l","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Scott_The_Protogen","body":"Why \"debate\" someone's faith anyways? Unless they're being a jerk about it like in the last part. I always just have that whole live and let live thing (Even if some fanatics might not be that way either). I know you say some of these people come to you with the debates, but I feel like just giving a solid \"I don't want to talk about it\" or \"My views aren't going to change\" might work, even if they do continue to badger you regarding it, It doesn't have to be a winning-losing game.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzullx","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">Why \"debate\" someone's faith anyways? \n\nIn the first link, I was challenged to a debate out of the blue when I requested not to go to church anymore. He wanted me to read his spiel and change my views, or give a counter-argument strong enough to defend my views.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw07dt4","parent_id":"jvzullx","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Key-Extension1458","body":"2000 years ago there was a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem that took animal sacrifice from the people. This was fulfilling the Mosaic Covenant, and sustained Israel called \"Judea\". Like Jesus said it would happen, the temple was thrown down to the last stone and the sacrificial rite was \"nailed to the cross\" in the words of Paul the Apostle. This leaves us without redemption under the law, and everyone is guilty of sin everywhere. \n\nHence the figure of Christ intervenes, and made the ultimate sacrifice, putting death and guilt and hell itself into the fire. Now we have grace and mercy, and redemption by faith. It seems to work, since 2000 years of Christian history represented the general improvement of life everywhere. At the same time, the movement was hijacked by earthly forces resulting in \"churchianty\" and roman catholicism. All \"debates\" are just scholastic noise from that time, arguing in circles about nothing relevant. It is what it is, the temple of jerusalem was destroyed 2000 years ago and the levitical rites were nailed to the Cross.\n\nNow everything is a free gift, the more we cast off the old man and put on the new. Strong enough faith loses fear of everything and moves mountains, it is divine power given to mankind. God loves the children of this world and Israel in dispersion, which means everyone.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzur3s","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Key-Extension1458","body":"2000 years ago there was a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem that took animal sacrifice from the people. This was fulfilling the Mosaic Covenant, and sustained Israel called \"Judea\". Like Jesus said it would happen, the temple was thrown down to the last stone and the sacrificial rite was \"nailed to the cross\" in the words of Paul the Apostle. This leaves us without redemption under the law, and everyone is guilty of sin everywhere. \n\nHence the figure of Christ intervenes, and made the ultimate sacrifice, putting death and guilt and hell itself into the fire. Now we have grace and mercy, and redemption by faith. It seems to work, since 2000 years of Christian history represented the general improvement of life everywhere. At the same time, the movement was hijacked by earthly forces resulting in \"churchianty\" and roman catholicism. All \"debates\" are just scholastic noise from that time, arguing in circles about nothing relevant. It is what it is, the temple of jerusalem was destroyed 2000 years ago and the levitical rites were nailed to the Cross.\n\nNow everything is a free gift, the more we cast off the old man and put on the new. Strong enough faith loses fear of everything and moves mountains, it is divine power given to mankind. God loves the children of this world and Israel in dispersion, which means everyone.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzurg6","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">2000 years ago the Temple in Jerusalem took animal sacrifice from the people. It was fulfilling the Mosaic Covenant, and sustained Israel called \"Judea\" at the time. Like Jesus said it would happen, the temple was thrown down to the last stone and the sacrificial rite was \"nailed to the cross\" in the words of Paul the Apostle. This leaves us without redemption under the law, and everyone is guilty of sin everywhere. \n> \n>Hence the figure of Christ intervenes, and made the ultimate sacrifice, putting death and guilt and hell itself into the fire. Now we have grace and mercy, and redemption by faith. It seems to work, since 2000 years of Christian history represented the general improvement of life everywhere. At the same time, the movement was hijacked by earthly forces resulting in \"churchianty\" and roman catholicism. All \"debates\" are just scholastic noise from that time, arguing in circles about nothing relevant. It is what it is, the temple of jerusalem was destroyed 2000 years ago and the levitical rites were nailed to the Cross. \n> \n>Now everything is a free gift, the more we cast off the old man and put on the new. Strong enough faith loses fear of everything and moves mountains, it is divine power given to mankind. God loves the children of this world and Israel in dispersion, which means everyone.\n\nIs this supposed to be a promotion of Protestantism?","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw07io1","parent_id":"jvzurg6","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"danmilligan","body":"One thing I'm sensing is that you're thinking of Christianity as a monolith, and while that was once true, it hasn't been for a long, long time. So many types of Christianity exist that there will be Christians on opposite sides of nearly any given issue. The true non-negotiables of the religion are extremely minimal, and highly interpretive. Because of this, you can't really say \"Christians are like this\" or \"Christians do that\", because this will apply to SOME Christians, but certainly not all. For a good example, the majority of American Christians are extremely unique from a global perspective, being far more individualistic, and reading the Bible in a slavishly literal fashion, among other things. So if you say \"Christians are anti-LGBTQ\", there are millions and millions of other Christians ready to counter that.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzusf6","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">One thing I'm sensing is that you're thinking of Christianity as a monolith, and while that was once true, it hasn't been for a long, long time. So many types of Christianity exist that there will be Christians on opposite sides of nearly any given issue. The true non-negotiables of the religion are extremely minimal, and highly interpretive.\n\nI'm well aware of the splits within Christianity. What I mention in my post detail is that I have tried and miserably failed to defend my lack of faith from both Catholics and Protestants. I understand that they'd have different ways of thinking regarding lack of faith, but at the end of the day, both defeated me.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw07u6h","parent_id":"jvzusf6","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"GreasyPorkGoodness","body":"You need to dismantle the church hierarchy and not the “existence of god”. \n\nIt’s not that you don’t believe in god, you don’t believe in Christianities following of god. Their church is corrupt, opulent, child molesters, hypocritical, child marriage, judgmental, in Christ like etcetera. \n\nGod very well might exist, if he does he certainly won’t approve of christianity.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzuv92","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"CutiePopIceberg","body":"Christianity is Middle Eastern mythology. Christians hate when you remind them of this.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzv7py","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"JustSomeDude0605","body":"\"I don't believe in that bullshit\"\n\nDebate over.\n\nContrary to your brother's or pastor's wishes, you don't owe them any sort of debate or explanation. Live your life as you want to, not based on what they think you should do. If that means, no religion then stop going to church. \n\nFuck em.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzvaah","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"CriticalThinkingAT","body":"The thing is, there are a mountain of atheist rebuttals as well. Like literally there are so many atheist channels out there to rebutting every Christian argument that it's just a matter of searching and looking for them. Lol. You'll be fine.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzvipb","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">The thing is, there are a mountain of atheist rebuttals as well. Like literally there are so many atheist channels out there to rebutting every Christian argument that it's just a matter of searching and looking for them. Lol. You'll be fine.\n\nCounterpoint: Only a few of these are useful. Most channels appear to be useful only against Protestant pastors who rely on charisma. Catholicism is much harder to debate against as they have 2000 years of church tradition, intellectuals and apologia on their side.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw09z3v","parent_id":"jvzvipb","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"OpenByTheCure","body":"I don't want to be harsh, but I just think you're not very good at debating","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzvw3c","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"I am bad at debating (and most other things). Maybe that's why I always get challenged to debates, because I will lose.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0b11j","parent_id":"jvzvw3c","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Dr_Keyser_Soze","body":"You need to listen to David C. Smalley. Take in a few podcasts and you won’t be disappointed.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzvzk2","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Wintermute815","body":"It’s really not. It depends on circular logic and faith, both of which are critical flaws.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzx8zv","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"j3rdog","body":"Stop trying to debate facts by point counter point. Learn street epistemology. There’s good YouTube channels and subreddits on it.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzxa1z","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Unable-Food7531","body":"You're:\n\n1. Bad at debating in general\n\n2. An unskilled rhetorician \n\n3. Uneducated on the topic you're debating.\n\nThose Three things together mean than any attempt to draw generally-appliable conclusions from your debating losses is doomed to produce bs.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzxmej","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"How can I get all 3 skills when I'm up against people who have so much more knowledge than me? I hate it when I give others a reason to criticise me.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw05k0t","parent_id":"jvzxmej","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"DangForgotUserName","body":"Christians don't have arguments, just elaborate evasions of criticism.\n\nIn order to be religious, or believe in a supernatural god, to some extent, one has to deny certain aspects of science, and also have to deny the foundations of reason and logic. \n\n\nThere are major undemonstrated claims that come with theism:\n\n-a spiritual, divine, or otherwise supernatural realm exists \n\n-there are nonphysical spiritual forces and entities \n -some kind of afterlife exists\n\n-at least humans have souls, which are the spiritual essence \"attached\" to a physical body\n\nEven if all these were demonstrated, we would still have no way of determining which deities were real. These claims are also far from being demonstrated, likely, or even possible. \n\nEven then, we have no way to link such deities to any religion that anyone worships.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzxv11","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Electrical-Rabbit157","body":"It’s not well designed. It’s the worst designed religion in the world actually. The success of Christianity is based around keeping people from learning about other faiths. The moment that happens the VAST majority of them leave christianity for something else. Myself included. \n\nYou have to go at the fundamental hypocrisy of it. The average Christian rants and raves about the Ten Commandments and yet every single one of them break the first 2 commandments daily and most break 3 commandments every Sunday. The average priest breaks the first 4. Then there’s the fact that the Bible is a corrupt text and Christianity as a whole was founded by Paul, a man who is not a prophet, not a disciple, not an apostle, just a random guy who comes out of nowhere and starts preaching that Jesus is God.\n\nThey worship a trinity which is paganism. There is no excuse for it. It’s the same exact belief system as Hindus which are literally the original pagans that Abraham fought against. This trinity also includes a man. That man is considered a prophet but still. This breaks the first commandment. \n\nThey idolize said man and the cross he died on. They wear necklaces with it. They put big gold crosses at the front of their churches and big wooden ones on the outside of them. This breaks the second commandment \n\nThey go to church on Sunday and the vast majority of them believe this is the sabbath. Which directly breaks the fourth commandment.\n\nThe priesthood commits extortion and sometimes even rape in either the name of God or what they lead people to believe is a house of God. This breaks the third commandment \n\nThen you get to the Bible and it’s non existent integrity. There are about 5 major sects of Christianity. Each one has about 40 versions of the Bible. And the average Christian may think this is normal, it’s not. Jews have 1 version of the Torah. Muslims have 1 version of the Quran. Hell even the Hindus only have 1 version of most of their texts. The new testemant is more written by Paul, who is again, not a prophet, than any actual apostle. All of Paul’s letters are included in the vast majority of bibles yet the book of Enoch, book of Jesus Christ, and lost gospel to Peter are considered “uncanon” by the church and have been removed for centuries. That is not a holy text. It may have been a couple thousand years ago but out of 200+ in circulation today, I’d seriously doubt any can be considered uncorrupted.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzyqtq","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"malorane","body":"Isn't this other person either straight up lying or totally misinformed about the Christianity/Catholicism? Like I could be misremembering but I'm pretty sure there are passages that literally give you guidelines about how to treat your slaves and this dude said both have always been against slavery?","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzz7x7","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"CantKeepMeOutYo","body":"You will never win against someone with faith. They will always always always have some other bullshit excusw up their sleeves. That's what makes religion so fucking dangerous: it uses logic when it works and then completely disregards it when logic doesn't work. Don't bother debating christians, they've accepted a parasite into their body that will defend its ability to feed off the host, even if it means killing the host, or YOU.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzzg1h","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"wibbly-water","body":">If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\r \n\r \nIf you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\n\nIgnoring the second proposition for a second I want to propose 2 more reasonable secular arguments;\n\n1. This is true of all religions because their axioms and methods for diving truth are different. They believe, want to believe, will tie all phenomena in with their argument, will ignore Occam's Razor to do so. \n2. If Christianity is better than (some) other religions at doing this it may be because it is a highly evolved system of memes. A meme is the idea equivalent to a gene. Religions are memetic in nature - they are ideologies, ideas about how the world works. Memes compete for space and survival much like genes do. And every time one of its memes is threatened it is forced to either drop that meme and adapt or bolster it to do the same. Look at the iterations of historical Christianity. Where are the puritans today? Even Protestantism evolved out of Catholicism - many will claim that they are barely the same religion.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzzk96","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"DangForgotUserName","body":"The salvation of man is dependent on the suffering of Jesus Christ. His 'blood sacrifice magic' supposedly forgives original sin - doctrine that we know though biology is utterly wrong. (A couple of garden nudists were guilty of rebellious fruit munching, so everyone deserves death or eternal torment?) This makes the theological story around Jesus one where he is scapegoat of a nonexistent forebear. This should undermine the value of Jesus as well as the foundational basis for belief in God.\n\n \n\nFurther, the idea that the only way to forgive is through ritualized punishment? That is petty and immoral. No forgiveness without bloodshed or death. Horrible, ignorant and outdated ideas.\n\n\nThe idea of a messiah, one who will deliver us from the tribulations of the present, is an ancient idea that distracts us from the hard work that must be done to build a better world.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzzkww","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Emotional_platypuss","body":"The problem here is both sides trying to impose beliefs on others. What you believe or don't believe is your problem. You don't need to explain why you don't follow a religion, specially to religious people. Is like them telling you why their religion is so good. Break out of that circle and move on","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0052z","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"notjuan_f_m","body":"This Is the problem with everything lately. \"I am right, you are wrong, and I will continue to tell you until you accept that i am right\"","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw00l9j","parent_id":"jw0052z","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"JackedLilJill","body":"If anything, just from your text and title, the fact that Christians explain themselves fully in the face of debate, should be the reason to change your view.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw00vuq","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"FerdinandTheGiant","body":"For your first debate with your brother, he was just straight up wrong on so much. Christianity is not and does not serve as the basis for morality in the western world or the world as a whole. \n\nMost of the non-western world like in Asia is not heavily Christian and wasn’t for most of their history. They of course are doing just fine. Christian morals have not been consistent nor are they the basis for a basic society. \n\nAdditionally, you don’t need Christianity to explain altruism as it already has a natural explanation. It’s called kin selection and essentially means that it is beneficial to help out family since they carry your genes. This means more of your genes will get passed on. This is likely how it evolved in humans and then developed into what we consider today. Animals do this. Altruism isn’t human alone. \n\nThen you have slavery which the Bible openly says is fine. Leviticus 25:44-46","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw013nj","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"-Strawdog-","body":"Taking a quick look at one or two of these examples, you have a very noticeable habit of accepting a lot of the other person's premises and arguments without pushing back on them at all. As an example, your brother mentions multiple times that altruistic behavior is the direct result of the Christian faith, an argument that is absolutely ridiculous for a bunch of reasons, not the least of which that our closest genetic relatives (chimpanzees and bonobos) exhibit all kinds of altruistic behaviors as part of their highly social lifestyles (and they also don't sacrifice eachother, something he seems weirdly hung up on).\n\nTo be honest, it doesn't look like the people you're debating have good arguments or are good at expressing them, it seems that you are just very new to debate, particularly on this topic. If debating religious folks is something you want to do (you are incredibly unlikely to change their minds even with very good arguments), you can find plenty of solid resources online that break down and refute just about any apologetics you are likely to encounter.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw01pm9","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"lamabaronvonawesome","body":"I have found the opposite to be true. I would recommend reading some books on logic and debate. Having an answer doesn't make it a good answer. I had a debate teacher that used to day \"the definition of a reason is anything I put forth as a reason.\" This essentially means you SAY anything, that doesn't mean it will hold up under scrutiny. You mentioned miracles that a person had given you examples of in their own life. Debate in essence is about definitions, how we define things. Get them to give you the definition of a miracle. I personally would define that as any event that is ONLY explainable by divine intervention. See if their miracles hold up to that.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw02avd","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"kountze","body":"The Church did have some good effects on political and cultural development in Europe - for example the separation of powers came from the Church being a strong counter force to the government for so long, church limited the government in ways that led to values of separation of powers and limited government, unlike China which was much more state dominated and still is today. Protestantism represented not only a change in religion but also a change in how humans think logically - so yeah a lot of good things can be tied to how Protestantism changed how people think. \n\nThat being said, the above certainly is a far cry from saying that Protestantism values will work in every situation or that it can address all of today’s modern problems. Protectionism ideally is something that should be open to interpretation, which modern Christianity has moved away from that. \n\nIn terms of science the Church does not have credible arguments - that’s the main problem. If you think they do, you really haven’t encountered anyone who actually knows the science and microbiology. \n\nAlso, do not confuse correlation and causation. Certain positive developments in society may correlate, but that correlation does not prove causation. \n\n\nThe issue with","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw035en","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Jaderholt439","body":"If I’m debating Christianity, I like to go straight to the main topic- the Resurrection.\n\nMost people I know and love are Christians; I don’t have a problem w/ their religion. I love these people. But what I don’t like are apologists. Every single one that I’ve ever seen is dishonest. Especially when it comes to the Resurrection.\n\nIt’s not hard to believe that a guy named Yeshua, who had a religious following, was crucified. I can even believe he was put in his own tomb, although most were put in a mass grave, it’s wasn’t unheard of. The stone being put to block the tomb and guards sound like they were plot holes being fixed in Matthew, but for arguments sake, I’ll agree to that too.\n\nJesus wasn’t in the tomb when they went to him 3 days later. What is the most likely explanation? Is it, “he must’ve overcome death and ascended, bc he’s God”? I think a Guy Ritchie style heist is way more plausible. ‘They forgot which cave’ is more plausible. Literally anything is more plausible. If they are being honest, they have to say, “I believe it on faith”. Yet, apologists will not say this, therefore they are dishonest, therefore they don’t have an answer for everything.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw03fxs","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Entropy_Drop","body":"LOL on the first link. Christianity didn't opposed slavery, and doesn't have a monopoly on being a good person. It actually was the ideological fundation of american slavery.\n\nHypocrates wasn't christian, gandi neither, and personal freedom, democracy and equality of genders aren't christian values.\n\nThe golden rule (\"don't do to other what you dont want done to yourself\") and the silver rule (\"do to others what you want to recieve from them\" (bdsm, for example)) are not creation of christianity. \n\nSome christian are propagandiced all their life into the worldview of \"all good comes from christ\", which is clearly a big lie. Is kinda justified for them to sell that lie, tho.\n\nAlso, that motto has a counter-part: \"No bad comes from christ\" which is my only explanation to how incredible bigoted people justify their behavior without ever thinking \"are we the badies?\". Anita \"pie-face\" Bryant comes to mind, who, in her own words \"loved homosexuals\".","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw04f2l","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Jade_Skie","body":"TJ Kirk (aka The Amazing Atheist) on YouTube once mentioned \"unfalsifiable hypothesis.\" In other words, Christians spout the argument that miracles, what is said in the Bible, Satan, and God all exist and are as the answer to everything because immediate evidence to the contrary can normally not be produced by their opponent, thus no argument against them can be made. So in their minds, they are right. That is, of course, not how the world/universe actually works.\n\nTo quote Carl Sagan: \"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.\"","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw04j73","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"JuliusErrrrrring","body":"Remember the following truths: most people who claim they are Christians are good people; most people who are good people and claim they are Christian are good because of their ignorance of the Bible, not because of the Bible. The Bible is an awful immoral book and the religion is completely silly. It is pro slavery, pro genocide, pro forced abortion and pro incest. If you are debating anyone who isn't in favor of those things, they may be actually non believers too, they are just too ignorant of their religion to know any better.\n\n​\n\nIt is completely silly and does not hold up to debate. Just some quick obvious random thoughts off the top of my head: They suck at math - claim to have one god yet believe in a holy trinity as well as an evil god. Many Christians claim to be against abortion, yet the Bible actually gives an abortion recipe, god murdered pregnant women in his Noah's Arc genocide, and Jesus forced abortions on Jezebel. Many Christians are anti-trans and anti gay - yet Eve transitioned from a male rib and now they worship a dress wearing dude with two fathers who identifies as bread and wine. Cain and Abel were the original motherfuckers. The whole bible was written by people who never met Jesus and there is zero historical proof that there even was a man named Jesus pretending to be god. It's just a gigantic hoax that's been accepted due to peer pressure because life is easier and you can make more money and get laid easier if you simply play along with this silly marketing scheme.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw05bz4","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Loose-Technology7787","body":"Christianity is designed that way. Christians are programmed in a way via church and such where they hold their belief to a much higher standard than any facts or logic despite a lack of evidence. On of christianity's main taglines is to just have faith in god even though hes done nothing to show you hes there.\n\nDebating a religious person on religion is an unwinnable debate. You cant argue against someones opinion when the only points they will accept are those that align with said opinion. For example, many christians say good and evil only exist because god decides whats good and bad. I might say that life is meaningless, therefore our thoughts and feelings are all that exist making them all that matters. Meaning we get to choose whats moral; however the christian would then just say life isnt meaningless because god gives meaning to life. This will go on for any length of time.\n\nThe only reason atheists win those official televised debates is because theres a mediator keeping nonsense out of it. They keep the religious side from using unreasonable and illogical arguments, which leads to them losing.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw05l8j","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"BuzzyShizzle","body":"That's funny because, I have yet to hear them lose an argument/debate on the atheist experience yet. \n\nIf you haven't heard of it, there is a call-in radio show called \"the atheist experience\" and the entire show is welcoming any religious to call in and challenge them. If you want your view changed, that show will do a much better job than anything else.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw06l99","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Sad_Confidence8941","body":"I agree, Christianity is very well designed. The smartest people alive for many centuries spent their lives defending Christianity (Thomas Aquinas, Saint Augustine, etc). They have been philosophically attacked for years and years and are still here","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw06orq","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"nomad5926","body":"Homie out here saying the altruism isn't a natural thing without Christianity..... 🤣 Bro be saying Meerkats are all Christians? Or Naked Mole Rats?\n\nI will never understand why people have to force religion upon others. But essentially an easy way out is to ask them to provide solid proof that God existed. Logically you cannot not prove a belief. (Like others have said before me). Typically the ones making the claim \"god exists\" have the burden of proof. \n\nAlso in my experience you're not going to convince anyone to stop believing. It's the same reason kids believe in Santa it gives them something. For most people, religion is a source of comfort. It's why, from what I see, older folks are more religious. (Cause you know.... Closer to death... Heaven seems nicer).\n\nIf you just want them to stop harassing you, you can just say that your relationship with God is personal and need not be on disability for others. (You don't have to say the bit that the relationship is non-existent).","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0753r","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Moraulf232","body":"Christianity has an answer for any criticism but the answers are silly and unconvincing just like the religion.\n\nJust ask yourself “has this answer explained why I should believe these assertions with no evidence or has it just made more assertions with no evidence?” and “could this answer be used to justify the existence of a Flying Spaghetti Monster or literally any other deity?” or “is there any evidence that the person I am talking to can imagine that would cause them to change their mind?” etc.\n\nThe philosophical arguments (apologetics) religions use are just fancy noise. There’s nothing there.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw07atx","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"lpuckeri","body":"Theres many reasons why christianity is absolutely absurd, at a childlike and comical level imo. I have equal belief in it than i do Santa. The apologetics for christianity are just excuses for something as rediculous as believing in flying to heaven on a winged horse.\n\nLets remember, we are arguing about. A cosmic jewish god zombie who is his own father and was born a virgin birth to a women impregnated by a holy ghost. \n\nThere is zero evidence for this that is not heresay. Not a single item or record or peice of evidence contemporary to jesus exists. To confirm this laughably absurd story all we have is stories that contradict each other, written in the wrong language, written decades to centuries after the fact, much of which we know was straight up forged and copied from surrounding greek myths and people.\n\nGetting lost in abologetics is exacty meant to make you forget you are proving an absurd thing eith zero evidence, and get caught up in the weeds.\n\n\nReasons. \n\n1. Supernatural events in the bible are empirically impossible to prove. Christians may use awful arguments like minimal facts etc, but these are all comically bad and fallacious. Abuductive reasoning is all we have access to, and that can never demonstrate supernatural events... This alone is enough, as it is logicalltly impossible to demonstrate christianity through our resources.\n\n2. The bible is self contradictory, the trinity and more is exceedingly illogical. By this i mean it literslly violates the laws of logic... and is isnanely stupid.\n\n3. The bible is obvious myth taken from surrounding cultures.\n\n4. There are no decent biblical scholars who think Moses wrote the old testament. Moses clearly never existed and exodus never happened. This is extremely confirmed... there is extreme evidence the base of both judeaism and christianity is 100% made up.\n\n5. People that claim supernatural events or whatever... 1. Does not prove god, or their god... it proves they had something special happen and nothing more. 2. These are nothing more than claims. 3. People claim this shit for every religion, thousands... if you apply this standard as evidence for one... you must for thousands of gods. 4. Once you understand psychology you realize how the brain works snd how easy it is for people to misnterpret things visually and auditory.\n\n6. Religions are not one off inventions. They are all representations and copyings of popular myths at the time. This can be seen in thousands of religions. Just as it is in christianity... the devil and hell doesnt become a thing until Greek influence, things like rising and dying saviours were popular greek myths too at the time of the bible etc. In fact the bible was wirtten in greek, not aramaic, the language Jesis and his follower would have spoken. You see babylonian myths copied into the parts of the bible, when they were written there...you see the bibles hell and devil and apocalyptic influences copying greek myth during the hellenistic period. Religions are copies of surrounding myth and cultures.\n\n7. Apologists often use arguments to prove god that are diestic. Things like the ontological srgument, teleological argument... aside from these being bad arguments, they only prove A God... not christianity. Even if the Kalam is true... the odds of christianity bring true is still zero... it gets you no closer.\n\n8. The bible wasnt written by geniuses. It was written by copying and adapting popular myths, cultures, and laws at the time. From copying ancient semetic religions and near eastern traditions 4000 tears ago, to adapting greek myths 2000 years ago. It also was written of centuries, adapted, edited, revised, forged, faked, reinterpreted thousands of times by hundeds of people. This idea some geniuses wrote this thing like you see it now is childishly ignorant of scholarship and history.\n\n9. There are actually about 94 gospels. 90 of which christians will admit are 100% bullshit mythological stories... yet they somehow think these are the special true 4, because the church leaders centuries ago simply decided so. \n\n10. These excuses and arguments for christianity are no better and no different than the ones Jews will use, or muslims, or Sikhs. You just live in a place around christians most likely. \n\nIts interesting because i have never heard a christian argument to me than is not childishly rediculous imo.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw07u2w","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Inevitable_Spare_777","body":"You can’t have a factual, logical debate with a person who’s worldview doesn’t subscribe to facts and logic","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw08ays","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"drzowie","body":"There is no direct way to argue a Christian out of Christianity, because it is a faith-based system of beliefs. But you *can* demand respect for your own beliefs.\n\nA couple of years ago, I wrote about just how incompatible Christian beliefs are with the scientific worldview. That line of argument is (like any other argument) unlikely to convince a fervent believer -- but may help you to understand that there are real weaknesses in the edifice of Christian thought. \n\nBelow is [copypasta from an early CMV post I made](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/7zy9wp/cmv_you_can_accept_todays_scientific_theory/durqqmi/):","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw08i8h","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"DouglerK","body":"I mean if they didn't the religion would probably be dead by now.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw08xbe","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"joshp23","body":"> If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniouses\n\nAll they have at their disposal are unfalsifiable claims. You can't prove that the invisible dragon in my garage doesn't exist either. The rest is a con act to attribute personal experience to the dragon. \n\nBut unfalsifiability and con tactics aside, wouldn't a genius be able to construct an effective argument *and* compile an internally consistent document at the same time? You have to do mental gymnastics to apologize for the ignorance and inconsistencies in the Bible.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw09c2d","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Crookwell","body":"OR you just aren't a very good critic?\nBecause I can rebuke shitty religious claims all day","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw09wvx","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"redstar15551","body":"Maybe you should give up then? You're not gonna \"Gotcha\" Christianity so leave them alone. Your lack of faith and overabundance of cynicism does not bug anyone the slightest. Don't trap yourself because you view this as an unwinnable battle against some dogmatic close minded religion, when that in and of itself is close minded. There's a modern pushback against religion, Christianity specifically, that has been pushed hard; but Christianity has and will continue to endue.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0a4wk","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Various_Succotash_79","body":"When my brothers were young, they played a game that was very much like Calvinball (if you've never read the comic Calvin and Hobbes, this is a game they made up on the fly). So it was all stuff like \"now the floor is lava so you burn up!\" \"Oh yeah? I throw 60 million tons of dry uce on it and that cools it off\", \"well that was too much and now you're frozen solid!\" Etc. \n\nThat's pretty much what religion is. Your mistake is in trying to make any sense of it.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0b260","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">When my brothers were young, they played a game that was very much like Calvinball (if you've never read the comic Calvin and Hobbes, this is a game they make up on the fly, so it never has the same rules). So it was all stuff like \"now the floor is lava so you burn up!\" \"Oh yeah? I throw 60 million tons of dry ice on it and that cools it off\", \"well that was too much and now you're frozen solid!\" Etc. \n\n!delta\n\nAs you show, you can't get anywhere trying to defend yourself from a religion which is designed to dodge accountability and make opponents lose. It's not designed for a debate, it's designed to be inescapable.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw25sdi","parent_id":"jw0b260","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Collective82","body":"If you are having such a hard time debating it, shouldn’t you consider it’s right and maybe you should look at converting?","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0bbov","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"I have. The problem is no matter how hard I try, I have zero spirituality and a complete inability to be sincerely connected with any religion. I see this as a disability comparable to being unable to because it's such a drag on my life.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw263jo","parent_id":"jw0bbov","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Fluffy_Candle6800","body":"I'll give you a quote from a book I read - \"God is omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent. However, bad things still happen. This means God cannot stop the bad things - he is not omnipotent, God does not know the things are happening - he is not omniscient, or he allows the bad things to happen - he is not benevolent.\"","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0bhc0","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"I've accepted the last one. How can I possibly believe in a benevolent god, when he gives miracles to some and neglects genuine victims, or when the religion he designed has endless excuses and loopholes to dodge all accountability?","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw26dbi","parent_id":"jw0bhc0","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"ItsAll42","body":"I do feel as though you too quickly concede many points that are not accurate or honest, but stated with such confidence they are difficult to rebutt just as confidently without sufficient background knowledge. In fact, some of these claims are just straight up racist, such as claiming altruism is not only a strictly christian virtue, but that many values such as caring for the sick and needy or having basic human decency are strictly Western practices and values.\n\n This is wildly inaccurate to claim, knowledge of history can easily debunk such ludicrous statments, especially considering much of the Western ideology is more focused on individualism where confucianism is more focused on the community as a whole. Buddhism stresses that all beings have inherent worth and challenges the strictly heiarchichal values of confucianism, yet still plenty of emphasis is placed on how to better the community as a whole and being kind for the sake of altruism and kindness without any expectation of personal rewards. You do not have to be a historian or theologian to debunk so much of what this person is claiming, especially in regard to other Abrahamic religions which are incredibly similar to the teachings of Christianity, you know, because they share a common historical and biblical root. While modern interpretations of Abrahamic faiths run the gamut, they are more alike than many of their subscribers would like to admit. \n\nIn fact, I'd argue that Christianity and most of its branches contain more self-serving motives than many religious beliefs, promising prosperity and wealth in heaven as a reward for good behavior. As an agnostic person I do not need a reward for my good behavior. \n\nAs you tried to point out, when this person claims pagans did not care for the sick or other absurd claims, the burden of proof is on them to substantiate such a ridiculous assumption. \n\nThis person comes across as making many intellectually dishonest arguments, and you more or less concede or gloss many of these points without pushback.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0cszb","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">This person comes across as making many intellectually dishonest arguments, and you more or less concede or gloss many of these points without pushback.\n\nThat's because I didn't study history at a tertiary level. See how I'm a frequent visitor to r/AskHistorians - because I'm not smart or knowledgeable about history. Are you suggesting that to defeat Christianity, I'll need a university degree in history?","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw26yyz","parent_id":"jw0cszb","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"FerdinandTheGiant","body":"Most, if not all of the Western values people like to claim are “Judeo-Christian” in origin simply aren’t. For one “Judeo-Christian values” aren’t a thing as these groups have different values, however let’s consider a few things we value in the west. \n\n#Democracy\n\nIn the Bible, democracy is never extolled or even articulated. Instead, there are endless stories of theocratic, authoritarian rule and the divine right of kings. Power is always concentrated; it’s never distributed. In classical Greece, however, Athenians established what is generally recognized as the world’s first democracy around 500 BCE. This predates Christianity and arose with no Jewish influence.\n\n#Common Humanity/ Equality\n\nThis is simply not biblical. In the New Testament, women are forbidden from holding authority over a man, told to be silent in church, and instructed to be obedient and submissive to their husbands. The same word used for submissive in Colossians also is used to describe how slaves should be to their masters. Women can be killed if they’re suspected of having premarital sex; the tenth commandment forbids coveting property, which includes women in the same sentence as houses and oxen; if a woman was raped, she was forced to marry her rapist if the offender paid her father, and on and on it goes.\n\nNon-Israelites or gentiles were forced into slavery and treated as property. This is seen in Leviticus and all over the Hebrew Bible. Slavery was condoned and justified for thousands of years using the Bible. \n\n#10 Commandments\n\nA common argument is that these “laws” are where we derive most of our morals and values in the west. This is rather silly. \n\nFor starters, a lot of the commandments are about idolatry, however other Rules like “thou shall not kill” predate Christianity and Judaism by hundreds of years. Literally any and all functional societies require this rule to be in place. And all over the world you see non-Christian nations follow similar “laws”. This is because they are beneficial for building a society. \n\n#Other religions\n\nOther religions have much stronger moral codes that Christanity. Jainism believes so much in the value of life that they won’t even talk at night because they could accidentally harm an insect. Buddhists have a deep personal desire to self improve while also improving the lives of those around them. Same could be said for taoists.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0dbxm","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"That's the problem though. You assume that Christianity is pro-democracy and pro-equality when history has shown us that they'd gladly throw these concepts under the bus if it were in the way of their religion.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw27njn","parent_id":"jw0dbxm","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Circular360Angles90","body":"People often conflate these two completely separate ideas. God/Higher Power - whatever you want to call it, with - Religion. \n\nReligion, in its limited ability tries to use the concept of God in an attempt to sway your reasoning capabilities towards their doctrine. God, however is completely separate from Religion.\n\nReligion just seems to have a Monopoly on the word. People feel as though believing in a God or Gods means they should adhere to some way of “knowing” their God. - which is all that a religion really does. But rest assured that it is someone elses ideas you are digesting. Theres nothing wrong with consulting people whom you believe to be wise or have more experience, but if you start feeling like they have some sort of answer that you cant quite grasp, then your talking to the wrong people. \n\nThis is not something that anyone can “show” you or “debate” you about. \n\nGod isnt in a book. God isnt an idea you learn from the pulpit. God isnt reason nor logic. God isnt bad. God isnt good. \n\nYou are engaging in a debate where their is nothing to debate, thus you always be “outwitted.”\n\nThink for yourself, walk your own path. You’ll fall flat on your face initially, perhaps for many years and, if you can muster up strength to get up on your own and not ask anybody why you fell and why it hurts so bad - you’ll stop feeling “outwitted.”","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0f9fa","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">You are engaging in a debate where their is nothing to debate, thus you always be “outwitted.”\n\n>Think for yourself, walk your own path. You’ll fall flat on your face initially, perhaps for many years and, if you can muster up strength to get up on your own and not ask anybody why you fell and why it hurts so bad - you’ll stop feeling “outwitted.”\n\nIsn't this the problem though? Most people can earn external respect being just who they are. In contrast, I have to prove my respectability, and prove why I have valid views, and I always lose.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw2llv2","parent_id":"jw0f9fa","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"CIABrainBugs","body":"If God was real, his actions would prevent me from giving him any respect. I don't care if he's real.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0fl5d","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Nghtmare-Moon","body":"Read Carl Sagan’s demon haunted world. It’s the best essay to counter all religious arguments","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0g6mu","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"GainPornCity","body":"It's not that there's a rebuttle for everything. There's just a different lens to look through. \n\nSay an atheist has blue shades on and sees everything as blue. Christian sees everything as red. However, the one commonality between the Athiest and the Christian is the human construct..thereby despite being in different mindsets, they both acknowledge phenomena as they unfold in the world\n\nNo matter how much blue you speak regarding world phenomena, the Christian will respond to *each* phenomenon with a red response. \n\n\nThis phenomenon, you look at through a blue lens and say: \"The Christian has an excuse for everything, no matter how blue, there's always gonna be some red to speak on from their side.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0gw4r","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Realistic-Cat4116","body":"The only rebuttal you need is: \"Prove it.\" Keep repeating that over and over again. They can't, you win, end of argument.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0h3pm","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Okami_The_Agressor_0","body":"Debating things that are designed to explain all with a basis in non-falsifiable statements is impossible. Religions are all memetic viruses that are meant to superimpose a false sense of the world on their followers, there are other belief systems that do the same that don't involve god but a well designed memetic virus can't be successful with out being impervious to logic or ways to side step rational thinking. That being said many modern political beliefs are structured similarly and operate in a similar fashion to religions. \n\nReligion imparts a base line culture and morality to people that allows for a more respectful and peaceful society. Part of what make that possible is ideological sanitation of a populace. Diversity of ways of life sparks conflict and religion solves that a good portion of the time. You could potentially see how many recent events have been the result of diverse culture and belief systems, so any derivation of heterogenization of society would logically be rejected by such belief systems with understandable cause.\n\nI believe people should be able to do what ever they please but when there is no respect in society people seek control from government to maintain the peace. So the easiest way for a country to stay free is to remain an ethno/ideological-state, or very slow and controlled change. When accounting these things you must satisfy for the lowest common denominator which will inevitable reject things on the basis of tribal instinct.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0k3j1","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"ApeMummy","body":"You’re outwitted because you lack wit not because christianity is special.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0k3sk","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"SeymoreButz38","body":"1st is a citation needed. Second was a semantic argument. Third is a no true scotsman fallacy.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0kns0","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Ecoronel1989","body":"I think the issue here is your brother does a few things to confuse you.\n1. Switching between defending spirituality and Christianity.\n2. Berating you with words so it's hard for you to rebuttal everything that is said (an overwhelming tactic).\n3. Throws out unprovable claims that are opinions as facts.\n\nFor #1, there's a big difference between spirituality and Christianity. Christianity asserts it is the one true religion, all others are wrong and lead to a wrong lifestyle. Spirituality is a general idea about believing in something outside oneself. To Christians, spirituality is paganism (unless it's Christianity itself) and therefore wrong and cannot be accepted or celebrated. So your brother can't simply pick and choose to say spirituality is good for the health and then switch to say Islam is not a good religion as these are contradictory statements.\n\nBut this issue is linked to #2, he berates arguments with a ton of words and makes multiple \"points\" at once. This is a similar tactic to what Donald Trump has used during his time as a politician. Simply overload the other side with a word soup, throwing out multiple arguments that are each wrong, but takes effort to debate each of them. By the time you gather your thoughts about the first wrong statement, he's moved on to the next 3, it's overwhelming.\n\nWhich leads to the last point, that is throwing out unprovable claims in the midst of his word soup. Claims such as there would be no morality without religion are unprovable for modern science since we have had religion in all cultures for over 2000 years, so it's hard to test this \"fact\". Another one that comes to mind is saying there's objective morality in the Bible, which you argued is not because of the Bible. Another counterargument is that the interpretation to the Bibles teachings changes across generations (i.e. slavery allowed for priests) and is therefore not objective, but his claim is unprovable in general as you can only offer up counter examples he can claim we're people not following the \"truth\".\n\nOverall, I think you're doing better than you think at debating this issue. The larger issue is what others have pointed out, that you don't have to win this argument, simply live by what you believe is true like they do.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0m923","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"TimeFliesFaster","body":"It doesn’t have a good rebuttal as to why Jesus is the prophesied messiah of a religion that believes in a single unitary god. Especially when Jesus didn’t have the right ancestors and failed to meet the applicable prophesies (ie dead all coming back to life, temple being restored for all time, diaspora returning, war coming to permanent end, and entire world embracing scripture in messiah’s lifetime)","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0sjyl","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"David_Warden","body":"You are trying to prove a negative which is a waste of time.\n\nThey are the ones making the improbable claims so the burden of proof lies with them. \n\nIf they continue to pester you, ask them to prove it.\n\nI think you will find that it boils down to belief in the highly improbable that is not adequately supported by either evidence or reasoning.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw1cnr9","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"SaltiestRaccoon","body":"Sure. They have rebuttals. They're just not as good as you think they are. And they tend to be the same rebuttals over and over.\n\nI mean just to refute the ones you were hit with... In the first example, he paints the 'pagan' world monolithically while citing the worst examples from many different cultures, while kind of also ignoring that many of those things also apply to Christian nations. Pretty sure the weak and poor weren't running Medieval England, for instance. Likewise slaves were absolutely still a thing among Christians... the slaves just couldn't also be Christian. There were Christian Germanic warriors pillaging right along with the rest of them. Finally virtually any civilization that has kept slaves does in fact have laws about how they can be treated. It can certainly even be argued that serfdom is still just slavery but called something else to make it acceptable, as people can still be bought and sold, they just count as part of the land instead and likewise must work for their lord or face abuse or death. Sounds a lot like slavery to me.\n\nAltruism is in fact a part of human nature. It evolved because we are a social species and we are inclined to act for the good of our group, as our group is beneficial to our survival. There's a [great example](https://www.upi.com/Archives/1987/11/04/Cavemen-took-care-of-physically-disabled/5137563000400/) of a cave man skeleton with some pretty crippling deformities, who could not have hunted for himself that lived to old age. That means his tribe or his family unit was caring for him despite the fact he was a burden. And this is humanity in the stone age, at our least civilized. The Gauls, as well routinely collected a portion of taxes to help pay for their disabled citizens (though in Rome, it was preached if not always practiced that disabled children should be put to death.)\n\nIn a lot of instances he just seems ignorant on history and expects you to go along with it. A lot of it is very gish-gallupy too. He says so many wrong things that there's no way to correct them all without getting so bogged down with corrections that you can never make a point of your own, or even refute all of his errors. Don't allow that. Insist on arguing one point at a time.\n\nReally I think it's gaps in your knowledge more than Christianity being particularly difficult to criticize. I find it quite easy.","date":"2023-08-14","id":"jw3kj7g","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}]],"string":"[\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"DeadCupcakes23\",\n \"body\": \"Why does it matter if Christianity has a rebuttal for something? You can criticise the bible and Christianity based on what it says and the actions done in its name (context depending).\\n\\nPeople have moral values without Christianity and most things people appreciate nowadays are not inherent to Christianity, for example the bible allows slavery.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzggd4\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">Why does it matter if Christianity has a rebuttal for something? You can criticise the bible and Christianity based on what it says and the actions done in its name (context depending).\\n\\nBecause losing a debate due to their rebuttals makes me look stupid. Also, if you follow the links to their arguments, even the atrocities done in its name don't count because those fall under \\\"false prophets\\\". \\n\\nIt's like the Bible was written with this possibility in mind to entrap us.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzh2ui\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzggd4\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"tipoima\",\n \"body\": \"Christianity *was* fabricated, but not by geniuses. \\nYou're fighting against over two thousand years worth of apologetics, where all the weakest arguments have been pruned away. \\nHowever, as expected of something that isn't actually true, those arguments are often plainly wrong, be it due to logical fallacies, appeals to unknown, obtuse philosophy you probably don't know you don't subscribe to, no-true-scotsmanning, e.t.c.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzh8ep\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">However, as expected of something that isn't actually true, those arguments are often plainly wrong, be it due to logical fallacies, appeals to unknown, obtuse philosophy you probably don't know you don't subscribe to, no-true-scotsmanning, e.t.c.\\n\\nThis is exactly what they do. The problem is that \\\"I don't know\\\" is not an acceptable answer to them ([see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvhr81y/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)), whereas they already have something up their sleeve to entrap me. \\n\\nAs you mentioned, with 2000 years of experience creating answers, I even if I am able to point out something wrong or intellectually dishonest, they'll still have an answer for that, forcing me to spend yet more time and effort to come up with an answer. And I am not intelligent enough to create an answer for everything they throw at me, so I'm trapped.\\n\\nIt's an uphill battle, and one that can easily be lost. Until we can come up with a rebuttal they can't defeat, there will always be a risk that secular society and LGBT rights might be defeated.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzhurp\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzh8ep\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Watchyobackistan\",\n \"body\": \"Not really, most of their \\\"rebuttals\\\" are stuff like \\\"god doesn't give us all the answers\\\" and \\\"Don't worry jesus loves you\\\" Non-answers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzhdab\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"MercurianAspirations\",\n \"body\": \"But why should you give a shit? If you have conviction in your own beliefs, it shouldn't matter whether or not you can convince others using your super debater skillz or not. After all, if somebody were sufficiently dumb or insane, it would be impossible to convince them of the truth, no matter how clear and apparent the truth were; therefore, whether or not a thing is widely believed and people are readily convinced of its truth is not a guide to truth. When there was only one person on the earth who believed in heliocentrism they were still right, and the geocentrists were still wrong. The geocentrists had answers for every single objection, and they won every single debate, yet, they were still wrong. \\n\\nMoreover, it isn't that Christianity is super well designed or anything. It's just that people who have strongly held convictions are not available to be convinced by facts and logic. That's just how people are: they do not actually change their minds that much.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzhezx\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">But why should you give a shit?\\n\\nBecause I don't want my stances to look stupid. I was once likened to an anti-vaxxer for not being able to provide evidence to back my lack of faith.\\n\\n> If you have conviction in your own beliefs, it shouldn't matter whether or not you can convince others using your super debater skillz or not. \\n\\nConviction in your own beliefs doesn't make one right. Besides, their side also has a firm conviction in their beliefs.\\n\\n>When there was only one person on the earth who believed in heliocentrism they were still right, and the geocentrists were still wrong. The geocentrists had answers for every single objection, and they won every single debate, yet, they were still wrong.\\n\\nScience doesn't care about number of believers, what matters is the evidence. And in the case of heliocentrism, it was proven right by overwhelming evidence. I wish I had overwhelming evidence to back my lack of faith.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzih4p\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzhezx\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Mr-Bitter\",\n \"body\": \"Send your brother my way. I know of a way to convince him that it was Satan that wrote the Bible and can kill every single one of his arguments. I would thoroughly enjoy a civilized religious debate.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzhg91\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"ApocalypseYay\",\n \"body\": \">CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\\n\\nThis makes zero sense. Rebuttals require logic and facts, and there are only apologia and special pleasing fallacy described herein. \\n\\nLet's start from the basic - where is the evidence for chris, the alleged son of god, and somehow also god, that killed himself to please himself? There is zero historical evidence for this event, before we even get to the easily debunked claims of miracles, or the plainly immoral laws being promulgated as divine commandments.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzhig9\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">where is the evidence for chris,\\n\\n[Most historians accept that Jesus Christ existed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus). The rest of the biblical story isn't accepted by historians.\\n\\n>before we even get to the easily debunked claims of miracles,\\n\\n[I miserably failed at convincing someone that I don't believe in miracles](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvai6qm/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). How would you convince him?\\n\\n> or the plainly immoral laws being promulgated as divine commandments.\\n\\nHow would you convince them that their side is immoral? They have methods up their sleeve to dismiss the malice conducted in the name of Christianity, and justify the anti-LGBT commandments.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzj8qx\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzhig9\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"physioworld\",\n \"body\": \"The most important concept you have to remember is the burden of proof. It’s not up to you to prove the Christianity ISNT TRUE, it’s up to them to prove that it IS TRUE. So if they can’t prove their own religion you need to accept it, you don’t have to worry about disproving their beliefs. \\n\\nA good way to illustrate this, is whether they would accept comparable claims with comparable evidence from other religions. So if they claim that Christianity is true because it says so in the bible, ask whether you should also accept Islam because it says so in the Quran.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzhlry\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">The most important concept you have to remember is the burden of proof. It’s not up to you to prove the Christianity ISNT TRUE, it’s up to them to prove that it IS TRUE. So if they can’t prove their own religion you need to accept it, you don’t have to worry about disproving their beliefs.\\n\\nBut that's the problem - they consider themselves as proving it is true. For example, one guy who told me of miracles he received - [and I lacked a sufficient rebuttal to convince him he's wrong](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvai6qm/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzjexi\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzhlry\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Adam__B\",\n \"body\": \"You don’t have to defend not believing in something that is invisible, utterly silent, immeasurable, illogical, unscientific, undetectable and untestable. The burden is on them to prove a positive, not you a negative.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzi1gp\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"OrangeBlancmange\",\n \"body\": \"Why do you think you are losing? They obviously haven’t convinced you in these arguments and just falling back to faith (which is all they really have) doesn’t ‘win’ anything in any meaningful way. You won’t be able to argue them out of their faith so you can’t ‘win’ either. Ultimately it’s not an argument in the philosophical sense - they aren’t engaging in good faith and simply will not change their minds regardless of what you say.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzi24f\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"> they aren’t engaging in good faith and simply will not change their minds regardless of what you say.\\n\\nBad faith arguments are like doping in sports - they make it easier for them to win. You just need to be a good enough debater to win despite the disadvantage.\\n\\n>Why do you think you are losing? \\n\\nBecause I failed to be that \\\"good enough debater\\\". Any argument I can throw at them is utterly crushed and thrown back at me.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzk4ge\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzi24f\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Cayowin\",\n \"body\": \"How did you lose that debate?\\n\\nSlavery - Christians used the bible to promote the slave trade\\n\\n[https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/01/a-harvard-exhibit-on-slavery-and-christianity/#:\\\\~:text=In%20the%20modern%20era%2C%20Christianity,often%20used%20to%20justify%20slavery](https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/01/a-harvard-exhibit-on-slavery-and-christianity/#:~:text=In%20the%20modern%20era%2C%20Christianity,often%20used%20to%20justify%20slavery).\\n\\nYes there were abolitionists, but if the same text can be used to both justify and condemn an action how is that text a good moral guide?\\n\\nThe bible explicitly allows the owning of humans as property. So either god is not unchanging or he changed his mind. \\n\\n1 Peter 2:18, Saint Peter writes \\\"Slaves, be subject to your masters with all reverence, not only to those who are good and equitable but also to those who are perverse.\\\"\\n\\nYes they have prepared apologetics, it just means you need to do more research. Remember they have no evidence for their claims beyond personal gut feelings and a collection of contradictory, fictional and historic works.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzi8a8\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">Slavery - Christians used the bible to promote the slave trade\\n\\nI've miserably failed when using the \\\"what about slavery argument\\\" - it's in the link following \\\"It all started 3 years ago\\\". Sure, I could point out the pro-slavery parts, but they'll have a reason why that bit is irrelevant or misinterpreted. It's exhausting, finding every argument to throw at them, and having each one of those utterly crushed with more rebuttals thrown your way.\\n\\n>Yes they have prepared apologetics, it just means you need to do more research. Remember they have no evidence for their claims beyond personal gut feelings and a collection of contradictory, fictional and historic works.\\r \\n\\r\\n\\nI tried pointing out to someone that I don't believe in his \\\"miracle\\\". [My attempt failed miserably](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvai6qm/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzkhnt\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzi8a8\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Augnelli\",\n \"body\": \"What is the rebuttal for the Ark? What did the carnivores eat? How did the Kangaroos and Koalas make it up from Australia? What about fresh water fish? How much space was designated for JUST the elephants food?\\n\\nYou don't need to debate every detail, just enough to invalidate the core; the truth on which they base their faith.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzikz2\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">What is the rebuttal for the Ark? What did the carnivores eat? How did the Kangaroos and Koalas make it up from Australia? What about fresh water fish? How much space was designated for JUST the elephants food?\\n\\nThat's the problem - even since the medieval era, most Christians disavowed biblical literalism, because biblical literalism is easier to poke holes into. Instead, they've come up with apologia, and now, with over 2000 years of apologia to defend against, it's become an unwinnable fight.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzlcvy\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzikz2\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"ch0cko\",\n \"body\": \"No. I am a frequent debater on subs like r/DebateReligion and r/DebateAnAtheist and everything you've said here is just... no. The vast majority of arguments for theism or counterarguments against arguments against theism, generally lead to special pleading or other fallacies.\\n\\nHere's one post I recently made: [https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/15pjew5/extraordinary\\\\_claims\\\\_need\\\\_extraordinary\\\\_evidence/](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/15pjew5/extraordinary_claims_need_extraordinary_evidence/) which then links to another one of my posts that goes more in-depth: [https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/15ey939/if\\\\_religious\\\\_beliefs\\\\_were\\\\_subject\\\\_to\\\\_consistent/](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/15ey939/if_religious_beliefs_were_subject_to_consistent/)\\n\\nA lot of what Christianity said is very similar to other religions and old mythologies. It has a generic reward-punishment system/carrot and stick system, that is, a hell and heaven. On top of that, all of the claims in Christianity hold no good evidence with most being anecdotal. Most arguments for Christianity are not Christian-specific and more so just theism in general. Even then, those thesitic arguments lead to either, 1. fallacies, or 2. only making theism \\\"more likely,\\\" but even then, these arguments have counters.\\n\\nThey were not geniuses. A little clever, but they essentially copied other religions and mythologies and is a cookie-cutter religion. Christianity isn't wide spread just because of how \\\"logical\\\" and \\\"sound\\\" it is; indoctrination or generationally passing the idea down is a big part of it. There are also contradictions in the Bible which can be found at this website: [https://www.lyingforjesus.org/Bible-Contradictions/](https://www.lyingforjesus.org/Bible-Contradictions/)\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzirf5\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">They were not geniuses. A little clever, but they essentially copied other beliefs and mythologies and is a cookie-cutter religion. Christianity isn't widespread just because of how \\\"logical\\\" and \\\"sound\\\" it is; indoctrination or generationally passing the idea down is a big part of it. There are also contradictions in the Bible which can be found at this website: https://www.lyingforjesus.org/Bible-Contradictions/\\n\\nI wasn't implying that Christianity was \\\"logical\\\" and \\\"sound\\\". I was implying it was successful because it has so many tricks up its sleeve. It may be full of lies, but for every one I point out, I'll get one or more rebuttals thrown my way.\\n\\nThink of it as being like in the middle of a dense minefield. Whoever laid the minefield might not have a \\\"logical\\\" and \\\"sound\\\" reason for it, but any step you could take will blow up in your face.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzlzr1\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzirf5\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"xper0072\",\n \"body\": \"Just because someone has an answer for everything doesn't mean that the answer is a good answer. Your inability to properly debate the topic does not mean that the other side is correct in any way.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzj07m\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">Your inability to properly debate the topic does not mean that the other side is correct in any way.\\n\\nI wasn't saying the other side was correct. My point is that they are impossible to defeat and are good at ensnaring their critics.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzmc3l\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzj07m\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"razvanght\",\n \"body\": \"In my experience, Christian s believe that God is real because they feel He is real. Then you can ask them whether a person of a different religion can also use the same method (I feel Zeus is real because I feel Him) to conclude that a different god is real. Christians generally agree that that person used the same method (feeling based) to reach an opposite conclusion (Zeus, not God, is real). In my discussions at least, this argument works in that it gives people pause. Of course, it does not change their belief immediately because they have been holding it for some time but I feel like it adds a seed of doubt.\\n\\nDo you know the official Christian response against this line of argument?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzj0m8\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">In my experience, Christian s believe that God is real because they feel He is real. Then you can ask them whether a person of a different religion can also use the same method (I feel Zeus is real because I feel Him) to conclude that a different god is real. \\n\\nHow can I get them to accept the argument that \\\"oh I don't feel God is real, so don't force me to go to church\\\"? Because that argument always failed me in the past. Also, on a tangent, how are you able to \\\"feel\\\" Zeus?\\n\\n>adds a seed of doubt.\\n\\nPlanting seeds of doubt is a great political strategy. For example, in Australia, we have an upcoming referendum on constitutional indigenous recognition - and because the No side is so good at planting seeds of doubt, the Yes side is losing despite having academia and the arts sector on its side. \\n\\nBut back to the point, I tried planting seeds of doubt and failed miserably. The Christians I've had to defend my opinions from don't merely consider themselves as \\\"feelings based\\\", they consider their views as backed by literature (the Bible).\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzmy3i\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzj0m8\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Apprehensive_Box3199\",\n \"body\": \"I dropped my Catholicism at 21 after learning basic logic at University. In year 6 whilst at a Catholic school, we were given a Catholic Catechism - literally the manual for being a good Catholic. Most of the book is written in question-and-answer format. This is indoctrination 101. The first 3 questions are, and I quote:\\n\\n>1. Question: Who made the world? \\n Answer: God made the world. \\n> \\n>2. Q. Who is God? \\n> \\n> A. God is the Creator of heaven and earth and of all things and the Supreme Lord of all. \\n> \\n>3. Q. How do we know there is a God? \\n> \\n> A. We know that there is a God by the things that He made.\\n\\nRight there; in the first 3 question-and-answers is a Circular Argument. The entire basis of the Catechism is premised on a Circular Argument. If nothing else, the entire point of Catholicism is to justify the original statement that God exists.\\n\\nI looked through the whole of the Catechism highlighting anything I still believed. I highlighted a single sentence in the preface about doing unto others etc... NOTHING else.\\n\\nBefore you have a go at me for not knowing what a circular argument until I was 21 - I went to Catholic schools for all of high school and it is in their best interests NOT to teach that and it was the 80s. That's my excuse and I sticking to it.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzjc23\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">Right there; in the first 3 question-and-answers is a Circular Argument. The entire basis of the Catechism is premised on a Circular Argument. If nothing else, the entire point of Catholicism is to justify the original statement that God exists. \\n> \\n>I looked through the whole of the Catechism highlighting anything I still believed. I highlighted a single sentence in the preface about doing unto others etc... NOTHING else. \\n> \\n>Before you have a go at me for not knowing what a circular argument until I was 21 - I went to Catholic schools for all of high school and it is in their best interests NOT to teach that and it was the 80s. That's my excuse and I sticking to it.\\n\\nIn my experience, pointing out the circular argument leads to one of 2 outcomes:\\n\\n1. Getting more apologia that I am unable to defeat\\n2. The \\\"*Do you have a better explanation?*\\\" rebuttal\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvznrln\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzjc23\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Simbabz\",\n \"body\": \"The most important story of the bible is Jesus ressurecction, the gospels contradict each other in the telling of the story, hardly designed by geniuses.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzktxv\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">The most important story of the bible is Jesus ressurecction, the gospels contradict each other in the telling of the story, hardly designed by geniuses.\\n\\nNot sure what Protestants say, but Catholicism claims that slight differences with the same overall story prove it's written by real people observing the same things. We can accuse them of using a dodgy argument, but it still wouldn't undermine their side.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzp1ei\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzktxv\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"vote4bort\",\n \"body\": \"I think you're just trying way too hard in these debates and starting from the wrong point. You're coming at them like religion is something that can be proved through debate when it fundamentally can't. \\nThe religious rebuttal for every point will always be essentially the same. That is they'll say \\\"well I believe this I so\\\". And you can't argue with that because its not a statement that can be argued against.\\n\\nWhat can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzkuyc\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.\\n\\nThe problem is when they think they have evidence and you think they don't. [Here's an example with a Protestant](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jv9g3kt/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3), and we can't agree on anything.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzp2i6\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzkuyc\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"sapphireminds\",\n \"body\": \"You seem to be a poor debater. You are accepting a lot of arguments as true when they aren't. \\n\\nAll children are born atheists. Coincidentally, they just happen to usually believe in the god(s) their parents/community believes it. \\n\\nAnd personally, if there is a god with the power ascribed to it by the bible, I would refuse to worship it. \\n\\nYou also need to educate yourself about the null hypothesis.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzl8ri\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">You seem to be a poor debater. You are accepting a lot of arguments as true when they aren't.\\r\\n\\nI don't accept their arguments as true. I accept them as difficult to defeat.\\n\\n>And personally, if there is a god with the power ascribed to it by the bible, I would refuse to worship it.\\n\\nI wouldn't want to worship such a God either. [I've told a Protestant that if I were to accept that he indeed received a miracle, it would still prove that the Christian god is unjust](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvkkegk/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). But that argument still failed to sway him.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzqf91\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzl8ri\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"-paperbrain-\",\n \"body\": \"What you seem to be saying is just that you are not able, with the mere power of logic, to get Christians to abandon their belief.\\n\\nI hate to break it to you, but this is not a particular quality of Christianity. Anything people are dug in on will face this hill. Not only will you encounter it with every religion, but you won't argue many people out of their political doctrine, flat earth belief, or whether they side with Ross or Rachel on friends. People have rebuttals for everything about many totally conflicting positions. It's part of having strong beliefs and giving it some thought. And religions in particular have had a long time and tons of resources to give it thought.\\n\\nThat doesn't mean there's no room for criticism. Just that your expectation about change is ridiculously optimistic.\\n\\nHowever, regardless of how your personal debates are going, people are leaving Christianity in droves, partly because they don't find those rebuttals to critique to be logically, morally or emotionally satisfying. The fastest growing religious affiliation is \\\"none\\\".\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzlzcb\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">That doesn't mean there's no room for criticism. Just that your expectation about change is ridiculously optimistic.\\n\\nSometimes, I'm challenged to debate when I'm not looking for one (see my first link in the post details). I wasn't expecting to change anyone's views, just successfully defend my decision, and I failed even that.\\n\\n>However, regardless of how your personal debates are going, people are leaving Christianity in droves, partly because they don't find those rebuttals to critique to be logically, morally or emotionally satisfying. The fastest growing religious affiliation is \\\"none\\\".\\n\\n[Christianity is still growing overall](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_population_growth). Even if it's not growing in the Western World, this shrinkage is negated by growth outside the Western World.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzs5r5\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzlzcb\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"wrongfulness\",\n \"body\": \"What a waste of time\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzmu4k\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"The_White_Ram\",\n \"body\": \"This isn't hard. Christianity literally endorses slavery.\\n\\nIf you believe slavery is wrong then that's the only argument you need.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzniyg\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">This isn't hard. Christianity literally endorses slavery. \\n> \\n>If you believe slavery is wrong then that's the only argument you need.\\n\\nI tried using such an argument. [It backfired](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvztyn7\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzniyg\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"ElPwnero\",\n \"body\": \"I like the one Muslims use:\\\\\\nThe word of allah is perfect and if you find inconsistencies, then it’s your human brain that’s incapable of understanding the true meaning.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzoket\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">I like the one Muslims use:\\r \\n> \\n>The word of allah is perfect and if you find inconsistencies, then it’s your human brain that’s incapable of understanding the true meaning.\\n\\nI mean, they're basically insulting your intelligence. But isn't that a great bad faith tactic, dodging accountability by accusing your opponent of being too dumb to understand? I can't imagine myself faring any better debating a Muslim than debating a Christian.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzvglo\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzoket\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"indigoneutrino\",\n \"body\": \"The interesting thing is I've had the opposite experience. Plenty of experiences online and in person where they can barely rebut *anything* to the point that I've had a minister apologise she can't answer my questions satisfactorily. I've seen no-one rebut or even explain why the crucifixion makes sense without legitimising blood sacrifice. It just constantly defaults to \\\"Jesus paid for our sins,\\\" without explaining why the death of an innocent third party was accepted as a valid payment within a supposedly just system.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzppfh\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Pichkuchu\",\n \"body\": \">It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted\\n\\nJust because you got outwitted doesn't mean the other side was right, they were, in fact, blatantly wrong. Christianity is just as guilty of atrocities as any religion. Keep in mind that Christianity is 2000 years old and they enslaved people until 1860 and they had to be \\\"convinced\\\" by war to give it up. They genocided native populations in America and colonized Asia and Africa. There was inquisition. They burned people for heresy, including scientists. They weren't different from other big religions or even pagans. The modern view of the world and humanity encompasses non Christian populations too and one could argue that it's in fact the result of secularism.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzqu5n\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"StrangeAssonance\",\n \"body\": \"I’m curious why you think one has to prove God exists? \\n\\nAlso, when Jesus was on earth the Jews kept asking for a sign from Him. They were blind to what he was doing with His ministry. The world is blind, so when you try to have these arguments that you feel you can’t win, I think you aren’t ever going to win them. I can show you God through my words and deeds but if you are blind to that, you won’t see what’s there to see.\\n\\nJesus repeatedly talks about how blind and deaf people are to God and his word.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzr1ue\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">Also, when Jesus was on earth the Jews kept asking for a sign from Him. They were blind to what he was doing with His ministry. The world is blind, so when you try to have these arguments that you feel you can’t win, I think you aren’t ever going to win them. I can show you God through my words and deeds but if you are blind to that, you won’t see what’s there to see.\\n\\nThis is why I see my inability to believe as a disability comparable to being unable to read.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzzkhs\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzr1ue\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"mo_ff\",\n \"body\": \"You can have faith that your monthly bills will be paid whilst you have no money or means to do so OR you can actually have the money. One will work. The other will leave you with no utilities. Full stop.\\n\\nIn a debate with a Christian you would encounter, \\\"Oh, but have you no faith a brother in Christ would not help you?\\\" And then a large quantity of scriptural examples would be brought forth from whatever version of the bible they are most familiar with.\\n\\nAs others have stated, the deck is stacked. If you can approach the conversation with your family in a civil manor, stop going to church. Believe what makes you happy and mentally healthy so long as it doesn't hurt others.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzr2rx\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"HansPGruber\",\n \"body\": \"You need to read some Thomas Paine my friend. A renegade if the atomic age.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzrn0v\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Morasain\",\n \"body\": \"Couple things.\\n\\nThe first thing is that burden of proof is with the person making a claim - Christians in this case.\\n\\nThe second thing is - you don't need to refute the religion itself, because you can't.\\n\\nUsually, if you bring up things like pastors being molesters, or the crusades, or witch burnings, Christians will commit a No True Scotsman fallacy. \\\"These pastors aren't *real* Christians.\\\" You don't need to refute that argument because it is in itself wrong - but if you want, you can always go the path of saying that everyone in the church is, in the end, appointed by God.\\n\\nThe easiest way to reject Christianity is to instead reject God, though. You don't even need to prove that he's bad or anything - you need to use your own morality to reject the idea that a god like depicted in Christianity can be a god you want to believe in.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzrwx0\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"hdhddf\",\n \"body\": \"you don't need to convince them, they're arguing from a position of ignorance and indoctrination, you can't argue with that because their arguments aren't built on logic or sound reasoning.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzs63u\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Huffers1010\",\n \"body\": \"Let's do it by example. What did they have a rebuttal for that you couldn't respond to?\\n\\nMy suspicion is that they really didn't.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzt6nt\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"misersoze\",\n \"body\": \"Just say: “hey I also met a Muslim, a Mormon, a Jew and a Hindu. They all make the exact same arguments as you do about why their religion is the correct one and they all say they have the one true religion. So why should I join yours over their’s”.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvztpz1\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Potential_Cod_8473\",\n \"body\": \"They might win a debate but the world still is a shitty place full of diseases, suffering, birth defeacts. \\n\\nIt only prove how dishonest someone is to defend a claim it was created my omnipotent and omniscient being. \\n\\nChristianity was falsified many times\\nAdam and Eve? Fairytale\\nGreat Flood? Fairytale\\nBabel's tower? Fairytale\\nExocus? Fairytale \\nRessurection? Really improbable\\n\\nThe fact that the scripture has to be interpreted in the face of new evidence like why would omnipotent God need 4 bilions years to create highly imperfect and miserable beings or why universe is 93 bilion light years wide and we are limited by a speed of light is a powerful evidence against revelation.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvztt3e\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"the_internet_clown\",\n \"body\": \"Just because someone says something in response doesn’t make it a good rebuttal\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzugyn\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Relevant_Maybe6747\",\n \"body\": \"Christianity doesn’t have a rebuttal against Judaism - they’ve tried and tried to kill us and never succeeded\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzuj4l\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Is that really a good argument though? By that logic, Islam doesn't have a rebuttal against Christianity either (or vice versa).\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw075ml\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzuj4l\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Scott_The_Protogen\",\n \"body\": \"Why \\\"debate\\\" someone's faith anyways? Unless they're being a jerk about it like in the last part. I always just have that whole live and let live thing (Even if some fanatics might not be that way either). I know you say some of these people come to you with the debates, but I feel like just giving a solid \\\"I don't want to talk about it\\\" or \\\"My views aren't going to change\\\" might work, even if they do continue to badger you regarding it, It doesn't have to be a winning-losing game.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzullx\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">Why \\\"debate\\\" someone's faith anyways? \\n\\nIn the first link, I was challenged to a debate out of the blue when I requested not to go to church anymore. He wanted me to read his spiel and change my views, or give a counter-argument strong enough to defend my views.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw07dt4\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzullx\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Key-Extension1458\",\n \"body\": \"2000 years ago there was a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem that took animal sacrifice from the people. This was fulfilling the Mosaic Covenant, and sustained Israel called \\\"Judea\\\". Like Jesus said it would happen, the temple was thrown down to the last stone and the sacrificial rite was \\\"nailed to the cross\\\" in the words of Paul the Apostle. This leaves us without redemption under the law, and everyone is guilty of sin everywhere. \\n\\nHence the figure of Christ intervenes, and made the ultimate sacrifice, putting death and guilt and hell itself into the fire. Now we have grace and mercy, and redemption by faith. It seems to work, since 2000 years of Christian history represented the general improvement of life everywhere. At the same time, the movement was hijacked by earthly forces resulting in \\\"churchianty\\\" and roman catholicism. All \\\"debates\\\" are just scholastic noise from that time, arguing in circles about nothing relevant. It is what it is, the temple of jerusalem was destroyed 2000 years ago and the levitical rites were nailed to the Cross.\\n\\nNow everything is a free gift, the more we cast off the old man and put on the new. Strong enough faith loses fear of everything and moves mountains, it is divine power given to mankind. God loves the children of this world and Israel in dispersion, which means everyone.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzur3s\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Key-Extension1458\",\n \"body\": \"2000 years ago there was a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem that took animal sacrifice from the people. This was fulfilling the Mosaic Covenant, and sustained Israel called \\\"Judea\\\". Like Jesus said it would happen, the temple was thrown down to the last stone and the sacrificial rite was \\\"nailed to the cross\\\" in the words of Paul the Apostle. This leaves us without redemption under the law, and everyone is guilty of sin everywhere. \\n\\nHence the figure of Christ intervenes, and made the ultimate sacrifice, putting death and guilt and hell itself into the fire. Now we have grace and mercy, and redemption by faith. It seems to work, since 2000 years of Christian history represented the general improvement of life everywhere. At the same time, the movement was hijacked by earthly forces resulting in \\\"churchianty\\\" and roman catholicism. All \\\"debates\\\" are just scholastic noise from that time, arguing in circles about nothing relevant. It is what it is, the temple of jerusalem was destroyed 2000 years ago and the levitical rites were nailed to the Cross.\\n\\nNow everything is a free gift, the more we cast off the old man and put on the new. Strong enough faith loses fear of everything and moves mountains, it is divine power given to mankind. God loves the children of this world and Israel in dispersion, which means everyone.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzurg6\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">2000 years ago the Temple in Jerusalem took animal sacrifice from the people. It was fulfilling the Mosaic Covenant, and sustained Israel called \\\"Judea\\\" at the time. Like Jesus said it would happen, the temple was thrown down to the last stone and the sacrificial rite was \\\"nailed to the cross\\\" in the words of Paul the Apostle. This leaves us without redemption under the law, and everyone is guilty of sin everywhere. \\n> \\n>Hence the figure of Christ intervenes, and made the ultimate sacrifice, putting death and guilt and hell itself into the fire. Now we have grace and mercy, and redemption by faith. It seems to work, since 2000 years of Christian history represented the general improvement of life everywhere. At the same time, the movement was hijacked by earthly forces resulting in \\\"churchianty\\\" and roman catholicism. All \\\"debates\\\" are just scholastic noise from that time, arguing in circles about nothing relevant. It is what it is, the temple of jerusalem was destroyed 2000 years ago and the levitical rites were nailed to the Cross. \\n> \\n>Now everything is a free gift, the more we cast off the old man and put on the new. Strong enough faith loses fear of everything and moves mountains, it is divine power given to mankind. God loves the children of this world and Israel in dispersion, which means everyone.\\n\\nIs this supposed to be a promotion of Protestantism?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw07io1\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzurg6\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"danmilligan\",\n \"body\": \"One thing I'm sensing is that you're thinking of Christianity as a monolith, and while that was once true, it hasn't been for a long, long time. So many types of Christianity exist that there will be Christians on opposite sides of nearly any given issue. The true non-negotiables of the religion are extremely minimal, and highly interpretive. Because of this, you can't really say \\\"Christians are like this\\\" or \\\"Christians do that\\\", because this will apply to SOME Christians, but certainly not all. For a good example, the majority of American Christians are extremely unique from a global perspective, being far more individualistic, and reading the Bible in a slavishly literal fashion, among other things. So if you say \\\"Christians are anti-LGBTQ\\\", there are millions and millions of other Christians ready to counter that.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzusf6\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">One thing I'm sensing is that you're thinking of Christianity as a monolith, and while that was once true, it hasn't been for a long, long time. So many types of Christianity exist that there will be Christians on opposite sides of nearly any given issue. The true non-negotiables of the religion are extremely minimal, and highly interpretive.\\n\\nI'm well aware of the splits within Christianity. What I mention in my post detail is that I have tried and miserably failed to defend my lack of faith from both Catholics and Protestants. I understand that they'd have different ways of thinking regarding lack of faith, but at the end of the day, both defeated me.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw07u6h\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzusf6\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"GreasyPorkGoodness\",\n \"body\": \"You need to dismantle the church hierarchy and not the “existence of god”. \\n\\nIt’s not that you don’t believe in god, you don’t believe in Christianities following of god. Their church is corrupt, opulent, child molesters, hypocritical, child marriage, judgmental, in Christ like etcetera. \\n\\nGod very well might exist, if he does he certainly won’t approve of christianity.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzuv92\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CutiePopIceberg\",\n \"body\": \"Christianity is Middle Eastern mythology. Christians hate when you remind them of this.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzv7py\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"JustSomeDude0605\",\n \"body\": \"\\\"I don't believe in that bullshit\\\"\\n\\nDebate over.\\n\\nContrary to your brother's or pastor's wishes, you don't owe them any sort of debate or explanation. Live your life as you want to, not based on what they think you should do. If that means, no religion then stop going to church. \\n\\nFuck em.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzvaah\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CriticalThinkingAT\",\n \"body\": \"The thing is, there are a mountain of atheist rebuttals as well. Like literally there are so many atheist channels out there to rebutting every Christian argument that it's just a matter of searching and looking for them. Lol. You'll be fine.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzvipb\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">The thing is, there are a mountain of atheist rebuttals as well. Like literally there are so many atheist channels out there to rebutting every Christian argument that it's just a matter of searching and looking for them. Lol. You'll be fine.\\n\\nCounterpoint: Only a few of these are useful. Most channels appear to be useful only against Protestant pastors who rely on charisma. Catholicism is much harder to debate against as they have 2000 years of church tradition, intellectuals and apologia on their side.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw09z3v\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzvipb\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"OpenByTheCure\",\n \"body\": \"I don't want to be harsh, but I just think you're not very good at debating\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzvw3c\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"I am bad at debating (and most other things). Maybe that's why I always get challenged to debates, because I will lose.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0b11j\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzvw3c\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Dr_Keyser_Soze\",\n \"body\": \"You need to listen to David C. Smalley. Take in a few podcasts and you won’t be disappointed.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzvzk2\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Wintermute815\",\n \"body\": \"It’s really not. It depends on circular logic and faith, both of which are critical flaws.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzx8zv\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"j3rdog\",\n \"body\": \"Stop trying to debate facts by point counter point. Learn street epistemology. There’s good YouTube channels and subreddits on it.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzxa1z\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Unable-Food7531\",\n \"body\": \"You're:\\n\\n1. Bad at debating in general\\n\\n2. An unskilled rhetorician \\n\\n3. Uneducated on the topic you're debating.\\n\\nThose Three things together mean than any attempt to draw generally-appliable conclusions from your debating losses is doomed to produce bs.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzxmej\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"How can I get all 3 skills when I'm up against people who have so much more knowledge than me? I hate it when I give others a reason to criticise me.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw05k0t\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzxmej\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"DangForgotUserName\",\n \"body\": \"Christians don't have arguments, just elaborate evasions of criticism.\\n\\nIn order to be religious, or believe in a supernatural god, to some extent, one has to deny certain aspects of science, and also have to deny the foundations of reason and logic. \\n\\n\\nThere are major undemonstrated claims that come with theism:\\n\\n-a spiritual, divine, or otherwise supernatural realm exists \\n\\n-there are nonphysical spiritual forces and entities \\n -some kind of afterlife exists\\n\\n-at least humans have souls, which are the spiritual essence \\\"attached\\\" to a physical body\\n\\nEven if all these were demonstrated, we would still have no way of determining which deities were real. These claims are also far from being demonstrated, likely, or even possible. \\n\\nEven then, we have no way to link such deities to any religion that anyone worships.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzxv11\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Electrical-Rabbit157\",\n \"body\": \"It’s not well designed. It’s the worst designed religion in the world actually. The success of Christianity is based around keeping people from learning about other faiths. The moment that happens the VAST majority of them leave christianity for something else. Myself included. \\n\\nYou have to go at the fundamental hypocrisy of it. The average Christian rants and raves about the Ten Commandments and yet every single one of them break the first 2 commandments daily and most break 3 commandments every Sunday. The average priest breaks the first 4. Then there’s the fact that the Bible is a corrupt text and Christianity as a whole was founded by Paul, a man who is not a prophet, not a disciple, not an apostle, just a random guy who comes out of nowhere and starts preaching that Jesus is God.\\n\\nThey worship a trinity which is paganism. There is no excuse for it. It’s the same exact belief system as Hindus which are literally the original pagans that Abraham fought against. This trinity also includes a man. That man is considered a prophet but still. This breaks the first commandment. \\n\\nThey idolize said man and the cross he died on. They wear necklaces with it. They put big gold crosses at the front of their churches and big wooden ones on the outside of them. This breaks the second commandment \\n\\nThey go to church on Sunday and the vast majority of them believe this is the sabbath. Which directly breaks the fourth commandment.\\n\\nThe priesthood commits extortion and sometimes even rape in either the name of God or what they lead people to believe is a house of God. This breaks the third commandment \\n\\nThen you get to the Bible and it’s non existent integrity. There are about 5 major sects of Christianity. Each one has about 40 versions of the Bible. And the average Christian may think this is normal, it’s not. Jews have 1 version of the Torah. Muslims have 1 version of the Quran. Hell even the Hindus only have 1 version of most of their texts. The new testemant is more written by Paul, who is again, not a prophet, than any actual apostle. All of Paul’s letters are included in the vast majority of bibles yet the book of Enoch, book of Jesus Christ, and lost gospel to Peter are considered “uncanon” by the church and have been removed for centuries. That is not a holy text. It may have been a couple thousand years ago but out of 200+ in circulation today, I’d seriously doubt any can be considered uncorrupted.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzyqtq\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"malorane\",\n \"body\": \"Isn't this other person either straight up lying or totally misinformed about the Christianity/Catholicism? Like I could be misremembering but I'm pretty sure there are passages that literally give you guidelines about how to treat your slaves and this dude said both have always been against slavery?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzz7x7\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CantKeepMeOutYo\",\n \"body\": \"You will never win against someone with faith. They will always always always have some other bullshit excusw up their sleeves. That's what makes religion so fucking dangerous: it uses logic when it works and then completely disregards it when logic doesn't work. Don't bother debating christians, they've accepted a parasite into their body that will defend its ability to feed off the host, even if it means killing the host, or YOU.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzzg1h\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"wibbly-water\",\n \"body\": \">If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\r \\n\\r \\nIf you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\\n\\nIgnoring the second proposition for a second I want to propose 2 more reasonable secular arguments;\\n\\n1. This is true of all religions because their axioms and methods for diving truth are different. They believe, want to believe, will tie all phenomena in with their argument, will ignore Occam's Razor to do so. \\n2. If Christianity is better than (some) other religions at doing this it may be because it is a highly evolved system of memes. A meme is the idea equivalent to a gene. Religions are memetic in nature - they are ideologies, ideas about how the world works. Memes compete for space and survival much like genes do. And every time one of its memes is threatened it is forced to either drop that meme and adapt or bolster it to do the same. Look at the iterations of historical Christianity. Where are the puritans today? Even Protestantism evolved out of Catholicism - many will claim that they are barely the same religion.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzzk96\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"DangForgotUserName\",\n \"body\": \"The salvation of man is dependent on the suffering of Jesus Christ. His 'blood sacrifice magic' supposedly forgives original sin - doctrine that we know though biology is utterly wrong. (A couple of garden nudists were guilty of rebellious fruit munching, so everyone deserves death or eternal torment?) This makes the theological story around Jesus one where he is scapegoat of a nonexistent forebear. This should undermine the value of Jesus as well as the foundational basis for belief in God.\\n\\n \\n\\nFurther, the idea that the only way to forgive is through ritualized punishment? That is petty and immoral. No forgiveness without bloodshed or death. Horrible, ignorant and outdated ideas.\\n\\n\\nThe idea of a messiah, one who will deliver us from the tribulations of the present, is an ancient idea that distracts us from the hard work that must be done to build a better world.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzzkww\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Emotional_platypuss\",\n \"body\": \"The problem here is both sides trying to impose beliefs on others. What you believe or don't believe is your problem. You don't need to explain why you don't follow a religion, specially to religious people. Is like them telling you why their religion is so good. Break out of that circle and move on\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0052z\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"notjuan_f_m\",\n \"body\": \"This Is the problem with everything lately. \\\"I am right, you are wrong, and I will continue to tell you until you accept that i am right\\\"\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw00l9j\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jw0052z\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"JackedLilJill\",\n \"body\": \"If anything, just from your text and title, the fact that Christians explain themselves fully in the face of debate, should be the reason to change your view.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw00vuq\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"FerdinandTheGiant\",\n \"body\": \"For your first debate with your brother, he was just straight up wrong on so much. Christianity is not and does not serve as the basis for morality in the western world or the world as a whole. \\n\\nMost of the non-western world like in Asia is not heavily Christian and wasn’t for most of their history. They of course are doing just fine. Christian morals have not been consistent nor are they the basis for a basic society. \\n\\nAdditionally, you don’t need Christianity to explain altruism as it already has a natural explanation. It’s called kin selection and essentially means that it is beneficial to help out family since they carry your genes. This means more of your genes will get passed on. This is likely how it evolved in humans and then developed into what we consider today. Animals do this. Altruism isn’t human alone. \\n\\nThen you have slavery which the Bible openly says is fine. Leviticus 25:44-46\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw013nj\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"-Strawdog-\",\n \"body\": \"Taking a quick look at one or two of these examples, you have a very noticeable habit of accepting a lot of the other person's premises and arguments without pushing back on them at all. As an example, your brother mentions multiple times that altruistic behavior is the direct result of the Christian faith, an argument that is absolutely ridiculous for a bunch of reasons, not the least of which that our closest genetic relatives (chimpanzees and bonobos) exhibit all kinds of altruistic behaviors as part of their highly social lifestyles (and they also don't sacrifice eachother, something he seems weirdly hung up on).\\n\\nTo be honest, it doesn't look like the people you're debating have good arguments or are good at expressing them, it seems that you are just very new to debate, particularly on this topic. If debating religious folks is something you want to do (you are incredibly unlikely to change their minds even with very good arguments), you can find plenty of solid resources online that break down and refute just about any apologetics you are likely to encounter.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw01pm9\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"lamabaronvonawesome\",\n \"body\": \"I have found the opposite to be true. I would recommend reading some books on logic and debate. Having an answer doesn't make it a good answer. I had a debate teacher that used to day \\\"the definition of a reason is anything I put forth as a reason.\\\" This essentially means you SAY anything, that doesn't mean it will hold up under scrutiny. You mentioned miracles that a person had given you examples of in their own life. Debate in essence is about definitions, how we define things. Get them to give you the definition of a miracle. I personally would define that as any event that is ONLY explainable by divine intervention. See if their miracles hold up to that.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw02avd\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"kountze\",\n \"body\": \"The Church did have some good effects on political and cultural development in Europe - for example the separation of powers came from the Church being a strong counter force to the government for so long, church limited the government in ways that led to values of separation of powers and limited government, unlike China which was much more state dominated and still is today. Protestantism represented not only a change in religion but also a change in how humans think logically - so yeah a lot of good things can be tied to how Protestantism changed how people think. \\n\\nThat being said, the above certainly is a far cry from saying that Protestantism values will work in every situation or that it can address all of today’s modern problems. Protectionism ideally is something that should be open to interpretation, which modern Christianity has moved away from that. \\n\\nIn terms of science the Church does not have credible arguments - that’s the main problem. If you think they do, you really haven’t encountered anyone who actually knows the science and microbiology. \\n\\nAlso, do not confuse correlation and causation. Certain positive developments in society may correlate, but that correlation does not prove causation. \\n\\n\\nThe issue with\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw035en\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Jaderholt439\",\n \"body\": \"If I’m debating Christianity, I like to go straight to the main topic- the Resurrection.\\n\\nMost people I know and love are Christians; I don’t have a problem w/ their religion. I love these people. But what I don’t like are apologists. Every single one that I’ve ever seen is dishonest. Especially when it comes to the Resurrection.\\n\\nIt’s not hard to believe that a guy named Yeshua, who had a religious following, was crucified. I can even believe he was put in his own tomb, although most were put in a mass grave, it’s wasn’t unheard of. The stone being put to block the tomb and guards sound like they were plot holes being fixed in Matthew, but for arguments sake, I’ll agree to that too.\\n\\nJesus wasn’t in the tomb when they went to him 3 days later. What is the most likely explanation? Is it, “he must’ve overcome death and ascended, bc he’s God”? I think a Guy Ritchie style heist is way more plausible. ‘They forgot which cave’ is more plausible. Literally anything is more plausible. If they are being honest, they have to say, “I believe it on faith”. Yet, apologists will not say this, therefore they are dishonest, therefore they don’t have an answer for everything.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw03fxs\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Entropy_Drop\",\n \"body\": \"LOL on the first link. Christianity didn't opposed slavery, and doesn't have a monopoly on being a good person. It actually was the ideological fundation of american slavery.\\n\\nHypocrates wasn't christian, gandi neither, and personal freedom, democracy and equality of genders aren't christian values.\\n\\nThe golden rule (\\\"don't do to other what you dont want done to yourself\\\") and the silver rule (\\\"do to others what you want to recieve from them\\\" (bdsm, for example)) are not creation of christianity. \\n\\nSome christian are propagandiced all their life into the worldview of \\\"all good comes from christ\\\", which is clearly a big lie. Is kinda justified for them to sell that lie, tho.\\n\\nAlso, that motto has a counter-part: \\\"No bad comes from christ\\\" which is my only explanation to how incredible bigoted people justify their behavior without ever thinking \\\"are we the badies?\\\". Anita \\\"pie-face\\\" Bryant comes to mind, who, in her own words \\\"loved homosexuals\\\".\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw04f2l\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Jade_Skie\",\n \"body\": \"TJ Kirk (aka The Amazing Atheist) on YouTube once mentioned \\\"unfalsifiable hypothesis.\\\" In other words, Christians spout the argument that miracles, what is said in the Bible, Satan, and God all exist and are as the answer to everything because immediate evidence to the contrary can normally not be produced by their opponent, thus no argument against them can be made. So in their minds, they are right. That is, of course, not how the world/universe actually works.\\n\\nTo quote Carl Sagan: \\\"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.\\\"\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw04j73\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"JuliusErrrrrring\",\n \"body\": \"Remember the following truths: most people who claim they are Christians are good people; most people who are good people and claim they are Christian are good because of their ignorance of the Bible, not because of the Bible. The Bible is an awful immoral book and the religion is completely silly. It is pro slavery, pro genocide, pro forced abortion and pro incest. If you are debating anyone who isn't in favor of those things, they may be actually non believers too, they are just too ignorant of their religion to know any better.\\n\\n​\\n\\nIt is completely silly and does not hold up to debate. Just some quick obvious random thoughts off the top of my head: They suck at math - claim to have one god yet believe in a holy trinity as well as an evil god. Many Christians claim to be against abortion, yet the Bible actually gives an abortion recipe, god murdered pregnant women in his Noah's Arc genocide, and Jesus forced abortions on Jezebel. Many Christians are anti-trans and anti gay - yet Eve transitioned from a male rib and now they worship a dress wearing dude with two fathers who identifies as bread and wine. Cain and Abel were the original motherfuckers. The whole bible was written by people who never met Jesus and there is zero historical proof that there even was a man named Jesus pretending to be god. It's just a gigantic hoax that's been accepted due to peer pressure because life is easier and you can make more money and get laid easier if you simply play along with this silly marketing scheme.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw05bz4\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Loose-Technology7787\",\n \"body\": \"Christianity is designed that way. Christians are programmed in a way via church and such where they hold their belief to a much higher standard than any facts or logic despite a lack of evidence. On of christianity's main taglines is to just have faith in god even though hes done nothing to show you hes there.\\n\\nDebating a religious person on religion is an unwinnable debate. You cant argue against someones opinion when the only points they will accept are those that align with said opinion. For example, many christians say good and evil only exist because god decides whats good and bad. I might say that life is meaningless, therefore our thoughts and feelings are all that exist making them all that matters. Meaning we get to choose whats moral; however the christian would then just say life isnt meaningless because god gives meaning to life. This will go on for any length of time.\\n\\nThe only reason atheists win those official televised debates is because theres a mediator keeping nonsense out of it. They keep the religious side from using unreasonable and illogical arguments, which leads to them losing.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw05l8j\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"BuzzyShizzle\",\n \"body\": \"That's funny because, I have yet to hear them lose an argument/debate on the atheist experience yet. \\n\\nIf you haven't heard of it, there is a call-in radio show called \\\"the atheist experience\\\" and the entire show is welcoming any religious to call in and challenge them. If you want your view changed, that show will do a much better job than anything else.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw06l99\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Sad_Confidence8941\",\n \"body\": \"I agree, Christianity is very well designed. The smartest people alive for many centuries spent their lives defending Christianity (Thomas Aquinas, Saint Augustine, etc). They have been philosophically attacked for years and years and are still here\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw06orq\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"nomad5926\",\n \"body\": \"Homie out here saying the altruism isn't a natural thing without Christianity..... 🤣 Bro be saying Meerkats are all Christians? Or Naked Mole Rats?\\n\\nI will never understand why people have to force religion upon others. But essentially an easy way out is to ask them to provide solid proof that God existed. Logically you cannot not prove a belief. (Like others have said before me). Typically the ones making the claim \\\"god exists\\\" have the burden of proof. \\n\\nAlso in my experience you're not going to convince anyone to stop believing. It's the same reason kids believe in Santa it gives them something. For most people, religion is a source of comfort. It's why, from what I see, older folks are more religious. (Cause you know.... Closer to death... Heaven seems nicer).\\n\\nIf you just want them to stop harassing you, you can just say that your relationship with God is personal and need not be on disability for others. (You don't have to say the bit that the relationship is non-existent).\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0753r\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Moraulf232\",\n \"body\": \"Christianity has an answer for any criticism but the answers are silly and unconvincing just like the religion.\\n\\nJust ask yourself “has this answer explained why I should believe these assertions with no evidence or has it just made more assertions with no evidence?” and “could this answer be used to justify the existence of a Flying Spaghetti Monster or literally any other deity?” or “is there any evidence that the person I am talking to can imagine that would cause them to change their mind?” etc.\\n\\nThe philosophical arguments (apologetics) religions use are just fancy noise. There’s nothing there.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw07atx\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"lpuckeri\",\n \"body\": \"Theres many reasons why christianity is absolutely absurd, at a childlike and comical level imo. I have equal belief in it than i do Santa. The apologetics for christianity are just excuses for something as rediculous as believing in flying to heaven on a winged horse.\\n\\nLets remember, we are arguing about. A cosmic jewish god zombie who is his own father and was born a virgin birth to a women impregnated by a holy ghost. \\n\\nThere is zero evidence for this that is not heresay. Not a single item or record or peice of evidence contemporary to jesus exists. To confirm this laughably absurd story all we have is stories that contradict each other, written in the wrong language, written decades to centuries after the fact, much of which we know was straight up forged and copied from surrounding greek myths and people.\\n\\nGetting lost in abologetics is exacty meant to make you forget you are proving an absurd thing eith zero evidence, and get caught up in the weeds.\\n\\n\\nReasons. \\n\\n1. Supernatural events in the bible are empirically impossible to prove. Christians may use awful arguments like minimal facts etc, but these are all comically bad and fallacious. Abuductive reasoning is all we have access to, and that can never demonstrate supernatural events... This alone is enough, as it is logicalltly impossible to demonstrate christianity through our resources.\\n\\n2. The bible is self contradictory, the trinity and more is exceedingly illogical. By this i mean it literslly violates the laws of logic... and is isnanely stupid.\\n\\n3. The bible is obvious myth taken from surrounding cultures.\\n\\n4. There are no decent biblical scholars who think Moses wrote the old testament. Moses clearly never existed and exodus never happened. This is extremely confirmed... there is extreme evidence the base of both judeaism and christianity is 100% made up.\\n\\n5. People that claim supernatural events or whatever... 1. Does not prove god, or their god... it proves they had something special happen and nothing more. 2. These are nothing more than claims. 3. People claim this shit for every religion, thousands... if you apply this standard as evidence for one... you must for thousands of gods. 4. Once you understand psychology you realize how the brain works snd how easy it is for people to misnterpret things visually and auditory.\\n\\n6. Religions are not one off inventions. They are all representations and copyings of popular myths at the time. This can be seen in thousands of religions. Just as it is in christianity... the devil and hell doesnt become a thing until Greek influence, things like rising and dying saviours were popular greek myths too at the time of the bible etc. In fact the bible was wirtten in greek, not aramaic, the language Jesis and his follower would have spoken. You see babylonian myths copied into the parts of the bible, when they were written there...you see the bibles hell and devil and apocalyptic influences copying greek myth during the hellenistic period. Religions are copies of surrounding myth and cultures.\\n\\n7. Apologists often use arguments to prove god that are diestic. Things like the ontological srgument, teleological argument... aside from these being bad arguments, they only prove A God... not christianity. Even if the Kalam is true... the odds of christianity bring true is still zero... it gets you no closer.\\n\\n8. The bible wasnt written by geniuses. It was written by copying and adapting popular myths, cultures, and laws at the time. From copying ancient semetic religions and near eastern traditions 4000 tears ago, to adapting greek myths 2000 years ago. It also was written of centuries, adapted, edited, revised, forged, faked, reinterpreted thousands of times by hundeds of people. This idea some geniuses wrote this thing like you see it now is childishly ignorant of scholarship and history.\\n\\n9. There are actually about 94 gospels. 90 of which christians will admit are 100% bullshit mythological stories... yet they somehow think these are the special true 4, because the church leaders centuries ago simply decided so. \\n\\n10. These excuses and arguments for christianity are no better and no different than the ones Jews will use, or muslims, or Sikhs. You just live in a place around christians most likely. \\n\\nIts interesting because i have never heard a christian argument to me than is not childishly rediculous imo.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw07u2w\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Inevitable_Spare_777\",\n \"body\": \"You can’t have a factual, logical debate with a person who’s worldview doesn’t subscribe to facts and logic\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw08ays\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"drzowie\",\n \"body\": \"There is no direct way to argue a Christian out of Christianity, because it is a faith-based system of beliefs. But you *can* demand respect for your own beliefs.\\n\\nA couple of years ago, I wrote about just how incompatible Christian beliefs are with the scientific worldview. That line of argument is (like any other argument) unlikely to convince a fervent believer -- but may help you to understand that there are real weaknesses in the edifice of Christian thought. \\n\\nBelow is [copypasta from an early CMV post I made](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/7zy9wp/cmv_you_can_accept_todays_scientific_theory/durqqmi/):\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw08i8h\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"DouglerK\",\n \"body\": \"I mean if they didn't the religion would probably be dead by now.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw08xbe\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"joshp23\",\n \"body\": \"> If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniouses\\n\\nAll they have at their disposal are unfalsifiable claims. You can't prove that the invisible dragon in my garage doesn't exist either. The rest is a con act to attribute personal experience to the dragon. \\n\\nBut unfalsifiability and con tactics aside, wouldn't a genius be able to construct an effective argument *and* compile an internally consistent document at the same time? You have to do mental gymnastics to apologize for the ignorance and inconsistencies in the Bible.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw09c2d\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Crookwell\",\n \"body\": \"OR you just aren't a very good critic?\\nBecause I can rebuke shitty religious claims all day\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw09wvx\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"redstar15551\",\n \"body\": \"Maybe you should give up then? You're not gonna \\\"Gotcha\\\" Christianity so leave them alone. Your lack of faith and overabundance of cynicism does not bug anyone the slightest. Don't trap yourself because you view this as an unwinnable battle against some dogmatic close minded religion, when that in and of itself is close minded. There's a modern pushback against religion, Christianity specifically, that has been pushed hard; but Christianity has and will continue to endue.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0a4wk\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Various_Succotash_79\",\n \"body\": \"When my brothers were young, they played a game that was very much like Calvinball (if you've never read the comic Calvin and Hobbes, this is a game they made up on the fly). So it was all stuff like \\\"now the floor is lava so you burn up!\\\" \\\"Oh yeah? I throw 60 million tons of dry uce on it and that cools it off\\\", \\\"well that was too much and now you're frozen solid!\\\" Etc. \\n\\nThat's pretty much what religion is. Your mistake is in trying to make any sense of it.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0b260\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">When my brothers were young, they played a game that was very much like Calvinball (if you've never read the comic Calvin and Hobbes, this is a game they make up on the fly, so it never has the same rules). So it was all stuff like \\\"now the floor is lava so you burn up!\\\" \\\"Oh yeah? I throw 60 million tons of dry ice on it and that cools it off\\\", \\\"well that was too much and now you're frozen solid!\\\" Etc. \\n\\n!delta\\n\\nAs you show, you can't get anywhere trying to defend yourself from a religion which is designed to dodge accountability and make opponents lose. It's not designed for a debate, it's designed to be inescapable.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw25sdi\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jw0b260\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Collective82\",\n \"body\": \"If you are having such a hard time debating it, shouldn’t you consider it’s right and maybe you should look at converting?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0bbov\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"I have. The problem is no matter how hard I try, I have zero spirituality and a complete inability to be sincerely connected with any religion. I see this as a disability comparable to being unable to because it's such a drag on my life.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw263jo\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jw0bbov\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Fluffy_Candle6800\",\n \"body\": \"I'll give you a quote from a book I read - \\\"God is omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent. However, bad things still happen. This means God cannot stop the bad things - he is not omnipotent, God does not know the things are happening - he is not omniscient, or he allows the bad things to happen - he is not benevolent.\\\"\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0bhc0\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"I've accepted the last one. How can I possibly believe in a benevolent god, when he gives miracles to some and neglects genuine victims, or when the religion he designed has endless excuses and loopholes to dodge all accountability?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw26dbi\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jw0bhc0\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"ItsAll42\",\n \"body\": \"I do feel as though you too quickly concede many points that are not accurate or honest, but stated with such confidence they are difficult to rebutt just as confidently without sufficient background knowledge. In fact, some of these claims are just straight up racist, such as claiming altruism is not only a strictly christian virtue, but that many values such as caring for the sick and needy or having basic human decency are strictly Western practices and values.\\n\\n This is wildly inaccurate to claim, knowledge of history can easily debunk such ludicrous statments, especially considering much of the Western ideology is more focused on individualism where confucianism is more focused on the community as a whole. Buddhism stresses that all beings have inherent worth and challenges the strictly heiarchichal values of confucianism, yet still plenty of emphasis is placed on how to better the community as a whole and being kind for the sake of altruism and kindness without any expectation of personal rewards. You do not have to be a historian or theologian to debunk so much of what this person is claiming, especially in regard to other Abrahamic religions which are incredibly similar to the teachings of Christianity, you know, because they share a common historical and biblical root. While modern interpretations of Abrahamic faiths run the gamut, they are more alike than many of their subscribers would like to admit. \\n\\nIn fact, I'd argue that Christianity and most of its branches contain more self-serving motives than many religious beliefs, promising prosperity and wealth in heaven as a reward for good behavior. As an agnostic person I do not need a reward for my good behavior. \\n\\nAs you tried to point out, when this person claims pagans did not care for the sick or other absurd claims, the burden of proof is on them to substantiate such a ridiculous assumption. \\n\\nThis person comes across as making many intellectually dishonest arguments, and you more or less concede or gloss many of these points without pushback.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0cszb\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">This person comes across as making many intellectually dishonest arguments, and you more or less concede or gloss many of these points without pushback.\\n\\nThat's because I didn't study history at a tertiary level. See how I'm a frequent visitor to r/AskHistorians - because I'm not smart or knowledgeable about history. Are you suggesting that to defeat Christianity, I'll need a university degree in history?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw26yyz\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jw0cszb\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"FerdinandTheGiant\",\n \"body\": \"Most, if not all of the Western values people like to claim are “Judeo-Christian” in origin simply aren’t. For one “Judeo-Christian values” aren’t a thing as these groups have different values, however let’s consider a few things we value in the west. \\n\\n#Democracy\\n\\nIn the Bible, democracy is never extolled or even articulated. Instead, there are endless stories of theocratic, authoritarian rule and the divine right of kings. Power is always concentrated; it’s never distributed. In classical Greece, however, Athenians established what is generally recognized as the world’s first democracy around 500 BCE. This predates Christianity and arose with no Jewish influence.\\n\\n#Common Humanity/ Equality\\n\\nThis is simply not biblical. In the New Testament, women are forbidden from holding authority over a man, told to be silent in church, and instructed to be obedient and submissive to their husbands. The same word used for submissive in Colossians also is used to describe how slaves should be to their masters. Women can be killed if they’re suspected of having premarital sex; the tenth commandment forbids coveting property, which includes women in the same sentence as houses and oxen; if a woman was raped, she was forced to marry her rapist if the offender paid her father, and on and on it goes.\\n\\nNon-Israelites or gentiles were forced into slavery and treated as property. This is seen in Leviticus and all over the Hebrew Bible. Slavery was condoned and justified for thousands of years using the Bible. \\n\\n#10 Commandments\\n\\nA common argument is that these “laws” are where we derive most of our morals and values in the west. This is rather silly. \\n\\nFor starters, a lot of the commandments are about idolatry, however other Rules like “thou shall not kill” predate Christianity and Judaism by hundreds of years. Literally any and all functional societies require this rule to be in place. And all over the world you see non-Christian nations follow similar “laws”. This is because they are beneficial for building a society. \\n\\n#Other religions\\n\\nOther religions have much stronger moral codes that Christanity. Jainism believes so much in the value of life that they won’t even talk at night because they could accidentally harm an insect. Buddhists have a deep personal desire to self improve while also improving the lives of those around them. Same could be said for taoists.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0dbxm\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"That's the problem though. You assume that Christianity is pro-democracy and pro-equality when history has shown us that they'd gladly throw these concepts under the bus if it were in the way of their religion.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw27njn\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jw0dbxm\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Circular360Angles90\",\n \"body\": \"People often conflate these two completely separate ideas. God/Higher Power - whatever you want to call it, with - Religion. \\n\\nReligion, in its limited ability tries to use the concept of God in an attempt to sway your reasoning capabilities towards their doctrine. God, however is completely separate from Religion.\\n\\nReligion just seems to have a Monopoly on the word. People feel as though believing in a God or Gods means they should adhere to some way of “knowing” their God. - which is all that a religion really does. But rest assured that it is someone elses ideas you are digesting. Theres nothing wrong with consulting people whom you believe to be wise or have more experience, but if you start feeling like they have some sort of answer that you cant quite grasp, then your talking to the wrong people. \\n\\nThis is not something that anyone can “show” you or “debate” you about. \\n\\nGod isnt in a book. God isnt an idea you learn from the pulpit. God isnt reason nor logic. God isnt bad. God isnt good. \\n\\nYou are engaging in a debate where their is nothing to debate, thus you always be “outwitted.”\\n\\nThink for yourself, walk your own path. You’ll fall flat on your face initially, perhaps for many years and, if you can muster up strength to get up on your own and not ask anybody why you fell and why it hurts so bad - you’ll stop feeling “outwitted.”\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0f9fa\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">You are engaging in a debate where their is nothing to debate, thus you always be “outwitted.”\\n\\n>Think for yourself, walk your own path. You’ll fall flat on your face initially, perhaps for many years and, if you can muster up strength to get up on your own and not ask anybody why you fell and why it hurts so bad - you’ll stop feeling “outwitted.”\\n\\nIsn't this the problem though? Most people can earn external respect being just who they are. In contrast, I have to prove my respectability, and prove why I have valid views, and I always lose.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw2llv2\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jw0f9fa\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CIABrainBugs\",\n \"body\": \"If God was real, his actions would prevent me from giving him any respect. I don't care if he's real.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0fl5d\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Nghtmare-Moon\",\n \"body\": \"Read Carl Sagan’s demon haunted world. It’s the best essay to counter all religious arguments\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0g6mu\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"GainPornCity\",\n \"body\": \"It's not that there's a rebuttle for everything. There's just a different lens to look through. \\n\\nSay an atheist has blue shades on and sees everything as blue. Christian sees everything as red. However, the one commonality between the Athiest and the Christian is the human construct..thereby despite being in different mindsets, they both acknowledge phenomena as they unfold in the world\\n\\nNo matter how much blue you speak regarding world phenomena, the Christian will respond to *each* phenomenon with a red response. \\n\\n\\nThis phenomenon, you look at through a blue lens and say: \\\"The Christian has an excuse for everything, no matter how blue, there's always gonna be some red to speak on from their side.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0gw4r\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Realistic-Cat4116\",\n \"body\": \"The only rebuttal you need is: \\\"Prove it.\\\" Keep repeating that over and over again. They can't, you win, end of argument.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0h3pm\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Okami_The_Agressor_0\",\n \"body\": \"Debating things that are designed to explain all with a basis in non-falsifiable statements is impossible. Religions are all memetic viruses that are meant to superimpose a false sense of the world on their followers, there are other belief systems that do the same that don't involve god but a well designed memetic virus can't be successful with out being impervious to logic or ways to side step rational thinking. That being said many modern political beliefs are structured similarly and operate in a similar fashion to religions. \\n\\nReligion imparts a base line culture and morality to people that allows for a more respectful and peaceful society. Part of what make that possible is ideological sanitation of a populace. Diversity of ways of life sparks conflict and religion solves that a good portion of the time. You could potentially see how many recent events have been the result of diverse culture and belief systems, so any derivation of heterogenization of society would logically be rejected by such belief systems with understandable cause.\\n\\nI believe people should be able to do what ever they please but when there is no respect in society people seek control from government to maintain the peace. So the easiest way for a country to stay free is to remain an ethno/ideological-state, or very slow and controlled change. When accounting these things you must satisfy for the lowest common denominator which will inevitable reject things on the basis of tribal instinct.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0k3j1\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"ApeMummy\",\n \"body\": \"You’re outwitted because you lack wit not because christianity is special.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0k3sk\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"SeymoreButz38\",\n \"body\": \"1st is a citation needed. Second was a semantic argument. Third is a no true scotsman fallacy.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0kns0\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Ecoronel1989\",\n \"body\": \"I think the issue here is your brother does a few things to confuse you.\\n1. Switching between defending spirituality and Christianity.\\n2. Berating you with words so it's hard for you to rebuttal everything that is said (an overwhelming tactic).\\n3. Throws out unprovable claims that are opinions as facts.\\n\\nFor #1, there's a big difference between spirituality and Christianity. Christianity asserts it is the one true religion, all others are wrong and lead to a wrong lifestyle. Spirituality is a general idea about believing in something outside oneself. To Christians, spirituality is paganism (unless it's Christianity itself) and therefore wrong and cannot be accepted or celebrated. So your brother can't simply pick and choose to say spirituality is good for the health and then switch to say Islam is not a good religion as these are contradictory statements.\\n\\nBut this issue is linked to #2, he berates arguments with a ton of words and makes multiple \\\"points\\\" at once. This is a similar tactic to what Donald Trump has used during his time as a politician. Simply overload the other side with a word soup, throwing out multiple arguments that are each wrong, but takes effort to debate each of them. By the time you gather your thoughts about the first wrong statement, he's moved on to the next 3, it's overwhelming.\\n\\nWhich leads to the last point, that is throwing out unprovable claims in the midst of his word soup. Claims such as there would be no morality without religion are unprovable for modern science since we have had religion in all cultures for over 2000 years, so it's hard to test this \\\"fact\\\". Another one that comes to mind is saying there's objective morality in the Bible, which you argued is not because of the Bible. Another counterargument is that the interpretation to the Bibles teachings changes across generations (i.e. slavery allowed for priests) and is therefore not objective, but his claim is unprovable in general as you can only offer up counter examples he can claim we're people not following the \\\"truth\\\".\\n\\nOverall, I think you're doing better than you think at debating this issue. The larger issue is what others have pointed out, that you don't have to win this argument, simply live by what you believe is true like they do.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0m923\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"TimeFliesFaster\",\n \"body\": \"It doesn’t have a good rebuttal as to why Jesus is the prophesied messiah of a religion that believes in a single unitary god. Especially when Jesus didn’t have the right ancestors and failed to meet the applicable prophesies (ie dead all coming back to life, temple being restored for all time, diaspora returning, war coming to permanent end, and entire world embracing scripture in messiah’s lifetime)\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0sjyl\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"David_Warden\",\n \"body\": \"You are trying to prove a negative which is a waste of time.\\n\\nThey are the ones making the improbable claims so the burden of proof lies with them. \\n\\nIf they continue to pester you, ask them to prove it.\\n\\nI think you will find that it boils down to belief in the highly improbable that is not adequately supported by either evidence or reasoning.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw1cnr9\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"SaltiestRaccoon\",\n \"body\": \"Sure. They have rebuttals. They're just not as good as you think they are. And they tend to be the same rebuttals over and over.\\n\\nI mean just to refute the ones you were hit with... In the first example, he paints the 'pagan' world monolithically while citing the worst examples from many different cultures, while kind of also ignoring that many of those things also apply to Christian nations. Pretty sure the weak and poor weren't running Medieval England, for instance. Likewise slaves were absolutely still a thing among Christians... the slaves just couldn't also be Christian. There were Christian Germanic warriors pillaging right along with the rest of them. Finally virtually any civilization that has kept slaves does in fact have laws about how they can be treated. It can certainly even be argued that serfdom is still just slavery but called something else to make it acceptable, as people can still be bought and sold, they just count as part of the land instead and likewise must work for their lord or face abuse or death. Sounds a lot like slavery to me.\\n\\nAltruism is in fact a part of human nature. It evolved because we are a social species and we are inclined to act for the good of our group, as our group is beneficial to our survival. There's a [great example](https://www.upi.com/Archives/1987/11/04/Cavemen-took-care-of-physically-disabled/5137563000400/) of a cave man skeleton with some pretty crippling deformities, who could not have hunted for himself that lived to old age. That means his tribe or his family unit was caring for him despite the fact he was a burden. And this is humanity in the stone age, at our least civilized. The Gauls, as well routinely collected a portion of taxes to help pay for their disabled citizens (though in Rome, it was preached if not always practiced that disabled children should be put to death.)\\n\\nIn a lot of instances he just seems ignorant on history and expects you to go along with it. A lot of it is very gish-gallupy too. He says so many wrong things that there's no way to correct them all without getting so bogged down with corrections that you can never make a point of your own, or even refute all of his errors. Don't allow that. Insist on arguing one point at a time.\\n\\nReally I think it's gaps in your knowledge more than Christianity being particularly difficult to criticize. I find it quite easy.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-14\",\n \"id\": \"jw3kj7g\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ]\n]","isConversational":false},"2":{"kind":"string","value":"challenge"}}},{"rowIdx":53,"cells":{"0":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Eli_Siav_Knox","body":"You’re looking at this entire thing wrong my friend. By “debating” you are losing a priori. Maybe this is an American thing of whatnot but where I’m from when we consider that the person we’re arguing with has fairy tale thinking, we don’t grace them with an argument. All systems of indoctrination do this thing where they establish this entirely false notion that their “truth” is the pre-existing one and you need to debate against it. When the truth is their “truth” is barely holding on to any semblance of reality and logic and by agreeing to engage with it you are transporting your entire debate into their playing field. What could you possibly say to a person that has chosen to believe a fairy tale against absolutely all rules of logic and is invested in keeping up this charade ? They are not beholden to the same rules of logic you are beholden to, they can use any bad faith argument they want, at which point is it really a debate anymore ? Your stance should be what my stance has always been about organized religion : which is that I do not engage in debates with people I consider not very smart or otherwise psychologically weak and predisposed to magical thinking to calm their existential dread. If they need it , I respect it, I hope it helps them, I don’t need it, and I refuse to spend a minute of my life explaining why me, the person who doesn’t need emotional crutches, doesn’t need them. I just don’t. And neither do you.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvznxbu","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">All systems of indoctrination do this thing where they establish this entirely false notion that their “truth” is the pre-existing one and you need to debate against it.\n\n!delta\n\nThey might not like being told that their faith is indoctrination, but that's exactly what it is. I've tried debating anti-vaxxers and 9/11 conspiracy theorists in the past, and their indoctrination is so strong that they dismiss the evidence I give them. The premise of my post, namely that they have better rebuttals, was wrong, because what was needed here is deprogramming, not debate.\n\n> When the truth is their “truth” is barely holding on to any semblance of reality and logic and by agreeing to engage with it you are transporting your entire debate into their playing field. What could you possibly say to a person that has chosen to believe a fairy tale against absolutely all rules of logic and is invested in keeping up this charade ?They are not beholden to the same rules of logic you are beholden to, they can use any bad faith argument they want, at which point is it really a debate anymore ?\n\nI can't think of something to say, can you? They can dodge and deflect anything, so because we don't live in an ideal world, I might as well just dodge them since their rules are not my rules.\n\n>If they need it , I respect it, I hope it helps them, I don’t need it, and I refuse to spend a minute of my life explaining why me, the person who doesn’t need emotional crutches, doesn’t need them. I just don’t. And neither do you.\r \n\r\n\nI'd much rather live and let live than need to debate these people.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzuwvo","parent_id":"jvznxbu","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"DeltaBot","body":"Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/Eli_Siav_Knox ([1∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/Eli_Siav_Knox)).\n\n^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzuza5","parent_id":"jvzuwvo","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],"string":"[\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Eli_Siav_Knox\",\n \"body\": \"You’re looking at this entire thing wrong my friend. By “debating” you are losing a priori. Maybe this is an American thing of whatnot but where I’m from when we consider that the person we’re arguing with has fairy tale thinking, we don’t grace them with an argument. All systems of indoctrination do this thing where they establish this entirely false notion that their “truth” is the pre-existing one and you need to debate against it. When the truth is their “truth” is barely holding on to any semblance of reality and logic and by agreeing to engage with it you are transporting your entire debate into their playing field. What could you possibly say to a person that has chosen to believe a fairy tale against absolutely all rules of logic and is invested in keeping up this charade ? They are not beholden to the same rules of logic you are beholden to, they can use any bad faith argument they want, at which point is it really a debate anymore ? Your stance should be what my stance has always been about organized religion : which is that I do not engage in debates with people I consider not very smart or otherwise psychologically weak and predisposed to magical thinking to calm their existential dread. If they need it , I respect it, I hope it helps them, I don’t need it, and I refuse to spend a minute of my life explaining why me, the person who doesn’t need emotional crutches, doesn’t need them. I just don’t. And neither do you.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvznxbu\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">All systems of indoctrination do this thing where they establish this entirely false notion that their “truth” is the pre-existing one and you need to debate against it.\\n\\n!delta\\n\\nThey might not like being told that their faith is indoctrination, but that's exactly what it is. I've tried debating anti-vaxxers and 9/11 conspiracy theorists in the past, and their indoctrination is so strong that they dismiss the evidence I give them. The premise of my post, namely that they have better rebuttals, was wrong, because what was needed here is deprogramming, not debate.\\n\\n> When the truth is their “truth” is barely holding on to any semblance of reality and logic and by agreeing to engage with it you are transporting your entire debate into their playing field. What could you possibly say to a person that has chosen to believe a fairy tale against absolutely all rules of logic and is invested in keeping up this charade ?They are not beholden to the same rules of logic you are beholden to, they can use any bad faith argument they want, at which point is it really a debate anymore ?\\n\\nI can't think of something to say, can you? They can dodge and deflect anything, so because we don't live in an ideal world, I might as well just dodge them since their rules are not my rules.\\n\\n>If they need it , I respect it, I hope it helps them, I don’t need it, and I refuse to spend a minute of my life explaining why me, the person who doesn’t need emotional crutches, doesn’t need them. I just don’t. And neither do you.\\r \\n\\r\\n\\nI'd much rather live and let live than need to debate these people.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzuwvo\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvznxbu\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"DeltaBot\",\n \"body\": \"Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/Eli_Siav_Knox ([1∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/Eli_Siav_Knox)).\\n\\n^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzuza5\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzuwvo\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n]","isConversational":false},"1":{"kind":"list like","value":[[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"DeadCupcakes23","body":"Why does it matter if Christianity has a rebuttal for something? You can criticise the bible and Christianity based on what it says and the actions done in its name (context depending).\n\nPeople have moral values without Christianity and most things people appreciate nowadays are not inherent to Christianity, for example the bible allows slavery.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzggd4","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">Why does it matter if Christianity has a rebuttal for something? You can criticise the bible and Christianity based on what it says and the actions done in its name (context depending).\n\nBecause losing a debate due to their rebuttals makes me look stupid. Also, if you follow the links to their arguments, even the atrocities done in its name don't count because those fall under \"false prophets\". \n\nIt's like the Bible was written with this possibility in mind to entrap us.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzh2ui","parent_id":"jvzggd4","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"tipoima","body":"Christianity *was* fabricated, but not by geniuses. \nYou're fighting against over two thousand years worth of apologetics, where all the weakest arguments have been pruned away. \nHowever, as expected of something that isn't actually true, those arguments are often plainly wrong, be it due to logical fallacies, appeals to unknown, obtuse philosophy you probably don't know you don't subscribe to, no-true-scotsmanning, e.t.c.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzh8ep","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">However, as expected of something that isn't actually true, those arguments are often plainly wrong, be it due to logical fallacies, appeals to unknown, obtuse philosophy you probably don't know you don't subscribe to, no-true-scotsmanning, e.t.c.\n\nThis is exactly what they do. The problem is that \"I don't know\" is not an acceptable answer to them ([see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvhr81y/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)), whereas they already have something up their sleeve to entrap me. \n\nAs you mentioned, with 2000 years of experience creating answers, I even if I am able to point out something wrong or intellectually dishonest, they'll still have an answer for that, forcing me to spend yet more time and effort to come up with an answer. And I am not intelligent enough to create an answer for everything they throw at me, so I'm trapped.\n\nIt's an uphill battle, and one that can easily be lost. Until we can come up with a rebuttal they can't defeat, there will always be a risk that secular society and LGBT rights might be defeated.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzhurp","parent_id":"jvzh8ep","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Watchyobackistan","body":"Not really, most of their \"rebuttals\" are stuff like \"god doesn't give us all the answers\" and \"Don't worry jesus loves you\" Non-answers.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzhdab","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"MercurianAspirations","body":"But why should you give a shit? If you have conviction in your own beliefs, it shouldn't matter whether or not you can convince others using your super debater skillz or not. After all, if somebody were sufficiently dumb or insane, it would be impossible to convince them of the truth, no matter how clear and apparent the truth were; therefore, whether or not a thing is widely believed and people are readily convinced of its truth is not a guide to truth. When there was only one person on the earth who believed in heliocentrism they were still right, and the geocentrists were still wrong. The geocentrists had answers for every single objection, and they won every single debate, yet, they were still wrong. \n\nMoreover, it isn't that Christianity is super well designed or anything. It's just that people who have strongly held convictions are not available to be convinced by facts and logic. That's just how people are: they do not actually change their minds that much.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzhezx","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">But why should you give a shit?\n\nBecause I don't want my stances to look stupid. I was once likened to an anti-vaxxer for not being able to provide evidence to back my lack of faith.\n\n> If you have conviction in your own beliefs, it shouldn't matter whether or not you can convince others using your super debater skillz or not. \n\nConviction in your own beliefs doesn't make one right. Besides, their side also has a firm conviction in their beliefs.\n\n>When there was only one person on the earth who believed in heliocentrism they were still right, and the geocentrists were still wrong. The geocentrists had answers for every single objection, and they won every single debate, yet, they were still wrong.\n\nScience doesn't care about number of believers, what matters is the evidence. And in the case of heliocentrism, it was proven right by overwhelming evidence. I wish I had overwhelming evidence to back my lack of faith.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzih4p","parent_id":"jvzhezx","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Mr-Bitter","body":"Send your brother my way. I know of a way to convince him that it was Satan that wrote the Bible and can kill every single one of his arguments. I would thoroughly enjoy a civilized religious debate.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzhg91","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"ApocalypseYay","body":">CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\n\nThis makes zero sense. Rebuttals require logic and facts, and there are only apologia and special pleasing fallacy described herein. \n\nLet's start from the basic - where is the evidence for chris, the alleged son of god, and somehow also god, that killed himself to please himself? There is zero historical evidence for this event, before we even get to the easily debunked claims of miracles, or the plainly immoral laws being promulgated as divine commandments.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzhig9","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">where is the evidence for chris,\n\n[Most historians accept that Jesus Christ existed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus). The rest of the biblical story isn't accepted by historians.\n\n>before we even get to the easily debunked claims of miracles,\n\n[I miserably failed at convincing someone that I don't believe in miracles](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvai6qm/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). How would you convince him?\n\n> or the plainly immoral laws being promulgated as divine commandments.\n\nHow would you convince them that their side is immoral? They have methods up their sleeve to dismiss the malice conducted in the name of Christianity, and justify the anti-LGBT commandments.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzj8qx","parent_id":"jvzhig9","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"physioworld","body":"The most important concept you have to remember is the burden of proof. It’s not up to you to prove the Christianity ISNT TRUE, it’s up to them to prove that it IS TRUE. So if they can’t prove their own religion you need to accept it, you don’t have to worry about disproving their beliefs. \n\nA good way to illustrate this, is whether they would accept comparable claims with comparable evidence from other religions. So if they claim that Christianity is true because it says so in the bible, ask whether you should also accept Islam because it says so in the Quran.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzhlry","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">The most important concept you have to remember is the burden of proof. It’s not up to you to prove the Christianity ISNT TRUE, it’s up to them to prove that it IS TRUE. So if they can’t prove their own religion you need to accept it, you don’t have to worry about disproving their beliefs.\n\nBut that's the problem - they consider themselves as proving it is true. For example, one guy who told me of miracles he received - [and I lacked a sufficient rebuttal to convince him he's wrong](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvai6qm/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzjexi","parent_id":"jvzhlry","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Adam__B","body":"You don’t have to defend not believing in something that is invisible, utterly silent, immeasurable, illogical, unscientific, undetectable and untestable. The burden is on them to prove a positive, not you a negative.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzi1gp","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"OrangeBlancmange","body":"Why do you think you are losing? They obviously haven’t convinced you in these arguments and just falling back to faith (which is all they really have) doesn’t ‘win’ anything in any meaningful way. You won’t be able to argue them out of their faith so you can’t ‘win’ either. Ultimately it’s not an argument in the philosophical sense - they aren’t engaging in good faith and simply will not change their minds regardless of what you say.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzi24f","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"> they aren’t engaging in good faith and simply will not change their minds regardless of what you say.\n\nBad faith arguments are like doping in sports - they make it easier for them to win. You just need to be a good enough debater to win despite the disadvantage.\n\n>Why do you think you are losing? \n\nBecause I failed to be that \"good enough debater\". Any argument I can throw at them is utterly crushed and thrown back at me.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzk4ge","parent_id":"jvzi24f","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Cayowin","body":"How did you lose that debate?\n\nSlavery - Christians used the bible to promote the slave trade\n\n[https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/01/a-harvard-exhibit-on-slavery-and-christianity/#:\\~:text=In%20the%20modern%20era%2C%20Christianity,often%20used%20to%20justify%20slavery](https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/01/a-harvard-exhibit-on-slavery-and-christianity/#:~:text=In%20the%20modern%20era%2C%20Christianity,often%20used%20to%20justify%20slavery).\n\nYes there were abolitionists, but if the same text can be used to both justify and condemn an action how is that text a good moral guide?\n\nThe bible explicitly allows the owning of humans as property. So either god is not unchanging or he changed his mind. \n\n1 Peter 2:18, Saint Peter writes \"Slaves, be subject to your masters with all reverence, not only to those who are good and equitable but also to those who are perverse.\"\n\nYes they have prepared apologetics, it just means you need to do more research. Remember they have no evidence for their claims beyond personal gut feelings and a collection of contradictory, fictional and historic works.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzi8a8","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">Slavery - Christians used the bible to promote the slave trade\n\nI've miserably failed when using the \"what about slavery argument\" - it's in the link following \"It all started 3 years ago\". Sure, I could point out the pro-slavery parts, but they'll have a reason why that bit is irrelevant or misinterpreted. It's exhausting, finding every argument to throw at them, and having each one of those utterly crushed with more rebuttals thrown your way.\n\n>Yes they have prepared apologetics, it just means you need to do more research. Remember they have no evidence for their claims beyond personal gut feelings and a collection of contradictory, fictional and historic works.\r \n\r\n\nI tried pointing out to someone that I don't believe in his \"miracle\". [My attempt failed miserably](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvai6qm/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzkhnt","parent_id":"jvzi8a8","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Augnelli","body":"What is the rebuttal for the Ark? What did the carnivores eat? How did the Kangaroos and Koalas make it up from Australia? What about fresh water fish? How much space was designated for JUST the elephants food?\n\nYou don't need to debate every detail, just enough to invalidate the core; the truth on which they base their faith.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzikz2","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">What is the rebuttal for the Ark? What did the carnivores eat? How did the Kangaroos and Koalas make it up from Australia? What about fresh water fish? How much space was designated for JUST the elephants food?\n\nThat's the problem - even since the medieval era, most Christians disavowed biblical literalism, because biblical literalism is easier to poke holes into. Instead, they've come up with apologia, and now, with over 2000 years of apologia to defend against, it's become an unwinnable fight.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzlcvy","parent_id":"jvzikz2","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"ch0cko","body":"No. I am a frequent debater on subs like r/DebateReligion and r/DebateAnAtheist and everything you've said here is just... no. The vast majority of arguments for theism or counterarguments against arguments against theism, generally lead to special pleading or other fallacies.\n\nHere's one post I recently made: [https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/15pjew5/extraordinary\\_claims\\_need\\_extraordinary\\_evidence/](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/15pjew5/extraordinary_claims_need_extraordinary_evidence/) which then links to another one of my posts that goes more in-depth: [https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/15ey939/if\\_religious\\_beliefs\\_were\\_subject\\_to\\_consistent/](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/15ey939/if_religious_beliefs_were_subject_to_consistent/)\n\nA lot of what Christianity said is very similar to other religions and old mythologies. It has a generic reward-punishment system/carrot and stick system, that is, a hell and heaven. On top of that, all of the claims in Christianity hold no good evidence with most being anecdotal. Most arguments for Christianity are not Christian-specific and more so just theism in general. Even then, those thesitic arguments lead to either, 1. fallacies, or 2. only making theism \"more likely,\" but even then, these arguments have counters.\n\nThey were not geniuses. A little clever, but they essentially copied other religions and mythologies and is a cookie-cutter religion. Christianity isn't wide spread just because of how \"logical\" and \"sound\" it is; indoctrination or generationally passing the idea down is a big part of it. There are also contradictions in the Bible which can be found at this website: [https://www.lyingforjesus.org/Bible-Contradictions/](https://www.lyingforjesus.org/Bible-Contradictions/)","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzirf5","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">They were not geniuses. A little clever, but they essentially copied other beliefs and mythologies and is a cookie-cutter religion. Christianity isn't widespread just because of how \"logical\" and \"sound\" it is; indoctrination or generationally passing the idea down is a big part of it. There are also contradictions in the Bible which can be found at this website: https://www.lyingforjesus.org/Bible-Contradictions/\n\nI wasn't implying that Christianity was \"logical\" and \"sound\". I was implying it was successful because it has so many tricks up its sleeve. It may be full of lies, but for every one I point out, I'll get one or more rebuttals thrown my way.\n\nThink of it as being like in the middle of a dense minefield. Whoever laid the minefield might not have a \"logical\" and \"sound\" reason for it, but any step you could take will blow up in your face.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzlzr1","parent_id":"jvzirf5","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"xper0072","body":"Just because someone has an answer for everything doesn't mean that the answer is a good answer. Your inability to properly debate the topic does not mean that the other side is correct in any way.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzj07m","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">Your inability to properly debate the topic does not mean that the other side is correct in any way.\n\nI wasn't saying the other side was correct. My point is that they are impossible to defeat and are good at ensnaring their critics.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzmc3l","parent_id":"jvzj07m","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"razvanght","body":"In my experience, Christian s believe that God is real because they feel He is real. Then you can ask them whether a person of a different religion can also use the same method (I feel Zeus is real because I feel Him) to conclude that a different god is real. Christians generally agree that that person used the same method (feeling based) to reach an opposite conclusion (Zeus, not God, is real). In my discussions at least, this argument works in that it gives people pause. Of course, it does not change their belief immediately because they have been holding it for some time but I feel like it adds a seed of doubt.\n\nDo you know the official Christian response against this line of argument?","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzj0m8","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">In my experience, Christian s believe that God is real because they feel He is real. Then you can ask them whether a person of a different religion can also use the same method (I feel Zeus is real because I feel Him) to conclude that a different god is real. \n\nHow can I get them to accept the argument that \"oh I don't feel God is real, so don't force me to go to church\"? Because that argument always failed me in the past. Also, on a tangent, how are you able to \"feel\" Zeus?\n\n>adds a seed of doubt.\n\nPlanting seeds of doubt is a great political strategy. For example, in Australia, we have an upcoming referendum on constitutional indigenous recognition - and because the No side is so good at planting seeds of doubt, the Yes side is losing despite having academia and the arts sector on its side. \n\nBut back to the point, I tried planting seeds of doubt and failed miserably. The Christians I've had to defend my opinions from don't merely consider themselves as \"feelings based\", they consider their views as backed by literature (the Bible).","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzmy3i","parent_id":"jvzj0m8","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Apprehensive_Box3199","body":"I dropped my Catholicism at 21 after learning basic logic at University. In year 6 whilst at a Catholic school, we were given a Catholic Catechism - literally the manual for being a good Catholic. Most of the book is written in question-and-answer format. This is indoctrination 101. The first 3 questions are, and I quote:\n\n>1. Question: Who made the world? \n Answer: God made the world. \n> \n>2. Q. Who is God? \n> \n> A. God is the Creator of heaven and earth and of all things and the Supreme Lord of all. \n> \n>3. Q. How do we know there is a God? \n> \n> A. We know that there is a God by the things that He made.\n\nRight there; in the first 3 question-and-answers is a Circular Argument. The entire basis of the Catechism is premised on a Circular Argument. If nothing else, the entire point of Catholicism is to justify the original statement that God exists.\n\nI looked through the whole of the Catechism highlighting anything I still believed. I highlighted a single sentence in the preface about doing unto others etc... NOTHING else.\n\nBefore you have a go at me for not knowing what a circular argument until I was 21 - I went to Catholic schools for all of high school and it is in their best interests NOT to teach that and it was the 80s. That's my excuse and I sticking to it.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzjc23","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">Right there; in the first 3 question-and-answers is a Circular Argument. The entire basis of the Catechism is premised on a Circular Argument. If nothing else, the entire point of Catholicism is to justify the original statement that God exists. \n> \n>I looked through the whole of the Catechism highlighting anything I still believed. I highlighted a single sentence in the preface about doing unto others etc... NOTHING else. \n> \n>Before you have a go at me for not knowing what a circular argument until I was 21 - I went to Catholic schools for all of high school and it is in their best interests NOT to teach that and it was the 80s. That's my excuse and I sticking to it.\n\nIn my experience, pointing out the circular argument leads to one of 2 outcomes:\n\n1. Getting more apologia that I am unable to defeat\n2. The \"*Do you have a better explanation?*\" rebuttal","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvznrln","parent_id":"jvzjc23","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Simbabz","body":"The most important story of the bible is Jesus ressurecction, the gospels contradict each other in the telling of the story, hardly designed by geniuses.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzktxv","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">The most important story of the bible is Jesus ressurecction, the gospels contradict each other in the telling of the story, hardly designed by geniuses.\n\nNot sure what Protestants say, but Catholicism claims that slight differences with the same overall story prove it's written by real people observing the same things. We can accuse them of using a dodgy argument, but it still wouldn't undermine their side.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzp1ei","parent_id":"jvzktxv","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"vote4bort","body":"I think you're just trying way too hard in these debates and starting from the wrong point. You're coming at them like religion is something that can be proved through debate when it fundamentally can't. \nThe religious rebuttal for every point will always be essentially the same. That is they'll say \"well I believe this I so\". And you can't argue with that because its not a statement that can be argued against.\n\nWhat can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzkuyc","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.\n\nThe problem is when they think they have evidence and you think they don't. [Here's an example with a Protestant](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jv9g3kt/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3), and we can't agree on anything.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzp2i6","parent_id":"jvzkuyc","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"sapphireminds","body":"You seem to be a poor debater. You are accepting a lot of arguments as true when they aren't. \n\nAll children are born atheists. Coincidentally, they just happen to usually believe in the god(s) their parents/community believes it. \n\nAnd personally, if there is a god with the power ascribed to it by the bible, I would refuse to worship it. \n\nYou also need to educate yourself about the null hypothesis.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzl8ri","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">You seem to be a poor debater. You are accepting a lot of arguments as true when they aren't.\r\n\nI don't accept their arguments as true. I accept them as difficult to defeat.\n\n>And personally, if there is a god with the power ascribed to it by the bible, I would refuse to worship it.\n\nI wouldn't want to worship such a God either. [I've told a Protestant that if I were to accept that he indeed received a miracle, it would still prove that the Christian god is unjust](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvkkegk/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). But that argument still failed to sway him.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzqf91","parent_id":"jvzl8ri","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"-paperbrain-","body":"What you seem to be saying is just that you are not able, with the mere power of logic, to get Christians to abandon their belief.\n\nI hate to break it to you, but this is not a particular quality of Christianity. Anything people are dug in on will face this hill. Not only will you encounter it with every religion, but you won't argue many people out of their political doctrine, flat earth belief, or whether they side with Ross or Rachel on friends. People have rebuttals for everything about many totally conflicting positions. It's part of having strong beliefs and giving it some thought. And religions in particular have had a long time and tons of resources to give it thought.\n\nThat doesn't mean there's no room for criticism. Just that your expectation about change is ridiculously optimistic.\n\nHowever, regardless of how your personal debates are going, people are leaving Christianity in droves, partly because they don't find those rebuttals to critique to be logically, morally or emotionally satisfying. The fastest growing religious affiliation is \"none\".","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzlzcb","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">That doesn't mean there's no room for criticism. Just that your expectation about change is ridiculously optimistic.\n\nSometimes, I'm challenged to debate when I'm not looking for one (see my first link in the post details). I wasn't expecting to change anyone's views, just successfully defend my decision, and I failed even that.\n\n>However, regardless of how your personal debates are going, people are leaving Christianity in droves, partly because they don't find those rebuttals to critique to be logically, morally or emotionally satisfying. The fastest growing religious affiliation is \"none\".\n\n[Christianity is still growing overall](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_population_growth). Even if it's not growing in the Western World, this shrinkage is negated by growth outside the Western World.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzs5r5","parent_id":"jvzlzcb","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"wrongfulness","body":"What a waste of time","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzmu4k","parent_id":"15purrs","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"The_White_Ram","body":"This isn't hard. Christianity literally endorses slavery.\n\nIf you believe slavery is wrong then that's the only argument you need.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzniyg","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">This isn't hard. Christianity literally endorses slavery. \n> \n>If you believe slavery is wrong then that's the only argument you need.\n\nI tried using such an argument. [It backfired](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvztyn7","parent_id":"jvzniyg","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"ElPwnero","body":"I like the one Muslims use:\\\nThe word of allah is perfect and if you find inconsistencies, then it’s your human brain that’s incapable of understanding the true meaning.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzoket","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">I like the one Muslims use:\r \n> \n>The word of allah is perfect and if you find inconsistencies, then it’s your human brain that’s incapable of understanding the true meaning.\n\nI mean, they're basically insulting your intelligence. But isn't that a great bad faith tactic, dodging accountability by accusing your opponent of being too dumb to understand? I can't imagine myself faring any better debating a Muslim than debating a Christian.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzvglo","parent_id":"jvzoket","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"indigoneutrino","body":"The interesting thing is I've had the opposite experience. Plenty of experiences online and in person where they can barely rebut *anything* to the point that I've had a minister apologise she can't answer my questions satisfactorily. I've seen no-one rebut or even explain why the crucifixion makes sense without legitimising blood sacrifice. It just constantly defaults to \"Jesus paid for our sins,\" without explaining why the death of an innocent third party was accepted as a valid payment within a supposedly just system.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzppfh","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Pichkuchu","body":">It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted\n\nJust because you got outwitted doesn't mean the other side was right, they were, in fact, blatantly wrong. Christianity is just as guilty of atrocities as any religion. Keep in mind that Christianity is 2000 years old and they enslaved people until 1860 and they had to be \"convinced\" by war to give it up. They genocided native populations in America and colonized Asia and Africa. There was inquisition. They burned people for heresy, including scientists. They weren't different from other big religions or even pagans. The modern view of the world and humanity encompasses non Christian populations too and one could argue that it's in fact the result of secularism.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzqu5n","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"StrangeAssonance","body":"I’m curious why you think one has to prove God exists? \n\nAlso, when Jesus was on earth the Jews kept asking for a sign from Him. They were blind to what he was doing with His ministry. The world is blind, so when you try to have these arguments that you feel you can’t win, I think you aren’t ever going to win them. I can show you God through my words and deeds but if you are blind to that, you won’t see what’s there to see.\n\nJesus repeatedly talks about how blind and deaf people are to God and his word.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzr1ue","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">Also, when Jesus was on earth the Jews kept asking for a sign from Him. They were blind to what he was doing with His ministry. The world is blind, so when you try to have these arguments that you feel you can’t win, I think you aren’t ever going to win them. I can show you God through my words and deeds but if you are blind to that, you won’t see what’s there to see.\n\nThis is why I see my inability to believe as a disability comparable to being unable to read.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzzkhs","parent_id":"jvzr1ue","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"mo_ff","body":"You can have faith that your monthly bills will be paid whilst you have no money or means to do so OR you can actually have the money. One will work. The other will leave you with no utilities. Full stop.\n\nIn a debate with a Christian you would encounter, \"Oh, but have you no faith a brother in Christ would not help you?\" And then a large quantity of scriptural examples would be brought forth from whatever version of the bible they are most familiar with.\n\nAs others have stated, the deck is stacked. If you can approach the conversation with your family in a civil manor, stop going to church. Believe what makes you happy and mentally healthy so long as it doesn't hurt others.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzr2rx","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"HansPGruber","body":"You need to read some Thomas Paine my friend. A renegade if the atomic age.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzrn0v","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Morasain","body":"Couple things.\n\nThe first thing is that burden of proof is with the person making a claim - Christians in this case.\n\nThe second thing is - you don't need to refute the religion itself, because you can't.\n\nUsually, if you bring up things like pastors being molesters, or the crusades, or witch burnings, Christians will commit a No True Scotsman fallacy. \"These pastors aren't *real* Christians.\" You don't need to refute that argument because it is in itself wrong - but if you want, you can always go the path of saying that everyone in the church is, in the end, appointed by God.\n\nThe easiest way to reject Christianity is to instead reject God, though. You don't even need to prove that he's bad or anything - you need to use your own morality to reject the idea that a god like depicted in Christianity can be a god you want to believe in.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzrwx0","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"hdhddf","body":"you don't need to convince them, they're arguing from a position of ignorance and indoctrination, you can't argue with that because their arguments aren't built on logic or sound reasoning.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzs63u","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Huffers1010","body":"Let's do it by example. What did they have a rebuttal for that you couldn't respond to?\n\nMy suspicion is that they really didn't.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzt6nt","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"misersoze","body":"Just say: “hey I also met a Muslim, a Mormon, a Jew and a Hindu. They all make the exact same arguments as you do about why their religion is the correct one and they all say they have the one true religion. So why should I join yours over their’s”.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvztpz1","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Potential_Cod_8473","body":"They might win a debate but the world still is a shitty place full of diseases, suffering, birth defeacts. \n\nIt only prove how dishonest someone is to defend a claim it was created my omnipotent and omniscient being. \n\nChristianity was falsified many times\nAdam and Eve? Fairytale\nGreat Flood? Fairytale\nBabel's tower? Fairytale\nExocus? Fairytale \nRessurection? Really improbable\n\nThe fact that the scripture has to be interpreted in the face of new evidence like why would omnipotent God need 4 bilions years to create highly imperfect and miserable beings or why universe is 93 bilion light years wide and we are limited by a speed of light is a powerful evidence against revelation.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvztt3e","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"the_internet_clown","body":"Just because someone says something in response doesn’t make it a good rebuttal","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzugyn","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Relevant_Maybe6747","body":"Christianity doesn’t have a rebuttal against Judaism - they’ve tried and tried to kill us and never succeeded","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzuj4l","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Is that really a good argument though? By that logic, Islam doesn't have a rebuttal against Christianity either (or vice versa).","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw075ml","parent_id":"jvzuj4l","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Scott_The_Protogen","body":"Why \"debate\" someone's faith anyways? Unless they're being a jerk about it like in the last part. I always just have that whole live and let live thing (Even if some fanatics might not be that way either). I know you say some of these people come to you with the debates, but I feel like just giving a solid \"I don't want to talk about it\" or \"My views aren't going to change\" might work, even if they do continue to badger you regarding it, It doesn't have to be a winning-losing game.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzullx","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">Why \"debate\" someone's faith anyways? \n\nIn the first link, I was challenged to a debate out of the blue when I requested not to go to church anymore. He wanted me to read his spiel and change my views, or give a counter-argument strong enough to defend my views.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw07dt4","parent_id":"jvzullx","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Key-Extension1458","body":"2000 years ago there was a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem that took animal sacrifice from the people. This was fulfilling the Mosaic Covenant, and sustained Israel called \"Judea\". Like Jesus said it would happen, the temple was thrown down to the last stone and the sacrificial rite was \"nailed to the cross\" in the words of Paul the Apostle. This leaves us without redemption under the law, and everyone is guilty of sin everywhere. \n\nHence the figure of Christ intervenes, and made the ultimate sacrifice, putting death and guilt and hell itself into the fire. Now we have grace and mercy, and redemption by faith. It seems to work, since 2000 years of Christian history represented the general improvement of life everywhere. At the same time, the movement was hijacked by earthly forces resulting in \"churchianty\" and roman catholicism. All \"debates\" are just scholastic noise from that time, arguing in circles about nothing relevant. It is what it is, the temple of jerusalem was destroyed 2000 years ago and the levitical rites were nailed to the Cross.\n\nNow everything is a free gift, the more we cast off the old man and put on the new. Strong enough faith loses fear of everything and moves mountains, it is divine power given to mankind. God loves the children of this world and Israel in dispersion, which means everyone.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzur3s","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Key-Extension1458","body":"2000 years ago there was a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem that took animal sacrifice from the people. This was fulfilling the Mosaic Covenant, and sustained Israel called \"Judea\". Like Jesus said it would happen, the temple was thrown down to the last stone and the sacrificial rite was \"nailed to the cross\" in the words of Paul the Apostle. This leaves us without redemption under the law, and everyone is guilty of sin everywhere. \n\nHence the figure of Christ intervenes, and made the ultimate sacrifice, putting death and guilt and hell itself into the fire. Now we have grace and mercy, and redemption by faith. It seems to work, since 2000 years of Christian history represented the general improvement of life everywhere. At the same time, the movement was hijacked by earthly forces resulting in \"churchianty\" and roman catholicism. All \"debates\" are just scholastic noise from that time, arguing in circles about nothing relevant. It is what it is, the temple of jerusalem was destroyed 2000 years ago and the levitical rites were nailed to the Cross.\n\nNow everything is a free gift, the more we cast off the old man and put on the new. Strong enough faith loses fear of everything and moves mountains, it is divine power given to mankind. God loves the children of this world and Israel in dispersion, which means everyone.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzurg6","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">2000 years ago the Temple in Jerusalem took animal sacrifice from the people. It was fulfilling the Mosaic Covenant, and sustained Israel called \"Judea\" at the time. Like Jesus said it would happen, the temple was thrown down to the last stone and the sacrificial rite was \"nailed to the cross\" in the words of Paul the Apostle. This leaves us without redemption under the law, and everyone is guilty of sin everywhere. \n> \n>Hence the figure of Christ intervenes, and made the ultimate sacrifice, putting death and guilt and hell itself into the fire. Now we have grace and mercy, and redemption by faith. It seems to work, since 2000 years of Christian history represented the general improvement of life everywhere. At the same time, the movement was hijacked by earthly forces resulting in \"churchianty\" and roman catholicism. All \"debates\" are just scholastic noise from that time, arguing in circles about nothing relevant. It is what it is, the temple of jerusalem was destroyed 2000 years ago and the levitical rites were nailed to the Cross. \n> \n>Now everything is a free gift, the more we cast off the old man and put on the new. Strong enough faith loses fear of everything and moves mountains, it is divine power given to mankind. God loves the children of this world and Israel in dispersion, which means everyone.\n\nIs this supposed to be a promotion of Protestantism?","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw07io1","parent_id":"jvzurg6","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"danmilligan","body":"One thing I'm sensing is that you're thinking of Christianity as a monolith, and while that was once true, it hasn't been for a long, long time. So many types of Christianity exist that there will be Christians on opposite sides of nearly any given issue. The true non-negotiables of the religion are extremely minimal, and highly interpretive. Because of this, you can't really say \"Christians are like this\" or \"Christians do that\", because this will apply to SOME Christians, but certainly not all. For a good example, the majority of American Christians are extremely unique from a global perspective, being far more individualistic, and reading the Bible in a slavishly literal fashion, among other things. So if you say \"Christians are anti-LGBTQ\", there are millions and millions of other Christians ready to counter that.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzusf6","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">One thing I'm sensing is that you're thinking of Christianity as a monolith, and while that was once true, it hasn't been for a long, long time. So many types of Christianity exist that there will be Christians on opposite sides of nearly any given issue. The true non-negotiables of the religion are extremely minimal, and highly interpretive.\n\nI'm well aware of the splits within Christianity. What I mention in my post detail is that I have tried and miserably failed to defend my lack of faith from both Catholics and Protestants. I understand that they'd have different ways of thinking regarding lack of faith, but at the end of the day, both defeated me.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw07u6h","parent_id":"jvzusf6","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"GreasyPorkGoodness","body":"You need to dismantle the church hierarchy and not the “existence of god”. \n\nIt’s not that you don’t believe in god, you don’t believe in Christianities following of god. Their church is corrupt, opulent, child molesters, hypocritical, child marriage, judgmental, in Christ like etcetera. \n\nGod very well might exist, if he does he certainly won’t approve of christianity.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzuv92","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"CutiePopIceberg","body":"Christianity is Middle Eastern mythology. Christians hate when you remind them of this.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzv7py","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"JustSomeDude0605","body":"\"I don't believe in that bullshit\"\n\nDebate over.\n\nContrary to your brother's or pastor's wishes, you don't owe them any sort of debate or explanation. Live your life as you want to, not based on what they think you should do. If that means, no religion then stop going to church. \n\nFuck em.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzvaah","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"CriticalThinkingAT","body":"The thing is, there are a mountain of atheist rebuttals as well. Like literally there are so many atheist channels out there to rebutting every Christian argument that it's just a matter of searching and looking for them. Lol. You'll be fine.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzvipb","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">The thing is, there are a mountain of atheist rebuttals as well. Like literally there are so many atheist channels out there to rebutting every Christian argument that it's just a matter of searching and looking for them. Lol. You'll be fine.\n\nCounterpoint: Only a few of these are useful. Most channels appear to be useful only against Protestant pastors who rely on charisma. Catholicism is much harder to debate against as they have 2000 years of church tradition, intellectuals and apologia on their side.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw09z3v","parent_id":"jvzvipb","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"OpenByTheCure","body":"I don't want to be harsh, but I just think you're not very good at debating","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzvw3c","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"I am bad at debating (and most other things). Maybe that's why I always get challenged to debates, because I will lose.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0b11j","parent_id":"jvzvw3c","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Dr_Keyser_Soze","body":"You need to listen to David C. Smalley. Take in a few podcasts and you won’t be disappointed.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzvzk2","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Wintermute815","body":"It’s really not. It depends on circular logic and faith, both of which are critical flaws.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzx8zv","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"j3rdog","body":"Stop trying to debate facts by point counter point. Learn street epistemology. There’s good YouTube channels and subreddits on it.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzxa1z","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Unable-Food7531","body":"You're:\n\n1. Bad at debating in general\n\n2. An unskilled rhetorician \n\n3. Uneducated on the topic you're debating.\n\nThose Three things together mean than any attempt to draw generally-appliable conclusions from your debating losses is doomed to produce bs.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzxmej","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"How can I get all 3 skills when I'm up against people who have so much more knowledge than me? I hate it when I give others a reason to criticise me.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw05k0t","parent_id":"jvzxmej","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"DangForgotUserName","body":"Christians don't have arguments, just elaborate evasions of criticism.\n\nIn order to be religious, or believe in a supernatural god, to some extent, one has to deny certain aspects of science, and also have to deny the foundations of reason and logic. \n\n\nThere are major undemonstrated claims that come with theism:\n\n-a spiritual, divine, or otherwise supernatural realm exists \n\n-there are nonphysical spiritual forces and entities \n -some kind of afterlife exists\n\n-at least humans have souls, which are the spiritual essence \"attached\" to a physical body\n\nEven if all these were demonstrated, we would still have no way of determining which deities were real. These claims are also far from being demonstrated, likely, or even possible. \n\nEven then, we have no way to link such deities to any religion that anyone worships.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzxv11","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Electrical-Rabbit157","body":"It’s not well designed. It’s the worst designed religion in the world actually. The success of Christianity is based around keeping people from learning about other faiths. The moment that happens the VAST majority of them leave christianity for something else. Myself included. \n\nYou have to go at the fundamental hypocrisy of it. The average Christian rants and raves about the Ten Commandments and yet every single one of them break the first 2 commandments daily and most break 3 commandments every Sunday. The average priest breaks the first 4. Then there’s the fact that the Bible is a corrupt text and Christianity as a whole was founded by Paul, a man who is not a prophet, not a disciple, not an apostle, just a random guy who comes out of nowhere and starts preaching that Jesus is God.\n\nThey worship a trinity which is paganism. There is no excuse for it. It’s the same exact belief system as Hindus which are literally the original pagans that Abraham fought against. This trinity also includes a man. That man is considered a prophet but still. This breaks the first commandment. \n\nThey idolize said man and the cross he died on. They wear necklaces with it. They put big gold crosses at the front of their churches and big wooden ones on the outside of them. This breaks the second commandment \n\nThey go to church on Sunday and the vast majority of them believe this is the sabbath. Which directly breaks the fourth commandment.\n\nThe priesthood commits extortion and sometimes even rape in either the name of God or what they lead people to believe is a house of God. This breaks the third commandment \n\nThen you get to the Bible and it’s non existent integrity. There are about 5 major sects of Christianity. Each one has about 40 versions of the Bible. And the average Christian may think this is normal, it’s not. Jews have 1 version of the Torah. Muslims have 1 version of the Quran. Hell even the Hindus only have 1 version of most of their texts. The new testemant is more written by Paul, who is again, not a prophet, than any actual apostle. All of Paul’s letters are included in the vast majority of bibles yet the book of Enoch, book of Jesus Christ, and lost gospel to Peter are considered “uncanon” by the church and have been removed for centuries. That is not a holy text. It may have been a couple thousand years ago but out of 200+ in circulation today, I’d seriously doubt any can be considered uncorrupted.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzyqtq","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"malorane","body":"Isn't this other person either straight up lying or totally misinformed about the Christianity/Catholicism? Like I could be misremembering but I'm pretty sure there are passages that literally give you guidelines about how to treat your slaves and this dude said both have always been against slavery?","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzz7x7","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"CantKeepMeOutYo","body":"You will never win against someone with faith. They will always always always have some other bullshit excusw up their sleeves. That's what makes religion so fucking dangerous: it uses logic when it works and then completely disregards it when logic doesn't work. Don't bother debating christians, they've accepted a parasite into their body that will defend its ability to feed off the host, even if it means killing the host, or YOU.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzzg1h","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"wibbly-water","body":">If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\r \n\r \nIf you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\n\nIgnoring the second proposition for a second I want to propose 2 more reasonable secular arguments;\n\n1. This is true of all religions because their axioms and methods for diving truth are different. They believe, want to believe, will tie all phenomena in with their argument, will ignore Occam's Razor to do so. \n2. If Christianity is better than (some) other religions at doing this it may be because it is a highly evolved system of memes. A meme is the idea equivalent to a gene. Religions are memetic in nature - they are ideologies, ideas about how the world works. Memes compete for space and survival much like genes do. And every time one of its memes is threatened it is forced to either drop that meme and adapt or bolster it to do the same. Look at the iterations of historical Christianity. Where are the puritans today? Even Protestantism evolved out of Catholicism - many will claim that they are barely the same religion.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzzk96","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"DangForgotUserName","body":"The salvation of man is dependent on the suffering of Jesus Christ. His 'blood sacrifice magic' supposedly forgives original sin - doctrine that we know though biology is utterly wrong. (A couple of garden nudists were guilty of rebellious fruit munching, so everyone deserves death or eternal torment?) This makes the theological story around Jesus one where he is scapegoat of a nonexistent forebear. This should undermine the value of Jesus as well as the foundational basis for belief in God.\n\n \n\nFurther, the idea that the only way to forgive is through ritualized punishment? That is petty and immoral. No forgiveness without bloodshed or death. Horrible, ignorant and outdated ideas.\n\n\nThe idea of a messiah, one who will deliver us from the tribulations of the present, is an ancient idea that distracts us from the hard work that must be done to build a better world.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzzkww","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Emotional_platypuss","body":"The problem here is both sides trying to impose beliefs on others. What you believe or don't believe is your problem. You don't need to explain why you don't follow a religion, specially to religious people. Is like them telling you why their religion is so good. Break out of that circle and move on","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0052z","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"notjuan_f_m","body":"This Is the problem with everything lately. \"I am right, you are wrong, and I will continue to tell you until you accept that i am right\"","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw00l9j","parent_id":"jw0052z","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"JackedLilJill","body":"If anything, just from your text and title, the fact that Christians explain themselves fully in the face of debate, should be the reason to change your view.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw00vuq","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"FerdinandTheGiant","body":"For your first debate with your brother, he was just straight up wrong on so much. Christianity is not and does not serve as the basis for morality in the western world or the world as a whole. \n\nMost of the non-western world like in Asia is not heavily Christian and wasn’t for most of their history. They of course are doing just fine. Christian morals have not been consistent nor are they the basis for a basic society. \n\nAdditionally, you don’t need Christianity to explain altruism as it already has a natural explanation. It’s called kin selection and essentially means that it is beneficial to help out family since they carry your genes. This means more of your genes will get passed on. This is likely how it evolved in humans and then developed into what we consider today. Animals do this. Altruism isn’t human alone. \n\nThen you have slavery which the Bible openly says is fine. Leviticus 25:44-46","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw013nj","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"-Strawdog-","body":"Taking a quick look at one or two of these examples, you have a very noticeable habit of accepting a lot of the other person's premises and arguments without pushing back on them at all. As an example, your brother mentions multiple times that altruistic behavior is the direct result of the Christian faith, an argument that is absolutely ridiculous for a bunch of reasons, not the least of which that our closest genetic relatives (chimpanzees and bonobos) exhibit all kinds of altruistic behaviors as part of their highly social lifestyles (and they also don't sacrifice eachother, something he seems weirdly hung up on).\n\nTo be honest, it doesn't look like the people you're debating have good arguments or are good at expressing them, it seems that you are just very new to debate, particularly on this topic. If debating religious folks is something you want to do (you are incredibly unlikely to change their minds even with very good arguments), you can find plenty of solid resources online that break down and refute just about any apologetics you are likely to encounter.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw01pm9","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"lamabaronvonawesome","body":"I have found the opposite to be true. I would recommend reading some books on logic and debate. Having an answer doesn't make it a good answer. I had a debate teacher that used to day \"the definition of a reason is anything I put forth as a reason.\" This essentially means you SAY anything, that doesn't mean it will hold up under scrutiny. You mentioned miracles that a person had given you examples of in their own life. Debate in essence is about definitions, how we define things. Get them to give you the definition of a miracle. I personally would define that as any event that is ONLY explainable by divine intervention. See if their miracles hold up to that.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw02avd","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"kountze","body":"The Church did have some good effects on political and cultural development in Europe - for example the separation of powers came from the Church being a strong counter force to the government for so long, church limited the government in ways that led to values of separation of powers and limited government, unlike China which was much more state dominated and still is today. Protestantism represented not only a change in religion but also a change in how humans think logically - so yeah a lot of good things can be tied to how Protestantism changed how people think. \n\nThat being said, the above certainly is a far cry from saying that Protestantism values will work in every situation or that it can address all of today’s modern problems. Protectionism ideally is something that should be open to interpretation, which modern Christianity has moved away from that. \n\nIn terms of science the Church does not have credible arguments - that’s the main problem. If you think they do, you really haven’t encountered anyone who actually knows the science and microbiology. \n\nAlso, do not confuse correlation and causation. Certain positive developments in society may correlate, but that correlation does not prove causation. \n\n\nThe issue with","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw035en","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Jaderholt439","body":"If I’m debating Christianity, I like to go straight to the main topic- the Resurrection.\n\nMost people I know and love are Christians; I don’t have a problem w/ their religion. I love these people. But what I don’t like are apologists. Every single one that I’ve ever seen is dishonest. Especially when it comes to the Resurrection.\n\nIt’s not hard to believe that a guy named Yeshua, who had a religious following, was crucified. I can even believe he was put in his own tomb, although most were put in a mass grave, it’s wasn’t unheard of. The stone being put to block the tomb and guards sound like they were plot holes being fixed in Matthew, but for arguments sake, I’ll agree to that too.\n\nJesus wasn’t in the tomb when they went to him 3 days later. What is the most likely explanation? Is it, “he must’ve overcome death and ascended, bc he’s God”? I think a Guy Ritchie style heist is way more plausible. ‘They forgot which cave’ is more plausible. Literally anything is more plausible. If they are being honest, they have to say, “I believe it on faith”. Yet, apologists will not say this, therefore they are dishonest, therefore they don’t have an answer for everything.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw03fxs","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Entropy_Drop","body":"LOL on the first link. Christianity didn't opposed slavery, and doesn't have a monopoly on being a good person. It actually was the ideological fundation of american slavery.\n\nHypocrates wasn't christian, gandi neither, and personal freedom, democracy and equality of genders aren't christian values.\n\nThe golden rule (\"don't do to other what you dont want done to yourself\") and the silver rule (\"do to others what you want to recieve from them\" (bdsm, for example)) are not creation of christianity. \n\nSome christian are propagandiced all their life into the worldview of \"all good comes from christ\", which is clearly a big lie. Is kinda justified for them to sell that lie, tho.\n\nAlso, that motto has a counter-part: \"No bad comes from christ\" which is my only explanation to how incredible bigoted people justify their behavior without ever thinking \"are we the badies?\". Anita \"pie-face\" Bryant comes to mind, who, in her own words \"loved homosexuals\".","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw04f2l","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Jade_Skie","body":"TJ Kirk (aka The Amazing Atheist) on YouTube once mentioned \"unfalsifiable hypothesis.\" In other words, Christians spout the argument that miracles, what is said in the Bible, Satan, and God all exist and are as the answer to everything because immediate evidence to the contrary can normally not be produced by their opponent, thus no argument against them can be made. So in their minds, they are right. That is, of course, not how the world/universe actually works.\n\nTo quote Carl Sagan: \"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.\"","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw04j73","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"JuliusErrrrrring","body":"Remember the following truths: most people who claim they are Christians are good people; most people who are good people and claim they are Christian are good because of their ignorance of the Bible, not because of the Bible. The Bible is an awful immoral book and the religion is completely silly. It is pro slavery, pro genocide, pro forced abortion and pro incest. If you are debating anyone who isn't in favor of those things, they may be actually non believers too, they are just too ignorant of their religion to know any better.\n\n​\n\nIt is completely silly and does not hold up to debate. Just some quick obvious random thoughts off the top of my head: They suck at math - claim to have one god yet believe in a holy trinity as well as an evil god. Many Christians claim to be against abortion, yet the Bible actually gives an abortion recipe, god murdered pregnant women in his Noah's Arc genocide, and Jesus forced abortions on Jezebel. Many Christians are anti-trans and anti gay - yet Eve transitioned from a male rib and now they worship a dress wearing dude with two fathers who identifies as bread and wine. Cain and Abel were the original motherfuckers. The whole bible was written by people who never met Jesus and there is zero historical proof that there even was a man named Jesus pretending to be god. It's just a gigantic hoax that's been accepted due to peer pressure because life is easier and you can make more money and get laid easier if you simply play along with this silly marketing scheme.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw05bz4","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Loose-Technology7787","body":"Christianity is designed that way. Christians are programmed in a way via church and such where they hold their belief to a much higher standard than any facts or logic despite a lack of evidence. On of christianity's main taglines is to just have faith in god even though hes done nothing to show you hes there.\n\nDebating a religious person on religion is an unwinnable debate. You cant argue against someones opinion when the only points they will accept are those that align with said opinion. For example, many christians say good and evil only exist because god decides whats good and bad. I might say that life is meaningless, therefore our thoughts and feelings are all that exist making them all that matters. Meaning we get to choose whats moral; however the christian would then just say life isnt meaningless because god gives meaning to life. This will go on for any length of time.\n\nThe only reason atheists win those official televised debates is because theres a mediator keeping nonsense out of it. They keep the religious side from using unreasonable and illogical arguments, which leads to them losing.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw05l8j","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"BuzzyShizzle","body":"That's funny because, I have yet to hear them lose an argument/debate on the atheist experience yet. \n\nIf you haven't heard of it, there is a call-in radio show called \"the atheist experience\" and the entire show is welcoming any religious to call in and challenge them. If you want your view changed, that show will do a much better job than anything else.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw06l99","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Sad_Confidence8941","body":"I agree, Christianity is very well designed. The smartest people alive for many centuries spent their lives defending Christianity (Thomas Aquinas, Saint Augustine, etc). They have been philosophically attacked for years and years and are still here","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw06orq","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"nomad5926","body":"Homie out here saying the altruism isn't a natural thing without Christianity..... 🤣 Bro be saying Meerkats are all Christians? Or Naked Mole Rats?\n\nI will never understand why people have to force religion upon others. But essentially an easy way out is to ask them to provide solid proof that God existed. Logically you cannot not prove a belief. (Like others have said before me). Typically the ones making the claim \"god exists\" have the burden of proof. \n\nAlso in my experience you're not going to convince anyone to stop believing. It's the same reason kids believe in Santa it gives them something. For most people, religion is a source of comfort. It's why, from what I see, older folks are more religious. (Cause you know.... Closer to death... Heaven seems nicer).\n\nIf you just want them to stop harassing you, you can just say that your relationship with God is personal and need not be on disability for others. (You don't have to say the bit that the relationship is non-existent).","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0753r","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Moraulf232","body":"Christianity has an answer for any criticism but the answers are silly and unconvincing just like the religion.\n\nJust ask yourself “has this answer explained why I should believe these assertions with no evidence or has it just made more assertions with no evidence?” and “could this answer be used to justify the existence of a Flying Spaghetti Monster or literally any other deity?” or “is there any evidence that the person I am talking to can imagine that would cause them to change their mind?” etc.\n\nThe philosophical arguments (apologetics) religions use are just fancy noise. There’s nothing there.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw07atx","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"lpuckeri","body":"Theres many reasons why christianity is absolutely absurd, at a childlike and comical level imo. I have equal belief in it than i do Santa. The apologetics for christianity are just excuses for something as rediculous as believing in flying to heaven on a winged horse.\n\nLets remember, we are arguing about. A cosmic jewish god zombie who is his own father and was born a virgin birth to a women impregnated by a holy ghost. \n\nThere is zero evidence for this that is not heresay. Not a single item or record or peice of evidence contemporary to jesus exists. To confirm this laughably absurd story all we have is stories that contradict each other, written in the wrong language, written decades to centuries after the fact, much of which we know was straight up forged and copied from surrounding greek myths and people.\n\nGetting lost in abologetics is exacty meant to make you forget you are proving an absurd thing eith zero evidence, and get caught up in the weeds.\n\n\nReasons. \n\n1. Supernatural events in the bible are empirically impossible to prove. Christians may use awful arguments like minimal facts etc, but these are all comically bad and fallacious. Abuductive reasoning is all we have access to, and that can never demonstrate supernatural events... This alone is enough, as it is logicalltly impossible to demonstrate christianity through our resources.\n\n2. The bible is self contradictory, the trinity and more is exceedingly illogical. By this i mean it literslly violates the laws of logic... and is isnanely stupid.\n\n3. The bible is obvious myth taken from surrounding cultures.\n\n4. There are no decent biblical scholars who think Moses wrote the old testament. Moses clearly never existed and exodus never happened. This is extremely confirmed... there is extreme evidence the base of both judeaism and christianity is 100% made up.\n\n5. People that claim supernatural events or whatever... 1. Does not prove god, or their god... it proves they had something special happen and nothing more. 2. These are nothing more than claims. 3. People claim this shit for every religion, thousands... if you apply this standard as evidence for one... you must for thousands of gods. 4. Once you understand psychology you realize how the brain works snd how easy it is for people to misnterpret things visually and auditory.\n\n6. Religions are not one off inventions. They are all representations and copyings of popular myths at the time. This can be seen in thousands of religions. Just as it is in christianity... the devil and hell doesnt become a thing until Greek influence, things like rising and dying saviours were popular greek myths too at the time of the bible etc. In fact the bible was wirtten in greek, not aramaic, the language Jesis and his follower would have spoken. You see babylonian myths copied into the parts of the bible, when they were written there...you see the bibles hell and devil and apocalyptic influences copying greek myth during the hellenistic period. Religions are copies of surrounding myth and cultures.\n\n7. Apologists often use arguments to prove god that are diestic. Things like the ontological srgument, teleological argument... aside from these being bad arguments, they only prove A God... not christianity. Even if the Kalam is true... the odds of christianity bring true is still zero... it gets you no closer.\n\n8. The bible wasnt written by geniuses. It was written by copying and adapting popular myths, cultures, and laws at the time. From copying ancient semetic religions and near eastern traditions 4000 tears ago, to adapting greek myths 2000 years ago. It also was written of centuries, adapted, edited, revised, forged, faked, reinterpreted thousands of times by hundeds of people. This idea some geniuses wrote this thing like you see it now is childishly ignorant of scholarship and history.\n\n9. There are actually about 94 gospels. 90 of which christians will admit are 100% bullshit mythological stories... yet they somehow think these are the special true 4, because the church leaders centuries ago simply decided so. \n\n10. These excuses and arguments for christianity are no better and no different than the ones Jews will use, or muslims, or Sikhs. You just live in a place around christians most likely. \n\nIts interesting because i have never heard a christian argument to me than is not childishly rediculous imo.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw07u2w","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Inevitable_Spare_777","body":"You can’t have a factual, logical debate with a person who’s worldview doesn’t subscribe to facts and logic","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw08ays","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"drzowie","body":"There is no direct way to argue a Christian out of Christianity, because it is a faith-based system of beliefs. But you *can* demand respect for your own beliefs.\n\nA couple of years ago, I wrote about just how incompatible Christian beliefs are with the scientific worldview. That line of argument is (like any other argument) unlikely to convince a fervent believer -- but may help you to understand that there are real weaknesses in the edifice of Christian thought. \n\nBelow is [copypasta from an early CMV post I made](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/7zy9wp/cmv_you_can_accept_todays_scientific_theory/durqqmi/):","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw08i8h","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"DouglerK","body":"I mean if they didn't the religion would probably be dead by now.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw08xbe","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"joshp23","body":"> If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniouses\n\nAll they have at their disposal are unfalsifiable claims. You can't prove that the invisible dragon in my garage doesn't exist either. The rest is a con act to attribute personal experience to the dragon. \n\nBut unfalsifiability and con tactics aside, wouldn't a genius be able to construct an effective argument *and* compile an internally consistent document at the same time? You have to do mental gymnastics to apologize for the ignorance and inconsistencies in the Bible.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw09c2d","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Crookwell","body":"OR you just aren't a very good critic?\nBecause I can rebuke shitty religious claims all day","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw09wvx","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"redstar15551","body":"Maybe you should give up then? You're not gonna \"Gotcha\" Christianity so leave them alone. Your lack of faith and overabundance of cynicism does not bug anyone the slightest. Don't trap yourself because you view this as an unwinnable battle against some dogmatic close minded religion, when that in and of itself is close minded. There's a modern pushback against religion, Christianity specifically, that has been pushed hard; but Christianity has and will continue to endue.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0a4wk","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Various_Succotash_79","body":"When my brothers were young, they played a game that was very much like Calvinball (if you've never read the comic Calvin and Hobbes, this is a game they made up on the fly). So it was all stuff like \"now the floor is lava so you burn up!\" \"Oh yeah? I throw 60 million tons of dry uce on it and that cools it off\", \"well that was too much and now you're frozen solid!\" Etc. \n\nThat's pretty much what religion is. Your mistake is in trying to make any sense of it.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0b260","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">When my brothers were young, they played a game that was very much like Calvinball (if you've never read the comic Calvin and Hobbes, this is a game they make up on the fly, so it never has the same rules). So it was all stuff like \"now the floor is lava so you burn up!\" \"Oh yeah? I throw 60 million tons of dry ice on it and that cools it off\", \"well that was too much and now you're frozen solid!\" Etc. \n\n!delta\n\nAs you show, you can't get anywhere trying to defend yourself from a religion which is designed to dodge accountability and make opponents lose. It's not designed for a debate, it's designed to be inescapable.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw25sdi","parent_id":"jw0b260","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Collective82","body":"If you are having such a hard time debating it, shouldn’t you consider it’s right and maybe you should look at converting?","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0bbov","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"I have. The problem is no matter how hard I try, I have zero spirituality and a complete inability to be sincerely connected with any religion. I see this as a disability comparable to being unable to because it's such a drag on my life.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw263jo","parent_id":"jw0bbov","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Fluffy_Candle6800","body":"I'll give you a quote from a book I read - \"God is omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent. However, bad things still happen. This means God cannot stop the bad things - he is not omnipotent, God does not know the things are happening - he is not omniscient, or he allows the bad things to happen - he is not benevolent.\"","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0bhc0","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"I've accepted the last one. How can I possibly believe in a benevolent god, when he gives miracles to some and neglects genuine victims, or when the religion he designed has endless excuses and loopholes to dodge all accountability?","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw26dbi","parent_id":"jw0bhc0","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"ItsAll42","body":"I do feel as though you too quickly concede many points that are not accurate or honest, but stated with such confidence they are difficult to rebutt just as confidently without sufficient background knowledge. In fact, some of these claims are just straight up racist, such as claiming altruism is not only a strictly christian virtue, but that many values such as caring for the sick and needy or having basic human decency are strictly Western practices and values.\n\n This is wildly inaccurate to claim, knowledge of history can easily debunk such ludicrous statments, especially considering much of the Western ideology is more focused on individualism where confucianism is more focused on the community as a whole. Buddhism stresses that all beings have inherent worth and challenges the strictly heiarchichal values of confucianism, yet still plenty of emphasis is placed on how to better the community as a whole and being kind for the sake of altruism and kindness without any expectation of personal rewards. You do not have to be a historian or theologian to debunk so much of what this person is claiming, especially in regard to other Abrahamic religions which are incredibly similar to the teachings of Christianity, you know, because they share a common historical and biblical root. While modern interpretations of Abrahamic faiths run the gamut, they are more alike than many of their subscribers would like to admit. \n\nIn fact, I'd argue that Christianity and most of its branches contain more self-serving motives than many religious beliefs, promising prosperity and wealth in heaven as a reward for good behavior. As an agnostic person I do not need a reward for my good behavior. \n\nAs you tried to point out, when this person claims pagans did not care for the sick or other absurd claims, the burden of proof is on them to substantiate such a ridiculous assumption. \n\nThis person comes across as making many intellectually dishonest arguments, and you more or less concede or gloss many of these points without pushback.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0cszb","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">This person comes across as making many intellectually dishonest arguments, and you more or less concede or gloss many of these points without pushback.\n\nThat's because I didn't study history at a tertiary level. See how I'm a frequent visitor to r/AskHistorians - because I'm not smart or knowledgeable about history. Are you suggesting that to defeat Christianity, I'll need a university degree in history?","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw26yyz","parent_id":"jw0cszb","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"FerdinandTheGiant","body":"Most, if not all of the Western values people like to claim are “Judeo-Christian” in origin simply aren’t. For one “Judeo-Christian values” aren’t a thing as these groups have different values, however let’s consider a few things we value in the west. \n\n#Democracy\n\nIn the Bible, democracy is never extolled or even articulated. Instead, there are endless stories of theocratic, authoritarian rule and the divine right of kings. Power is always concentrated; it’s never distributed. In classical Greece, however, Athenians established what is generally recognized as the world’s first democracy around 500 BCE. This predates Christianity and arose with no Jewish influence.\n\n#Common Humanity/ Equality\n\nThis is simply not biblical. In the New Testament, women are forbidden from holding authority over a man, told to be silent in church, and instructed to be obedient and submissive to their husbands. The same word used for submissive in Colossians also is used to describe how slaves should be to their masters. Women can be killed if they’re suspected of having premarital sex; the tenth commandment forbids coveting property, which includes women in the same sentence as houses and oxen; if a woman was raped, she was forced to marry her rapist if the offender paid her father, and on and on it goes.\n\nNon-Israelites or gentiles were forced into slavery and treated as property. This is seen in Leviticus and all over the Hebrew Bible. Slavery was condoned and justified for thousands of years using the Bible. \n\n#10 Commandments\n\nA common argument is that these “laws” are where we derive most of our morals and values in the west. This is rather silly. \n\nFor starters, a lot of the commandments are about idolatry, however other Rules like “thou shall not kill” predate Christianity and Judaism by hundreds of years. Literally any and all functional societies require this rule to be in place. And all over the world you see non-Christian nations follow similar “laws”. This is because they are beneficial for building a society. \n\n#Other religions\n\nOther religions have much stronger moral codes that Christanity. Jainism believes so much in the value of life that they won’t even talk at night because they could accidentally harm an insect. Buddhists have a deep personal desire to self improve while also improving the lives of those around them. Same could be said for taoists.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0dbxm","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"That's the problem though. You assume that Christianity is pro-democracy and pro-equality when history has shown us that they'd gladly throw these concepts under the bus if it were in the way of their religion.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw27njn","parent_id":"jw0dbxm","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Circular360Angles90","body":"People often conflate these two completely separate ideas. God/Higher Power - whatever you want to call it, with - Religion. \n\nReligion, in its limited ability tries to use the concept of God in an attempt to sway your reasoning capabilities towards their doctrine. God, however is completely separate from Religion.\n\nReligion just seems to have a Monopoly on the word. People feel as though believing in a God or Gods means they should adhere to some way of “knowing” their God. - which is all that a religion really does. But rest assured that it is someone elses ideas you are digesting. Theres nothing wrong with consulting people whom you believe to be wise or have more experience, but if you start feeling like they have some sort of answer that you cant quite grasp, then your talking to the wrong people. \n\nThis is not something that anyone can “show” you or “debate” you about. \n\nGod isnt in a book. God isnt an idea you learn from the pulpit. God isnt reason nor logic. God isnt bad. God isnt good. \n\nYou are engaging in a debate where their is nothing to debate, thus you always be “outwitted.”\n\nThink for yourself, walk your own path. You’ll fall flat on your face initially, perhaps for many years and, if you can muster up strength to get up on your own and not ask anybody why you fell and why it hurts so bad - you’ll stop feeling “outwitted.”","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0f9fa","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">You are engaging in a debate where their is nothing to debate, thus you always be “outwitted.”\n\n>Think for yourself, walk your own path. You’ll fall flat on your face initially, perhaps for many years and, if you can muster up strength to get up on your own and not ask anybody why you fell and why it hurts so bad - you’ll stop feeling “outwitted.”\n\nIsn't this the problem though? Most people can earn external respect being just who they are. In contrast, I have to prove my respectability, and prove why I have valid views, and I always lose.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw2llv2","parent_id":"jw0f9fa","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"CIABrainBugs","body":"If God was real, his actions would prevent me from giving him any respect. I don't care if he's real.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0fl5d","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Nghtmare-Moon","body":"Read Carl Sagan’s demon haunted world. It’s the best essay to counter all religious arguments","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0g6mu","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"GainPornCity","body":"It's not that there's a rebuttle for everything. There's just a different lens to look through. \n\nSay an atheist has blue shades on and sees everything as blue. Christian sees everything as red. However, the one commonality between the Athiest and the Christian is the human construct..thereby despite being in different mindsets, they both acknowledge phenomena as they unfold in the world\n\nNo matter how much blue you speak regarding world phenomena, the Christian will respond to *each* phenomenon with a red response. \n\n\nThis phenomenon, you look at through a blue lens and say: \"The Christian has an excuse for everything, no matter how blue, there's always gonna be some red to speak on from their side.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0gw4r","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Realistic-Cat4116","body":"The only rebuttal you need is: \"Prove it.\" Keep repeating that over and over again. They can't, you win, end of argument.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0h3pm","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Okami_The_Agressor_0","body":"Debating things that are designed to explain all with a basis in non-falsifiable statements is impossible. Religions are all memetic viruses that are meant to superimpose a false sense of the world on their followers, there are other belief systems that do the same that don't involve god but a well designed memetic virus can't be successful with out being impervious to logic or ways to side step rational thinking. That being said many modern political beliefs are structured similarly and operate in a similar fashion to religions. \n\nReligion imparts a base line culture and morality to people that allows for a more respectful and peaceful society. Part of what make that possible is ideological sanitation of a populace. Diversity of ways of life sparks conflict and religion solves that a good portion of the time. You could potentially see how many recent events have been the result of diverse culture and belief systems, so any derivation of heterogenization of society would logically be rejected by such belief systems with understandable cause.\n\nI believe people should be able to do what ever they please but when there is no respect in society people seek control from government to maintain the peace. So the easiest way for a country to stay free is to remain an ethno/ideological-state, or very slow and controlled change. When accounting these things you must satisfy for the lowest common denominator which will inevitable reject things on the basis of tribal instinct.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0k3j1","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"ApeMummy","body":"You’re outwitted because you lack wit not because christianity is special.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0k3sk","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"SeymoreButz38","body":"1st is a citation needed. Second was a semantic argument. Third is a no true scotsman fallacy.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0kns0","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Ecoronel1989","body":"I think the issue here is your brother does a few things to confuse you.\n1. Switching between defending spirituality and Christianity.\n2. Berating you with words so it's hard for you to rebuttal everything that is said (an overwhelming tactic).\n3. Throws out unprovable claims that are opinions as facts.\n\nFor #1, there's a big difference between spirituality and Christianity. Christianity asserts it is the one true religion, all others are wrong and lead to a wrong lifestyle. Spirituality is a general idea about believing in something outside oneself. To Christians, spirituality is paganism (unless it's Christianity itself) and therefore wrong and cannot be accepted or celebrated. So your brother can't simply pick and choose to say spirituality is good for the health and then switch to say Islam is not a good religion as these are contradictory statements.\n\nBut this issue is linked to #2, he berates arguments with a ton of words and makes multiple \"points\" at once. This is a similar tactic to what Donald Trump has used during his time as a politician. Simply overload the other side with a word soup, throwing out multiple arguments that are each wrong, but takes effort to debate each of them. By the time you gather your thoughts about the first wrong statement, he's moved on to the next 3, it's overwhelming.\n\nWhich leads to the last point, that is throwing out unprovable claims in the midst of his word soup. Claims such as there would be no morality without religion are unprovable for modern science since we have had religion in all cultures for over 2000 years, so it's hard to test this \"fact\". Another one that comes to mind is saying there's objective morality in the Bible, which you argued is not because of the Bible. Another counterargument is that the interpretation to the Bibles teachings changes across generations (i.e. slavery allowed for priests) and is therefore not objective, but his claim is unprovable in general as you can only offer up counter examples he can claim we're people not following the \"truth\".\n\nOverall, I think you're doing better than you think at debating this issue. The larger issue is what others have pointed out, that you don't have to win this argument, simply live by what you believe is true like they do.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0m923","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"TimeFliesFaster","body":"It doesn’t have a good rebuttal as to why Jesus is the prophesied messiah of a religion that believes in a single unitary god. Especially when Jesus didn’t have the right ancestors and failed to meet the applicable prophesies (ie dead all coming back to life, temple being restored for all time, diaspora returning, war coming to permanent end, and entire world embracing scripture in messiah’s lifetime)","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0sjyl","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"David_Warden","body":"You are trying to prove a negative which is a waste of time.\n\nThey are the ones making the improbable claims so the burden of proof lies with them. \n\nIf they continue to pester you, ask them to prove it.\n\nI think you will find that it boils down to belief in the highly improbable that is not adequately supported by either evidence or reasoning.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw1cnr9","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"SaltiestRaccoon","body":"Sure. They have rebuttals. They're just not as good as you think they are. And they tend to be the same rebuttals over and over.\n\nI mean just to refute the ones you were hit with... In the first example, he paints the 'pagan' world monolithically while citing the worst examples from many different cultures, while kind of also ignoring that many of those things also apply to Christian nations. Pretty sure the weak and poor weren't running Medieval England, for instance. Likewise slaves were absolutely still a thing among Christians... the slaves just couldn't also be Christian. There were Christian Germanic warriors pillaging right along with the rest of them. Finally virtually any civilization that has kept slaves does in fact have laws about how they can be treated. It can certainly even be argued that serfdom is still just slavery but called something else to make it acceptable, as people can still be bought and sold, they just count as part of the land instead and likewise must work for their lord or face abuse or death. Sounds a lot like slavery to me.\n\nAltruism is in fact a part of human nature. It evolved because we are a social species and we are inclined to act for the good of our group, as our group is beneficial to our survival. There's a [great example](https://www.upi.com/Archives/1987/11/04/Cavemen-took-care-of-physically-disabled/5137563000400/) of a cave man skeleton with some pretty crippling deformities, who could not have hunted for himself that lived to old age. That means his tribe or his family unit was caring for him despite the fact he was a burden. And this is humanity in the stone age, at our least civilized. The Gauls, as well routinely collected a portion of taxes to help pay for their disabled citizens (though in Rome, it was preached if not always practiced that disabled children should be put to death.)\n\nIn a lot of instances he just seems ignorant on history and expects you to go along with it. A lot of it is very gish-gallupy too. He says so many wrong things that there's no way to correct them all without getting so bogged down with corrections that you can never make a point of your own, or even refute all of his errors. Don't allow that. Insist on arguing one point at a time.\n\nReally I think it's gaps in your knowledge more than Christianity being particularly difficult to criticize. I find it quite easy.","date":"2023-08-14","id":"jw3kj7g","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}]],"string":"[\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"DeadCupcakes23\",\n \"body\": \"Why does it matter if Christianity has a rebuttal for something? You can criticise the bible and Christianity based on what it says and the actions done in its name (context depending).\\n\\nPeople have moral values without Christianity and most things people appreciate nowadays are not inherent to Christianity, for example the bible allows slavery.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzggd4\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">Why does it matter if Christianity has a rebuttal for something? You can criticise the bible and Christianity based on what it says and the actions done in its name (context depending).\\n\\nBecause losing a debate due to their rebuttals makes me look stupid. Also, if you follow the links to their arguments, even the atrocities done in its name don't count because those fall under \\\"false prophets\\\". \\n\\nIt's like the Bible was written with this possibility in mind to entrap us.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzh2ui\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzggd4\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"tipoima\",\n \"body\": \"Christianity *was* fabricated, but not by geniuses. \\nYou're fighting against over two thousand years worth of apologetics, where all the weakest arguments have been pruned away. \\nHowever, as expected of something that isn't actually true, those arguments are often plainly wrong, be it due to logical fallacies, appeals to unknown, obtuse philosophy you probably don't know you don't subscribe to, no-true-scotsmanning, e.t.c.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzh8ep\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">However, as expected of something that isn't actually true, those arguments are often plainly wrong, be it due to logical fallacies, appeals to unknown, obtuse philosophy you probably don't know you don't subscribe to, no-true-scotsmanning, e.t.c.\\n\\nThis is exactly what they do. The problem is that \\\"I don't know\\\" is not an acceptable answer to them ([see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvhr81y/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)), whereas they already have something up their sleeve to entrap me. \\n\\nAs you mentioned, with 2000 years of experience creating answers, I even if I am able to point out something wrong or intellectually dishonest, they'll still have an answer for that, forcing me to spend yet more time and effort to come up with an answer. And I am not intelligent enough to create an answer for everything they throw at me, so I'm trapped.\\n\\nIt's an uphill battle, and one that can easily be lost. Until we can come up with a rebuttal they can't defeat, there will always be a risk that secular society and LGBT rights might be defeated.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzhurp\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzh8ep\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Watchyobackistan\",\n \"body\": \"Not really, most of their \\\"rebuttals\\\" are stuff like \\\"god doesn't give us all the answers\\\" and \\\"Don't worry jesus loves you\\\" Non-answers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzhdab\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"MercurianAspirations\",\n \"body\": \"But why should you give a shit? If you have conviction in your own beliefs, it shouldn't matter whether or not you can convince others using your super debater skillz or not. After all, if somebody were sufficiently dumb or insane, it would be impossible to convince them of the truth, no matter how clear and apparent the truth were; therefore, whether or not a thing is widely believed and people are readily convinced of its truth is not a guide to truth. When there was only one person on the earth who believed in heliocentrism they were still right, and the geocentrists were still wrong. The geocentrists had answers for every single objection, and they won every single debate, yet, they were still wrong. \\n\\nMoreover, it isn't that Christianity is super well designed or anything. It's just that people who have strongly held convictions are not available to be convinced by facts and logic. That's just how people are: they do not actually change their minds that much.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzhezx\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">But why should you give a shit?\\n\\nBecause I don't want my stances to look stupid. I was once likened to an anti-vaxxer for not being able to provide evidence to back my lack of faith.\\n\\n> If you have conviction in your own beliefs, it shouldn't matter whether or not you can convince others using your super debater skillz or not. \\n\\nConviction in your own beliefs doesn't make one right. Besides, their side also has a firm conviction in their beliefs.\\n\\n>When there was only one person on the earth who believed in heliocentrism they were still right, and the geocentrists were still wrong. The geocentrists had answers for every single objection, and they won every single debate, yet, they were still wrong.\\n\\nScience doesn't care about number of believers, what matters is the evidence. And in the case of heliocentrism, it was proven right by overwhelming evidence. I wish I had overwhelming evidence to back my lack of faith.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzih4p\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzhezx\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Mr-Bitter\",\n \"body\": \"Send your brother my way. I know of a way to convince him that it was Satan that wrote the Bible and can kill every single one of his arguments. I would thoroughly enjoy a civilized religious debate.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzhg91\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"ApocalypseYay\",\n \"body\": \">CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\\n\\nThis makes zero sense. Rebuttals require logic and facts, and there are only apologia and special pleasing fallacy described herein. \\n\\nLet's start from the basic - where is the evidence for chris, the alleged son of god, and somehow also god, that killed himself to please himself? There is zero historical evidence for this event, before we even get to the easily debunked claims of miracles, or the plainly immoral laws being promulgated as divine commandments.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzhig9\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">where is the evidence for chris,\\n\\n[Most historians accept that Jesus Christ existed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus). The rest of the biblical story isn't accepted by historians.\\n\\n>before we even get to the easily debunked claims of miracles,\\n\\n[I miserably failed at convincing someone that I don't believe in miracles](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvai6qm/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). How would you convince him?\\n\\n> or the plainly immoral laws being promulgated as divine commandments.\\n\\nHow would you convince them that their side is immoral? They have methods up their sleeve to dismiss the malice conducted in the name of Christianity, and justify the anti-LGBT commandments.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzj8qx\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzhig9\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"physioworld\",\n \"body\": \"The most important concept you have to remember is the burden of proof. It’s not up to you to prove the Christianity ISNT TRUE, it’s up to them to prove that it IS TRUE. So if they can’t prove their own religion you need to accept it, you don’t have to worry about disproving their beliefs. \\n\\nA good way to illustrate this, is whether they would accept comparable claims with comparable evidence from other religions. So if they claim that Christianity is true because it says so in the bible, ask whether you should also accept Islam because it says so in the Quran.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzhlry\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">The most important concept you have to remember is the burden of proof. It’s not up to you to prove the Christianity ISNT TRUE, it’s up to them to prove that it IS TRUE. So if they can’t prove their own religion you need to accept it, you don’t have to worry about disproving their beliefs.\\n\\nBut that's the problem - they consider themselves as proving it is true. For example, one guy who told me of miracles he received - [and I lacked a sufficient rebuttal to convince him he's wrong](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvai6qm/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzjexi\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzhlry\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Adam__B\",\n \"body\": \"You don’t have to defend not believing in something that is invisible, utterly silent, immeasurable, illogical, unscientific, undetectable and untestable. The burden is on them to prove a positive, not you a negative.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzi1gp\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"OrangeBlancmange\",\n \"body\": \"Why do you think you are losing? They obviously haven’t convinced you in these arguments and just falling back to faith (which is all they really have) doesn’t ‘win’ anything in any meaningful way. You won’t be able to argue them out of their faith so you can’t ‘win’ either. Ultimately it’s not an argument in the philosophical sense - they aren’t engaging in good faith and simply will not change their minds regardless of what you say.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzi24f\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"> they aren’t engaging in good faith and simply will not change their minds regardless of what you say.\\n\\nBad faith arguments are like doping in sports - they make it easier for them to win. You just need to be a good enough debater to win despite the disadvantage.\\n\\n>Why do you think you are losing? \\n\\nBecause I failed to be that \\\"good enough debater\\\". Any argument I can throw at them is utterly crushed and thrown back at me.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzk4ge\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzi24f\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Cayowin\",\n \"body\": \"How did you lose that debate?\\n\\nSlavery - Christians used the bible to promote the slave trade\\n\\n[https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/01/a-harvard-exhibit-on-slavery-and-christianity/#:\\\\~:text=In%20the%20modern%20era%2C%20Christianity,often%20used%20to%20justify%20slavery](https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/01/a-harvard-exhibit-on-slavery-and-christianity/#:~:text=In%20the%20modern%20era%2C%20Christianity,often%20used%20to%20justify%20slavery).\\n\\nYes there were abolitionists, but if the same text can be used to both justify and condemn an action how is that text a good moral guide?\\n\\nThe bible explicitly allows the owning of humans as property. So either god is not unchanging or he changed his mind. \\n\\n1 Peter 2:18, Saint Peter writes \\\"Slaves, be subject to your masters with all reverence, not only to those who are good and equitable but also to those who are perverse.\\\"\\n\\nYes they have prepared apologetics, it just means you need to do more research. Remember they have no evidence for their claims beyond personal gut feelings and a collection of contradictory, fictional and historic works.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzi8a8\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">Slavery - Christians used the bible to promote the slave trade\\n\\nI've miserably failed when using the \\\"what about slavery argument\\\" - it's in the link following \\\"It all started 3 years ago\\\". Sure, I could point out the pro-slavery parts, but they'll have a reason why that bit is irrelevant or misinterpreted. It's exhausting, finding every argument to throw at them, and having each one of those utterly crushed with more rebuttals thrown your way.\\n\\n>Yes they have prepared apologetics, it just means you need to do more research. Remember they have no evidence for their claims beyond personal gut feelings and a collection of contradictory, fictional and historic works.\\r \\n\\r\\n\\nI tried pointing out to someone that I don't believe in his \\\"miracle\\\". [My attempt failed miserably](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvai6qm/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzkhnt\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzi8a8\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Augnelli\",\n \"body\": \"What is the rebuttal for the Ark? What did the carnivores eat? How did the Kangaroos and Koalas make it up from Australia? What about fresh water fish? How much space was designated for JUST the elephants food?\\n\\nYou don't need to debate every detail, just enough to invalidate the core; the truth on which they base their faith.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzikz2\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">What is the rebuttal for the Ark? What did the carnivores eat? How did the Kangaroos and Koalas make it up from Australia? What about fresh water fish? How much space was designated for JUST the elephants food?\\n\\nThat's the problem - even since the medieval era, most Christians disavowed biblical literalism, because biblical literalism is easier to poke holes into. Instead, they've come up with apologia, and now, with over 2000 years of apologia to defend against, it's become an unwinnable fight.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzlcvy\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzikz2\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"ch0cko\",\n \"body\": \"No. I am a frequent debater on subs like r/DebateReligion and r/DebateAnAtheist and everything you've said here is just... no. The vast majority of arguments for theism or counterarguments against arguments against theism, generally lead to special pleading or other fallacies.\\n\\nHere's one post I recently made: [https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/15pjew5/extraordinary\\\\_claims\\\\_need\\\\_extraordinary\\\\_evidence/](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/15pjew5/extraordinary_claims_need_extraordinary_evidence/) which then links to another one of my posts that goes more in-depth: [https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/15ey939/if\\\\_religious\\\\_beliefs\\\\_were\\\\_subject\\\\_to\\\\_consistent/](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/15ey939/if_religious_beliefs_were_subject_to_consistent/)\\n\\nA lot of what Christianity said is very similar to other religions and old mythologies. It has a generic reward-punishment system/carrot and stick system, that is, a hell and heaven. On top of that, all of the claims in Christianity hold no good evidence with most being anecdotal. Most arguments for Christianity are not Christian-specific and more so just theism in general. Even then, those thesitic arguments lead to either, 1. fallacies, or 2. only making theism \\\"more likely,\\\" but even then, these arguments have counters.\\n\\nThey were not geniuses. A little clever, but they essentially copied other religions and mythologies and is a cookie-cutter religion. Christianity isn't wide spread just because of how \\\"logical\\\" and \\\"sound\\\" it is; indoctrination or generationally passing the idea down is a big part of it. There are also contradictions in the Bible which can be found at this website: [https://www.lyingforjesus.org/Bible-Contradictions/](https://www.lyingforjesus.org/Bible-Contradictions/)\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzirf5\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">They were not geniuses. A little clever, but they essentially copied other beliefs and mythologies and is a cookie-cutter religion. Christianity isn't widespread just because of how \\\"logical\\\" and \\\"sound\\\" it is; indoctrination or generationally passing the idea down is a big part of it. There are also contradictions in the Bible which can be found at this website: https://www.lyingforjesus.org/Bible-Contradictions/\\n\\nI wasn't implying that Christianity was \\\"logical\\\" and \\\"sound\\\". I was implying it was successful because it has so many tricks up its sleeve. It may be full of lies, but for every one I point out, I'll get one or more rebuttals thrown my way.\\n\\nThink of it as being like in the middle of a dense minefield. Whoever laid the minefield might not have a \\\"logical\\\" and \\\"sound\\\" reason for it, but any step you could take will blow up in your face.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzlzr1\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzirf5\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"xper0072\",\n \"body\": \"Just because someone has an answer for everything doesn't mean that the answer is a good answer. Your inability to properly debate the topic does not mean that the other side is correct in any way.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzj07m\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">Your inability to properly debate the topic does not mean that the other side is correct in any way.\\n\\nI wasn't saying the other side was correct. My point is that they are impossible to defeat and are good at ensnaring their critics.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzmc3l\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzj07m\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"razvanght\",\n \"body\": \"In my experience, Christian s believe that God is real because they feel He is real. Then you can ask them whether a person of a different religion can also use the same method (I feel Zeus is real because I feel Him) to conclude that a different god is real. Christians generally agree that that person used the same method (feeling based) to reach an opposite conclusion (Zeus, not God, is real). In my discussions at least, this argument works in that it gives people pause. Of course, it does not change their belief immediately because they have been holding it for some time but I feel like it adds a seed of doubt.\\n\\nDo you know the official Christian response against this line of argument?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzj0m8\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">In my experience, Christian s believe that God is real because they feel He is real. Then you can ask them whether a person of a different religion can also use the same method (I feel Zeus is real because I feel Him) to conclude that a different god is real. \\n\\nHow can I get them to accept the argument that \\\"oh I don't feel God is real, so don't force me to go to church\\\"? Because that argument always failed me in the past. Also, on a tangent, how are you able to \\\"feel\\\" Zeus?\\n\\n>adds a seed of doubt.\\n\\nPlanting seeds of doubt is a great political strategy. For example, in Australia, we have an upcoming referendum on constitutional indigenous recognition - and because the No side is so good at planting seeds of doubt, the Yes side is losing despite having academia and the arts sector on its side. \\n\\nBut back to the point, I tried planting seeds of doubt and failed miserably. The Christians I've had to defend my opinions from don't merely consider themselves as \\\"feelings based\\\", they consider their views as backed by literature (the Bible).\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzmy3i\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzj0m8\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Apprehensive_Box3199\",\n \"body\": \"I dropped my Catholicism at 21 after learning basic logic at University. In year 6 whilst at a Catholic school, we were given a Catholic Catechism - literally the manual for being a good Catholic. Most of the book is written in question-and-answer format. This is indoctrination 101. The first 3 questions are, and I quote:\\n\\n>1. Question: Who made the world? \\n Answer: God made the world. \\n> \\n>2. Q. Who is God? \\n> \\n> A. God is the Creator of heaven and earth and of all things and the Supreme Lord of all. \\n> \\n>3. Q. How do we know there is a God? \\n> \\n> A. We know that there is a God by the things that He made.\\n\\nRight there; in the first 3 question-and-answers is a Circular Argument. The entire basis of the Catechism is premised on a Circular Argument. If nothing else, the entire point of Catholicism is to justify the original statement that God exists.\\n\\nI looked through the whole of the Catechism highlighting anything I still believed. I highlighted a single sentence in the preface about doing unto others etc... NOTHING else.\\n\\nBefore you have a go at me for not knowing what a circular argument until I was 21 - I went to Catholic schools for all of high school and it is in their best interests NOT to teach that and it was the 80s. That's my excuse and I sticking to it.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzjc23\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">Right there; in the first 3 question-and-answers is a Circular Argument. The entire basis of the Catechism is premised on a Circular Argument. If nothing else, the entire point of Catholicism is to justify the original statement that God exists. \\n> \\n>I looked through the whole of the Catechism highlighting anything I still believed. I highlighted a single sentence in the preface about doing unto others etc... NOTHING else. \\n> \\n>Before you have a go at me for not knowing what a circular argument until I was 21 - I went to Catholic schools for all of high school and it is in their best interests NOT to teach that and it was the 80s. That's my excuse and I sticking to it.\\n\\nIn my experience, pointing out the circular argument leads to one of 2 outcomes:\\n\\n1. Getting more apologia that I am unable to defeat\\n2. The \\\"*Do you have a better explanation?*\\\" rebuttal\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvznrln\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzjc23\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Simbabz\",\n \"body\": \"The most important story of the bible is Jesus ressurecction, the gospels contradict each other in the telling of the story, hardly designed by geniuses.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzktxv\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">The most important story of the bible is Jesus ressurecction, the gospels contradict each other in the telling of the story, hardly designed by geniuses.\\n\\nNot sure what Protestants say, but Catholicism claims that slight differences with the same overall story prove it's written by real people observing the same things. We can accuse them of using a dodgy argument, but it still wouldn't undermine their side.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzp1ei\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzktxv\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"vote4bort\",\n \"body\": \"I think you're just trying way too hard in these debates and starting from the wrong point. You're coming at them like religion is something that can be proved through debate when it fundamentally can't. \\nThe religious rebuttal for every point will always be essentially the same. That is they'll say \\\"well I believe this I so\\\". And you can't argue with that because its not a statement that can be argued against.\\n\\nWhat can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzkuyc\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.\\n\\nThe problem is when they think they have evidence and you think they don't. [Here's an example with a Protestant](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jv9g3kt/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3), and we can't agree on anything.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzp2i6\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzkuyc\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"sapphireminds\",\n \"body\": \"You seem to be a poor debater. You are accepting a lot of arguments as true when they aren't. \\n\\nAll children are born atheists. Coincidentally, they just happen to usually believe in the god(s) their parents/community believes it. \\n\\nAnd personally, if there is a god with the power ascribed to it by the bible, I would refuse to worship it. \\n\\nYou also need to educate yourself about the null hypothesis.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzl8ri\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">You seem to be a poor debater. You are accepting a lot of arguments as true when they aren't.\\r\\n\\nI don't accept their arguments as true. I accept them as difficult to defeat.\\n\\n>And personally, if there is a god with the power ascribed to it by the bible, I would refuse to worship it.\\n\\nI wouldn't want to worship such a God either. [I've told a Protestant that if I were to accept that he indeed received a miracle, it would still prove that the Christian god is unjust](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvkkegk/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). But that argument still failed to sway him.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzqf91\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzl8ri\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"-paperbrain-\",\n \"body\": \"What you seem to be saying is just that you are not able, with the mere power of logic, to get Christians to abandon their belief.\\n\\nI hate to break it to you, but this is not a particular quality of Christianity. Anything people are dug in on will face this hill. Not only will you encounter it with every religion, but you won't argue many people out of their political doctrine, flat earth belief, or whether they side with Ross or Rachel on friends. People have rebuttals for everything about many totally conflicting positions. It's part of having strong beliefs and giving it some thought. And religions in particular have had a long time and tons of resources to give it thought.\\n\\nThat doesn't mean there's no room for criticism. Just that your expectation about change is ridiculously optimistic.\\n\\nHowever, regardless of how your personal debates are going, people are leaving Christianity in droves, partly because they don't find those rebuttals to critique to be logically, morally or emotionally satisfying. The fastest growing religious affiliation is \\\"none\\\".\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzlzcb\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">That doesn't mean there's no room for criticism. Just that your expectation about change is ridiculously optimistic.\\n\\nSometimes, I'm challenged to debate when I'm not looking for one (see my first link in the post details). I wasn't expecting to change anyone's views, just successfully defend my decision, and I failed even that.\\n\\n>However, regardless of how your personal debates are going, people are leaving Christianity in droves, partly because they don't find those rebuttals to critique to be logically, morally or emotionally satisfying. The fastest growing religious affiliation is \\\"none\\\".\\n\\n[Christianity is still growing overall](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_population_growth). Even if it's not growing in the Western World, this shrinkage is negated by growth outside the Western World.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzs5r5\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzlzcb\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"wrongfulness\",\n \"body\": \"What a waste of time\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzmu4k\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"The_White_Ram\",\n \"body\": \"This isn't hard. Christianity literally endorses slavery.\\n\\nIf you believe slavery is wrong then that's the only argument you need.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzniyg\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">This isn't hard. Christianity literally endorses slavery. \\n> \\n>If you believe slavery is wrong then that's the only argument you need.\\n\\nI tried using such an argument. [It backfired](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvztyn7\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzniyg\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"ElPwnero\",\n \"body\": \"I like the one Muslims use:\\\\\\nThe word of allah is perfect and if you find inconsistencies, then it’s your human brain that’s incapable of understanding the true meaning.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzoket\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">I like the one Muslims use:\\r \\n> \\n>The word of allah is perfect and if you find inconsistencies, then it’s your human brain that’s incapable of understanding the true meaning.\\n\\nI mean, they're basically insulting your intelligence. But isn't that a great bad faith tactic, dodging accountability by accusing your opponent of being too dumb to understand? I can't imagine myself faring any better debating a Muslim than debating a Christian.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzvglo\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzoket\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"indigoneutrino\",\n \"body\": \"The interesting thing is I've had the opposite experience. Plenty of experiences online and in person where they can barely rebut *anything* to the point that I've had a minister apologise she can't answer my questions satisfactorily. I've seen no-one rebut or even explain why the crucifixion makes sense without legitimising blood sacrifice. It just constantly defaults to \\\"Jesus paid for our sins,\\\" without explaining why the death of an innocent third party was accepted as a valid payment within a supposedly just system.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzppfh\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Pichkuchu\",\n \"body\": \">It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted\\n\\nJust because you got outwitted doesn't mean the other side was right, they were, in fact, blatantly wrong. Christianity is just as guilty of atrocities as any religion. Keep in mind that Christianity is 2000 years old and they enslaved people until 1860 and they had to be \\\"convinced\\\" by war to give it up. They genocided native populations in America and colonized Asia and Africa. There was inquisition. They burned people for heresy, including scientists. They weren't different from other big religions or even pagans. The modern view of the world and humanity encompasses non Christian populations too and one could argue that it's in fact the result of secularism.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzqu5n\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"StrangeAssonance\",\n \"body\": \"I’m curious why you think one has to prove God exists? \\n\\nAlso, when Jesus was on earth the Jews kept asking for a sign from Him. They were blind to what he was doing with His ministry. The world is blind, so when you try to have these arguments that you feel you can’t win, I think you aren’t ever going to win them. I can show you God through my words and deeds but if you are blind to that, you won’t see what’s there to see.\\n\\nJesus repeatedly talks about how blind and deaf people are to God and his word.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzr1ue\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">Also, when Jesus was on earth the Jews kept asking for a sign from Him. They were blind to what he was doing with His ministry. The world is blind, so when you try to have these arguments that you feel you can’t win, I think you aren’t ever going to win them. I can show you God through my words and deeds but if you are blind to that, you won’t see what’s there to see.\\n\\nThis is why I see my inability to believe as a disability comparable to being unable to read.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzzkhs\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzr1ue\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"mo_ff\",\n \"body\": \"You can have faith that your monthly bills will be paid whilst you have no money or means to do so OR you can actually have the money. One will work. The other will leave you with no utilities. Full stop.\\n\\nIn a debate with a Christian you would encounter, \\\"Oh, but have you no faith a brother in Christ would not help you?\\\" And then a large quantity of scriptural examples would be brought forth from whatever version of the bible they are most familiar with.\\n\\nAs others have stated, the deck is stacked. If you can approach the conversation with your family in a civil manor, stop going to church. Believe what makes you happy and mentally healthy so long as it doesn't hurt others.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzr2rx\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"HansPGruber\",\n \"body\": \"You need to read some Thomas Paine my friend. A renegade if the atomic age.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzrn0v\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Morasain\",\n \"body\": \"Couple things.\\n\\nThe first thing is that burden of proof is with the person making a claim - Christians in this case.\\n\\nThe second thing is - you don't need to refute the religion itself, because you can't.\\n\\nUsually, if you bring up things like pastors being molesters, or the crusades, or witch burnings, Christians will commit a No True Scotsman fallacy. \\\"These pastors aren't *real* Christians.\\\" You don't need to refute that argument because it is in itself wrong - but if you want, you can always go the path of saying that everyone in the church is, in the end, appointed by God.\\n\\nThe easiest way to reject Christianity is to instead reject God, though. You don't even need to prove that he's bad or anything - you need to use your own morality to reject the idea that a god like depicted in Christianity can be a god you want to believe in.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzrwx0\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"hdhddf\",\n \"body\": \"you don't need to convince them, they're arguing from a position of ignorance and indoctrination, you can't argue with that because their arguments aren't built on logic or sound reasoning.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzs63u\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Huffers1010\",\n \"body\": \"Let's do it by example. What did they have a rebuttal for that you couldn't respond to?\\n\\nMy suspicion is that they really didn't.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzt6nt\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"misersoze\",\n \"body\": \"Just say: “hey I also met a Muslim, a Mormon, a Jew and a Hindu. They all make the exact same arguments as you do about why their religion is the correct one and they all say they have the one true religion. So why should I join yours over their’s”.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvztpz1\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Potential_Cod_8473\",\n \"body\": \"They might win a debate but the world still is a shitty place full of diseases, suffering, birth defeacts. \\n\\nIt only prove how dishonest someone is to defend a claim it was created my omnipotent and omniscient being. \\n\\nChristianity was falsified many times\\nAdam and Eve? Fairytale\\nGreat Flood? Fairytale\\nBabel's tower? Fairytale\\nExocus? Fairytale \\nRessurection? Really improbable\\n\\nThe fact that the scripture has to be interpreted in the face of new evidence like why would omnipotent God need 4 bilions years to create highly imperfect and miserable beings or why universe is 93 bilion light years wide and we are limited by a speed of light is a powerful evidence against revelation.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvztt3e\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"the_internet_clown\",\n \"body\": \"Just because someone says something in response doesn’t make it a good rebuttal\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzugyn\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Relevant_Maybe6747\",\n \"body\": \"Christianity doesn’t have a rebuttal against Judaism - they’ve tried and tried to kill us and never succeeded\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzuj4l\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Is that really a good argument though? By that logic, Islam doesn't have a rebuttal against Christianity either (or vice versa).\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw075ml\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzuj4l\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Scott_The_Protogen\",\n \"body\": \"Why \\\"debate\\\" someone's faith anyways? Unless they're being a jerk about it like in the last part. I always just have that whole live and let live thing (Even if some fanatics might not be that way either). I know you say some of these people come to you with the debates, but I feel like just giving a solid \\\"I don't want to talk about it\\\" or \\\"My views aren't going to change\\\" might work, even if they do continue to badger you regarding it, It doesn't have to be a winning-losing game.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzullx\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">Why \\\"debate\\\" someone's faith anyways? \\n\\nIn the first link, I was challenged to a debate out of the blue when I requested not to go to church anymore. He wanted me to read his spiel and change my views, or give a counter-argument strong enough to defend my views.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw07dt4\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzullx\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Key-Extension1458\",\n \"body\": \"2000 years ago there was a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem that took animal sacrifice from the people. This was fulfilling the Mosaic Covenant, and sustained Israel called \\\"Judea\\\". Like Jesus said it would happen, the temple was thrown down to the last stone and the sacrificial rite was \\\"nailed to the cross\\\" in the words of Paul the Apostle. This leaves us without redemption under the law, and everyone is guilty of sin everywhere. \\n\\nHence the figure of Christ intervenes, and made the ultimate sacrifice, putting death and guilt and hell itself into the fire. Now we have grace and mercy, and redemption by faith. It seems to work, since 2000 years of Christian history represented the general improvement of life everywhere. At the same time, the movement was hijacked by earthly forces resulting in \\\"churchianty\\\" and roman catholicism. All \\\"debates\\\" are just scholastic noise from that time, arguing in circles about nothing relevant. It is what it is, the temple of jerusalem was destroyed 2000 years ago and the levitical rites were nailed to the Cross.\\n\\nNow everything is a free gift, the more we cast off the old man and put on the new. Strong enough faith loses fear of everything and moves mountains, it is divine power given to mankind. God loves the children of this world and Israel in dispersion, which means everyone.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzur3s\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Key-Extension1458\",\n \"body\": \"2000 years ago there was a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem that took animal sacrifice from the people. This was fulfilling the Mosaic Covenant, and sustained Israel called \\\"Judea\\\". Like Jesus said it would happen, the temple was thrown down to the last stone and the sacrificial rite was \\\"nailed to the cross\\\" in the words of Paul the Apostle. This leaves us without redemption under the law, and everyone is guilty of sin everywhere. \\n\\nHence the figure of Christ intervenes, and made the ultimate sacrifice, putting death and guilt and hell itself into the fire. Now we have grace and mercy, and redemption by faith. It seems to work, since 2000 years of Christian history represented the general improvement of life everywhere. At the same time, the movement was hijacked by earthly forces resulting in \\\"churchianty\\\" and roman catholicism. All \\\"debates\\\" are just scholastic noise from that time, arguing in circles about nothing relevant. It is what it is, the temple of jerusalem was destroyed 2000 years ago and the levitical rites were nailed to the Cross.\\n\\nNow everything is a free gift, the more we cast off the old man and put on the new. Strong enough faith loses fear of everything and moves mountains, it is divine power given to mankind. God loves the children of this world and Israel in dispersion, which means everyone.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzurg6\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">2000 years ago the Temple in Jerusalem took animal sacrifice from the people. It was fulfilling the Mosaic Covenant, and sustained Israel called \\\"Judea\\\" at the time. Like Jesus said it would happen, the temple was thrown down to the last stone and the sacrificial rite was \\\"nailed to the cross\\\" in the words of Paul the Apostle. This leaves us without redemption under the law, and everyone is guilty of sin everywhere. \\n> \\n>Hence the figure of Christ intervenes, and made the ultimate sacrifice, putting death and guilt and hell itself into the fire. Now we have grace and mercy, and redemption by faith. It seems to work, since 2000 years of Christian history represented the general improvement of life everywhere. At the same time, the movement was hijacked by earthly forces resulting in \\\"churchianty\\\" and roman catholicism. All \\\"debates\\\" are just scholastic noise from that time, arguing in circles about nothing relevant. It is what it is, the temple of jerusalem was destroyed 2000 years ago and the levitical rites were nailed to the Cross. \\n> \\n>Now everything is a free gift, the more we cast off the old man and put on the new. Strong enough faith loses fear of everything and moves mountains, it is divine power given to mankind. God loves the children of this world and Israel in dispersion, which means everyone.\\n\\nIs this supposed to be a promotion of Protestantism?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw07io1\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzurg6\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"danmilligan\",\n \"body\": \"One thing I'm sensing is that you're thinking of Christianity as a monolith, and while that was once true, it hasn't been for a long, long time. So many types of Christianity exist that there will be Christians on opposite sides of nearly any given issue. The true non-negotiables of the religion are extremely minimal, and highly interpretive. Because of this, you can't really say \\\"Christians are like this\\\" or \\\"Christians do that\\\", because this will apply to SOME Christians, but certainly not all. For a good example, the majority of American Christians are extremely unique from a global perspective, being far more individualistic, and reading the Bible in a slavishly literal fashion, among other things. So if you say \\\"Christians are anti-LGBTQ\\\", there are millions and millions of other Christians ready to counter that.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzusf6\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">One thing I'm sensing is that you're thinking of Christianity as a monolith, and while that was once true, it hasn't been for a long, long time. So many types of Christianity exist that there will be Christians on opposite sides of nearly any given issue. The true non-negotiables of the religion are extremely minimal, and highly interpretive.\\n\\nI'm well aware of the splits within Christianity. What I mention in my post detail is that I have tried and miserably failed to defend my lack of faith from both Catholics and Protestants. I understand that they'd have different ways of thinking regarding lack of faith, but at the end of the day, both defeated me.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw07u6h\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzusf6\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"GreasyPorkGoodness\",\n \"body\": \"You need to dismantle the church hierarchy and not the “existence of god”. \\n\\nIt’s not that you don’t believe in god, you don’t believe in Christianities following of god. Their church is corrupt, opulent, child molesters, hypocritical, child marriage, judgmental, in Christ like etcetera. \\n\\nGod very well might exist, if he does he certainly won’t approve of christianity.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzuv92\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CutiePopIceberg\",\n \"body\": \"Christianity is Middle Eastern mythology. Christians hate when you remind them of this.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzv7py\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"JustSomeDude0605\",\n \"body\": \"\\\"I don't believe in that bullshit\\\"\\n\\nDebate over.\\n\\nContrary to your brother's or pastor's wishes, you don't owe them any sort of debate or explanation. Live your life as you want to, not based on what they think you should do. If that means, no religion then stop going to church. \\n\\nFuck em.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzvaah\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CriticalThinkingAT\",\n \"body\": \"The thing is, there are a mountain of atheist rebuttals as well. Like literally there are so many atheist channels out there to rebutting every Christian argument that it's just a matter of searching and looking for them. Lol. You'll be fine.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzvipb\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">The thing is, there are a mountain of atheist rebuttals as well. Like literally there are so many atheist channels out there to rebutting every Christian argument that it's just a matter of searching and looking for them. Lol. You'll be fine.\\n\\nCounterpoint: Only a few of these are useful. Most channels appear to be useful only against Protestant pastors who rely on charisma. Catholicism is much harder to debate against as they have 2000 years of church tradition, intellectuals and apologia on their side.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw09z3v\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzvipb\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"OpenByTheCure\",\n \"body\": \"I don't want to be harsh, but I just think you're not very good at debating\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzvw3c\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"I am bad at debating (and most other things). Maybe that's why I always get challenged to debates, because I will lose.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0b11j\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzvw3c\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Dr_Keyser_Soze\",\n \"body\": \"You need to listen to David C. Smalley. Take in a few podcasts and you won’t be disappointed.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzvzk2\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Wintermute815\",\n \"body\": \"It’s really not. It depends on circular logic and faith, both of which are critical flaws.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzx8zv\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"j3rdog\",\n \"body\": \"Stop trying to debate facts by point counter point. Learn street epistemology. There’s good YouTube channels and subreddits on it.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzxa1z\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Unable-Food7531\",\n \"body\": \"You're:\\n\\n1. Bad at debating in general\\n\\n2. An unskilled rhetorician \\n\\n3. Uneducated on the topic you're debating.\\n\\nThose Three things together mean than any attempt to draw generally-appliable conclusions from your debating losses is doomed to produce bs.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzxmej\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"How can I get all 3 skills when I'm up against people who have so much more knowledge than me? I hate it when I give others a reason to criticise me.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw05k0t\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzxmej\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"DangForgotUserName\",\n \"body\": \"Christians don't have arguments, just elaborate evasions of criticism.\\n\\nIn order to be religious, or believe in a supernatural god, to some extent, one has to deny certain aspects of science, and also have to deny the foundations of reason and logic. \\n\\n\\nThere are major undemonstrated claims that come with theism:\\n\\n-a spiritual, divine, or otherwise supernatural realm exists \\n\\n-there are nonphysical spiritual forces and entities \\n -some kind of afterlife exists\\n\\n-at least humans have souls, which are the spiritual essence \\\"attached\\\" to a physical body\\n\\nEven if all these were demonstrated, we would still have no way of determining which deities were real. These claims are also far from being demonstrated, likely, or even possible. \\n\\nEven then, we have no way to link such deities to any religion that anyone worships.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzxv11\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Electrical-Rabbit157\",\n \"body\": \"It’s not well designed. It’s the worst designed religion in the world actually. The success of Christianity is based around keeping people from learning about other faiths. The moment that happens the VAST majority of them leave christianity for something else. Myself included. \\n\\nYou have to go at the fundamental hypocrisy of it. The average Christian rants and raves about the Ten Commandments and yet every single one of them break the first 2 commandments daily and most break 3 commandments every Sunday. The average priest breaks the first 4. Then there’s the fact that the Bible is a corrupt text and Christianity as a whole was founded by Paul, a man who is not a prophet, not a disciple, not an apostle, just a random guy who comes out of nowhere and starts preaching that Jesus is God.\\n\\nThey worship a trinity which is paganism. There is no excuse for it. It’s the same exact belief system as Hindus which are literally the original pagans that Abraham fought against. This trinity also includes a man. That man is considered a prophet but still. This breaks the first commandment. \\n\\nThey idolize said man and the cross he died on. They wear necklaces with it. They put big gold crosses at the front of their churches and big wooden ones on the outside of them. This breaks the second commandment \\n\\nThey go to church on Sunday and the vast majority of them believe this is the sabbath. Which directly breaks the fourth commandment.\\n\\nThe priesthood commits extortion and sometimes even rape in either the name of God or what they lead people to believe is a house of God. This breaks the third commandment \\n\\nThen you get to the Bible and it’s non existent integrity. There are about 5 major sects of Christianity. Each one has about 40 versions of the Bible. And the average Christian may think this is normal, it’s not. Jews have 1 version of the Torah. Muslims have 1 version of the Quran. Hell even the Hindus only have 1 version of most of their texts. The new testemant is more written by Paul, who is again, not a prophet, than any actual apostle. All of Paul’s letters are included in the vast majority of bibles yet the book of Enoch, book of Jesus Christ, and lost gospel to Peter are considered “uncanon” by the church and have been removed for centuries. That is not a holy text. It may have been a couple thousand years ago but out of 200+ in circulation today, I’d seriously doubt any can be considered uncorrupted.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzyqtq\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"malorane\",\n \"body\": \"Isn't this other person either straight up lying or totally misinformed about the Christianity/Catholicism? Like I could be misremembering but I'm pretty sure there are passages that literally give you guidelines about how to treat your slaves and this dude said both have always been against slavery?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzz7x7\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CantKeepMeOutYo\",\n \"body\": \"You will never win against someone with faith. They will always always always have some other bullshit excusw up their sleeves. That's what makes religion so fucking dangerous: it uses logic when it works and then completely disregards it when logic doesn't work. Don't bother debating christians, they've accepted a parasite into their body that will defend its ability to feed off the host, even if it means killing the host, or YOU.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzzg1h\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"wibbly-water\",\n \"body\": \">If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\r \\n\\r \\nIf you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\\n\\nIgnoring the second proposition for a second I want to propose 2 more reasonable secular arguments;\\n\\n1. This is true of all religions because their axioms and methods for diving truth are different. They believe, want to believe, will tie all phenomena in with their argument, will ignore Occam's Razor to do so. \\n2. If Christianity is better than (some) other religions at doing this it may be because it is a highly evolved system of memes. A meme is the idea equivalent to a gene. Religions are memetic in nature - they are ideologies, ideas about how the world works. Memes compete for space and survival much like genes do. And every time one of its memes is threatened it is forced to either drop that meme and adapt or bolster it to do the same. Look at the iterations of historical Christianity. Where are the puritans today? Even Protestantism evolved out of Catholicism - many will claim that they are barely the same religion.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzzk96\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"DangForgotUserName\",\n \"body\": \"The salvation of man is dependent on the suffering of Jesus Christ. His 'blood sacrifice magic' supposedly forgives original sin - doctrine that we know though biology is utterly wrong. (A couple of garden nudists were guilty of rebellious fruit munching, so everyone deserves death or eternal torment?) This makes the theological story around Jesus one where he is scapegoat of a nonexistent forebear. This should undermine the value of Jesus as well as the foundational basis for belief in God.\\n\\n \\n\\nFurther, the idea that the only way to forgive is through ritualized punishment? That is petty and immoral. No forgiveness without bloodshed or death. Horrible, ignorant and outdated ideas.\\n\\n\\nThe idea of a messiah, one who will deliver us from the tribulations of the present, is an ancient idea that distracts us from the hard work that must be done to build a better world.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzzkww\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Emotional_platypuss\",\n \"body\": \"The problem here is both sides trying to impose beliefs on others. What you believe or don't believe is your problem. You don't need to explain why you don't follow a religion, specially to religious people. Is like them telling you why their religion is so good. Break out of that circle and move on\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0052z\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"notjuan_f_m\",\n \"body\": \"This Is the problem with everything lately. \\\"I am right, you are wrong, and I will continue to tell you until you accept that i am right\\\"\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw00l9j\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jw0052z\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"JackedLilJill\",\n \"body\": \"If anything, just from your text and title, the fact that Christians explain themselves fully in the face of debate, should be the reason to change your view.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw00vuq\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"FerdinandTheGiant\",\n \"body\": \"For your first debate with your brother, he was just straight up wrong on so much. Christianity is not and does not serve as the basis for morality in the western world or the world as a whole. \\n\\nMost of the non-western world like in Asia is not heavily Christian and wasn’t for most of their history. They of course are doing just fine. Christian morals have not been consistent nor are they the basis for a basic society. \\n\\nAdditionally, you don’t need Christianity to explain altruism as it already has a natural explanation. It’s called kin selection and essentially means that it is beneficial to help out family since they carry your genes. This means more of your genes will get passed on. This is likely how it evolved in humans and then developed into what we consider today. Animals do this. Altruism isn’t human alone. \\n\\nThen you have slavery which the Bible openly says is fine. Leviticus 25:44-46\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw013nj\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"-Strawdog-\",\n \"body\": \"Taking a quick look at one or two of these examples, you have a very noticeable habit of accepting a lot of the other person's premises and arguments without pushing back on them at all. As an example, your brother mentions multiple times that altruistic behavior is the direct result of the Christian faith, an argument that is absolutely ridiculous for a bunch of reasons, not the least of which that our closest genetic relatives (chimpanzees and bonobos) exhibit all kinds of altruistic behaviors as part of their highly social lifestyles (and they also don't sacrifice eachother, something he seems weirdly hung up on).\\n\\nTo be honest, it doesn't look like the people you're debating have good arguments or are good at expressing them, it seems that you are just very new to debate, particularly on this topic. If debating religious folks is something you want to do (you are incredibly unlikely to change their minds even with very good arguments), you can find plenty of solid resources online that break down and refute just about any apologetics you are likely to encounter.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw01pm9\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"lamabaronvonawesome\",\n \"body\": \"I have found the opposite to be true. I would recommend reading some books on logic and debate. Having an answer doesn't make it a good answer. I had a debate teacher that used to day \\\"the definition of a reason is anything I put forth as a reason.\\\" This essentially means you SAY anything, that doesn't mean it will hold up under scrutiny. You mentioned miracles that a person had given you examples of in their own life. Debate in essence is about definitions, how we define things. Get them to give you the definition of a miracle. I personally would define that as any event that is ONLY explainable by divine intervention. See if their miracles hold up to that.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw02avd\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"kountze\",\n \"body\": \"The Church did have some good effects on political and cultural development in Europe - for example the separation of powers came from the Church being a strong counter force to the government for so long, church limited the government in ways that led to values of separation of powers and limited government, unlike China which was much more state dominated and still is today. Protestantism represented not only a change in religion but also a change in how humans think logically - so yeah a lot of good things can be tied to how Protestantism changed how people think. \\n\\nThat being said, the above certainly is a far cry from saying that Protestantism values will work in every situation or that it can address all of today’s modern problems. Protectionism ideally is something that should be open to interpretation, which modern Christianity has moved away from that. \\n\\nIn terms of science the Church does not have credible arguments - that’s the main problem. If you think they do, you really haven’t encountered anyone who actually knows the science and microbiology. \\n\\nAlso, do not confuse correlation and causation. Certain positive developments in society may correlate, but that correlation does not prove causation. \\n\\n\\nThe issue with\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw035en\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Jaderholt439\",\n \"body\": \"If I’m debating Christianity, I like to go straight to the main topic- the Resurrection.\\n\\nMost people I know and love are Christians; I don’t have a problem w/ their religion. I love these people. But what I don’t like are apologists. Every single one that I’ve ever seen is dishonest. Especially when it comes to the Resurrection.\\n\\nIt’s not hard to believe that a guy named Yeshua, who had a religious following, was crucified. I can even believe he was put in his own tomb, although most were put in a mass grave, it’s wasn’t unheard of. The stone being put to block the tomb and guards sound like they were plot holes being fixed in Matthew, but for arguments sake, I’ll agree to that too.\\n\\nJesus wasn’t in the tomb when they went to him 3 days later. What is the most likely explanation? Is it, “he must’ve overcome death and ascended, bc he’s God”? I think a Guy Ritchie style heist is way more plausible. ‘They forgot which cave’ is more plausible. Literally anything is more plausible. If they are being honest, they have to say, “I believe it on faith”. Yet, apologists will not say this, therefore they are dishonest, therefore they don’t have an answer for everything.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw03fxs\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Entropy_Drop\",\n \"body\": \"LOL on the first link. Christianity didn't opposed slavery, and doesn't have a monopoly on being a good person. It actually was the ideological fundation of american slavery.\\n\\nHypocrates wasn't christian, gandi neither, and personal freedom, democracy and equality of genders aren't christian values.\\n\\nThe golden rule (\\\"don't do to other what you dont want done to yourself\\\") and the silver rule (\\\"do to others what you want to recieve from them\\\" (bdsm, for example)) are not creation of christianity. \\n\\nSome christian are propagandiced all their life into the worldview of \\\"all good comes from christ\\\", which is clearly a big lie. Is kinda justified for them to sell that lie, tho.\\n\\nAlso, that motto has a counter-part: \\\"No bad comes from christ\\\" which is my only explanation to how incredible bigoted people justify their behavior without ever thinking \\\"are we the badies?\\\". Anita \\\"pie-face\\\" Bryant comes to mind, who, in her own words \\\"loved homosexuals\\\".\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw04f2l\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Jade_Skie\",\n \"body\": \"TJ Kirk (aka The Amazing Atheist) on YouTube once mentioned \\\"unfalsifiable hypothesis.\\\" In other words, Christians spout the argument that miracles, what is said in the Bible, Satan, and God all exist and are as the answer to everything because immediate evidence to the contrary can normally not be produced by their opponent, thus no argument against them can be made. So in their minds, they are right. That is, of course, not how the world/universe actually works.\\n\\nTo quote Carl Sagan: \\\"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.\\\"\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw04j73\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"JuliusErrrrrring\",\n \"body\": \"Remember the following truths: most people who claim they are Christians are good people; most people who are good people and claim they are Christian are good because of their ignorance of the Bible, not because of the Bible. The Bible is an awful immoral book and the religion is completely silly. It is pro slavery, pro genocide, pro forced abortion and pro incest. If you are debating anyone who isn't in favor of those things, they may be actually non believers too, they are just too ignorant of their religion to know any better.\\n\\n​\\n\\nIt is completely silly and does not hold up to debate. Just some quick obvious random thoughts off the top of my head: They suck at math - claim to have one god yet believe in a holy trinity as well as an evil god. Many Christians claim to be against abortion, yet the Bible actually gives an abortion recipe, god murdered pregnant women in his Noah's Arc genocide, and Jesus forced abortions on Jezebel. Many Christians are anti-trans and anti gay - yet Eve transitioned from a male rib and now they worship a dress wearing dude with two fathers who identifies as bread and wine. Cain and Abel were the original motherfuckers. The whole bible was written by people who never met Jesus and there is zero historical proof that there even was a man named Jesus pretending to be god. It's just a gigantic hoax that's been accepted due to peer pressure because life is easier and you can make more money and get laid easier if you simply play along with this silly marketing scheme.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw05bz4\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Loose-Technology7787\",\n \"body\": \"Christianity is designed that way. Christians are programmed in a way via church and such where they hold their belief to a much higher standard than any facts or logic despite a lack of evidence. On of christianity's main taglines is to just have faith in god even though hes done nothing to show you hes there.\\n\\nDebating a religious person on religion is an unwinnable debate. You cant argue against someones opinion when the only points they will accept are those that align with said opinion. For example, many christians say good and evil only exist because god decides whats good and bad. I might say that life is meaningless, therefore our thoughts and feelings are all that exist making them all that matters. Meaning we get to choose whats moral; however the christian would then just say life isnt meaningless because god gives meaning to life. This will go on for any length of time.\\n\\nThe only reason atheists win those official televised debates is because theres a mediator keeping nonsense out of it. They keep the religious side from using unreasonable and illogical arguments, which leads to them losing.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw05l8j\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"BuzzyShizzle\",\n \"body\": \"That's funny because, I have yet to hear them lose an argument/debate on the atheist experience yet. \\n\\nIf you haven't heard of it, there is a call-in radio show called \\\"the atheist experience\\\" and the entire show is welcoming any religious to call in and challenge them. If you want your view changed, that show will do a much better job than anything else.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw06l99\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Sad_Confidence8941\",\n \"body\": \"I agree, Christianity is very well designed. The smartest people alive for many centuries spent their lives defending Christianity (Thomas Aquinas, Saint Augustine, etc). They have been philosophically attacked for years and years and are still here\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw06orq\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"nomad5926\",\n \"body\": \"Homie out here saying the altruism isn't a natural thing without Christianity..... 🤣 Bro be saying Meerkats are all Christians? Or Naked Mole Rats?\\n\\nI will never understand why people have to force religion upon others. But essentially an easy way out is to ask them to provide solid proof that God existed. Logically you cannot not prove a belief. (Like others have said before me). Typically the ones making the claim \\\"god exists\\\" have the burden of proof. \\n\\nAlso in my experience you're not going to convince anyone to stop believing. It's the same reason kids believe in Santa it gives them something. For most people, religion is a source of comfort. It's why, from what I see, older folks are more religious. (Cause you know.... Closer to death... Heaven seems nicer).\\n\\nIf you just want them to stop harassing you, you can just say that your relationship with God is personal and need not be on disability for others. (You don't have to say the bit that the relationship is non-existent).\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0753r\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Moraulf232\",\n \"body\": \"Christianity has an answer for any criticism but the answers are silly and unconvincing just like the religion.\\n\\nJust ask yourself “has this answer explained why I should believe these assertions with no evidence or has it just made more assertions with no evidence?” and “could this answer be used to justify the existence of a Flying Spaghetti Monster or literally any other deity?” or “is there any evidence that the person I am talking to can imagine that would cause them to change their mind?” etc.\\n\\nThe philosophical arguments (apologetics) religions use are just fancy noise. There’s nothing there.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw07atx\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"lpuckeri\",\n \"body\": \"Theres many reasons why christianity is absolutely absurd, at a childlike and comical level imo. I have equal belief in it than i do Santa. The apologetics for christianity are just excuses for something as rediculous as believing in flying to heaven on a winged horse.\\n\\nLets remember, we are arguing about. A cosmic jewish god zombie who is his own father and was born a virgin birth to a women impregnated by a holy ghost. \\n\\nThere is zero evidence for this that is not heresay. Not a single item or record or peice of evidence contemporary to jesus exists. To confirm this laughably absurd story all we have is stories that contradict each other, written in the wrong language, written decades to centuries after the fact, much of which we know was straight up forged and copied from surrounding greek myths and people.\\n\\nGetting lost in abologetics is exacty meant to make you forget you are proving an absurd thing eith zero evidence, and get caught up in the weeds.\\n\\n\\nReasons. \\n\\n1. Supernatural events in the bible are empirically impossible to prove. Christians may use awful arguments like minimal facts etc, but these are all comically bad and fallacious. Abuductive reasoning is all we have access to, and that can never demonstrate supernatural events... This alone is enough, as it is logicalltly impossible to demonstrate christianity through our resources.\\n\\n2. The bible is self contradictory, the trinity and more is exceedingly illogical. By this i mean it literslly violates the laws of logic... and is isnanely stupid.\\n\\n3. The bible is obvious myth taken from surrounding cultures.\\n\\n4. There are no decent biblical scholars who think Moses wrote the old testament. Moses clearly never existed and exodus never happened. This is extremely confirmed... there is extreme evidence the base of both judeaism and christianity is 100% made up.\\n\\n5. People that claim supernatural events or whatever... 1. Does not prove god, or their god... it proves they had something special happen and nothing more. 2. These are nothing more than claims. 3. People claim this shit for every religion, thousands... if you apply this standard as evidence for one... you must for thousands of gods. 4. Once you understand psychology you realize how the brain works snd how easy it is for people to misnterpret things visually and auditory.\\n\\n6. Religions are not one off inventions. They are all representations and copyings of popular myths at the time. This can be seen in thousands of religions. Just as it is in christianity... the devil and hell doesnt become a thing until Greek influence, things like rising and dying saviours were popular greek myths too at the time of the bible etc. In fact the bible was wirtten in greek, not aramaic, the language Jesis and his follower would have spoken. You see babylonian myths copied into the parts of the bible, when they were written there...you see the bibles hell and devil and apocalyptic influences copying greek myth during the hellenistic period. Religions are copies of surrounding myth and cultures.\\n\\n7. Apologists often use arguments to prove god that are diestic. Things like the ontological srgument, teleological argument... aside from these being bad arguments, they only prove A God... not christianity. Even if the Kalam is true... the odds of christianity bring true is still zero... it gets you no closer.\\n\\n8. The bible wasnt written by geniuses. It was written by copying and adapting popular myths, cultures, and laws at the time. From copying ancient semetic religions and near eastern traditions 4000 tears ago, to adapting greek myths 2000 years ago. It also was written of centuries, adapted, edited, revised, forged, faked, reinterpreted thousands of times by hundeds of people. This idea some geniuses wrote this thing like you see it now is childishly ignorant of scholarship and history.\\n\\n9. There are actually about 94 gospels. 90 of which christians will admit are 100% bullshit mythological stories... yet they somehow think these are the special true 4, because the church leaders centuries ago simply decided so. \\n\\n10. These excuses and arguments for christianity are no better and no different than the ones Jews will use, or muslims, or Sikhs. You just live in a place around christians most likely. \\n\\nIts interesting because i have never heard a christian argument to me than is not childishly rediculous imo.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw07u2w\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Inevitable_Spare_777\",\n \"body\": \"You can’t have a factual, logical debate with a person who’s worldview doesn’t subscribe to facts and logic\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw08ays\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"drzowie\",\n \"body\": \"There is no direct way to argue a Christian out of Christianity, because it is a faith-based system of beliefs. But you *can* demand respect for your own beliefs.\\n\\nA couple of years ago, I wrote about just how incompatible Christian beliefs are with the scientific worldview. That line of argument is (like any other argument) unlikely to convince a fervent believer -- but may help you to understand that there are real weaknesses in the edifice of Christian thought. \\n\\nBelow is [copypasta from an early CMV post I made](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/7zy9wp/cmv_you_can_accept_todays_scientific_theory/durqqmi/):\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw08i8h\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"DouglerK\",\n \"body\": \"I mean if they didn't the religion would probably be dead by now.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw08xbe\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"joshp23\",\n \"body\": \"> If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniouses\\n\\nAll they have at their disposal are unfalsifiable claims. You can't prove that the invisible dragon in my garage doesn't exist either. The rest is a con act to attribute personal experience to the dragon. \\n\\nBut unfalsifiability and con tactics aside, wouldn't a genius be able to construct an effective argument *and* compile an internally consistent document at the same time? You have to do mental gymnastics to apologize for the ignorance and inconsistencies in the Bible.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw09c2d\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Crookwell\",\n \"body\": \"OR you just aren't a very good critic?\\nBecause I can rebuke shitty religious claims all day\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw09wvx\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"redstar15551\",\n \"body\": \"Maybe you should give up then? You're not gonna \\\"Gotcha\\\" Christianity so leave them alone. Your lack of faith and overabundance of cynicism does not bug anyone the slightest. Don't trap yourself because you view this as an unwinnable battle against some dogmatic close minded religion, when that in and of itself is close minded. There's a modern pushback against religion, Christianity specifically, that has been pushed hard; but Christianity has and will continue to endue.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0a4wk\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Various_Succotash_79\",\n \"body\": \"When my brothers were young, they played a game that was very much like Calvinball (if you've never read the comic Calvin and Hobbes, this is a game they made up on the fly). So it was all stuff like \\\"now the floor is lava so you burn up!\\\" \\\"Oh yeah? I throw 60 million tons of dry uce on it and that cools it off\\\", \\\"well that was too much and now you're frozen solid!\\\" Etc. \\n\\nThat's pretty much what religion is. Your mistake is in trying to make any sense of it.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0b260\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">When my brothers were young, they played a game that was very much like Calvinball (if you've never read the comic Calvin and Hobbes, this is a game they make up on the fly, so it never has the same rules). So it was all stuff like \\\"now the floor is lava so you burn up!\\\" \\\"Oh yeah? I throw 60 million tons of dry ice on it and that cools it off\\\", \\\"well that was too much and now you're frozen solid!\\\" Etc. \\n\\n!delta\\n\\nAs you show, you can't get anywhere trying to defend yourself from a religion which is designed to dodge accountability and make opponents lose. It's not designed for a debate, it's designed to be inescapable.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw25sdi\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jw0b260\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Collective82\",\n \"body\": \"If you are having such a hard time debating it, shouldn’t you consider it’s right and maybe you should look at converting?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0bbov\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"I have. The problem is no matter how hard I try, I have zero spirituality and a complete inability to be sincerely connected with any religion. I see this as a disability comparable to being unable to because it's such a drag on my life.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw263jo\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jw0bbov\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Fluffy_Candle6800\",\n \"body\": \"I'll give you a quote from a book I read - \\\"God is omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent. However, bad things still happen. This means God cannot stop the bad things - he is not omnipotent, God does not know the things are happening - he is not omniscient, or he allows the bad things to happen - he is not benevolent.\\\"\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0bhc0\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"I've accepted the last one. How can I possibly believe in a benevolent god, when he gives miracles to some and neglects genuine victims, or when the religion he designed has endless excuses and loopholes to dodge all accountability?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw26dbi\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jw0bhc0\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"ItsAll42\",\n \"body\": \"I do feel as though you too quickly concede many points that are not accurate or honest, but stated with such confidence they are difficult to rebutt just as confidently without sufficient background knowledge. In fact, some of these claims are just straight up racist, such as claiming altruism is not only a strictly christian virtue, but that many values such as caring for the sick and needy or having basic human decency are strictly Western practices and values.\\n\\n This is wildly inaccurate to claim, knowledge of history can easily debunk such ludicrous statments, especially considering much of the Western ideology is more focused on individualism where confucianism is more focused on the community as a whole. Buddhism stresses that all beings have inherent worth and challenges the strictly heiarchichal values of confucianism, yet still plenty of emphasis is placed on how to better the community as a whole and being kind for the sake of altruism and kindness without any expectation of personal rewards. You do not have to be a historian or theologian to debunk so much of what this person is claiming, especially in regard to other Abrahamic religions which are incredibly similar to the teachings of Christianity, you know, because they share a common historical and biblical root. While modern interpretations of Abrahamic faiths run the gamut, they are more alike than many of their subscribers would like to admit. \\n\\nIn fact, I'd argue that Christianity and most of its branches contain more self-serving motives than many religious beliefs, promising prosperity and wealth in heaven as a reward for good behavior. As an agnostic person I do not need a reward for my good behavior. \\n\\nAs you tried to point out, when this person claims pagans did not care for the sick or other absurd claims, the burden of proof is on them to substantiate such a ridiculous assumption. \\n\\nThis person comes across as making many intellectually dishonest arguments, and you more or less concede or gloss many of these points without pushback.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0cszb\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">This person comes across as making many intellectually dishonest arguments, and you more or less concede or gloss many of these points without pushback.\\n\\nThat's because I didn't study history at a tertiary level. See how I'm a frequent visitor to r/AskHistorians - because I'm not smart or knowledgeable about history. Are you suggesting that to defeat Christianity, I'll need a university degree in history?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw26yyz\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jw0cszb\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"FerdinandTheGiant\",\n \"body\": \"Most, if not all of the Western values people like to claim are “Judeo-Christian” in origin simply aren’t. For one “Judeo-Christian values” aren’t a thing as these groups have different values, however let’s consider a few things we value in the west. \\n\\n#Democracy\\n\\nIn the Bible, democracy is never extolled or even articulated. Instead, there are endless stories of theocratic, authoritarian rule and the divine right of kings. Power is always concentrated; it’s never distributed. In classical Greece, however, Athenians established what is generally recognized as the world’s first democracy around 500 BCE. This predates Christianity and arose with no Jewish influence.\\n\\n#Common Humanity/ Equality\\n\\nThis is simply not biblical. In the New Testament, women are forbidden from holding authority over a man, told to be silent in church, and instructed to be obedient and submissive to their husbands. The same word used for submissive in Colossians also is used to describe how slaves should be to their masters. Women can be killed if they’re suspected of having premarital sex; the tenth commandment forbids coveting property, which includes women in the same sentence as houses and oxen; if a woman was raped, she was forced to marry her rapist if the offender paid her father, and on and on it goes.\\n\\nNon-Israelites or gentiles were forced into slavery and treated as property. This is seen in Leviticus and all over the Hebrew Bible. Slavery was condoned and justified for thousands of years using the Bible. \\n\\n#10 Commandments\\n\\nA common argument is that these “laws” are where we derive most of our morals and values in the west. This is rather silly. \\n\\nFor starters, a lot of the commandments are about idolatry, however other Rules like “thou shall not kill” predate Christianity and Judaism by hundreds of years. Literally any and all functional societies require this rule to be in place. And all over the world you see non-Christian nations follow similar “laws”. This is because they are beneficial for building a society. \\n\\n#Other religions\\n\\nOther religions have much stronger moral codes that Christanity. Jainism believes so much in the value of life that they won’t even talk at night because they could accidentally harm an insect. Buddhists have a deep personal desire to self improve while also improving the lives of those around them. Same could be said for taoists.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0dbxm\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"That's the problem though. You assume that Christianity is pro-democracy and pro-equality when history has shown us that they'd gladly throw these concepts under the bus if it were in the way of their religion.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw27njn\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jw0dbxm\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Circular360Angles90\",\n \"body\": \"People often conflate these two completely separate ideas. God/Higher Power - whatever you want to call it, with - Religion. \\n\\nReligion, in its limited ability tries to use the concept of God in an attempt to sway your reasoning capabilities towards their doctrine. God, however is completely separate from Religion.\\n\\nReligion just seems to have a Monopoly on the word. People feel as though believing in a God or Gods means they should adhere to some way of “knowing” their God. - which is all that a religion really does. But rest assured that it is someone elses ideas you are digesting. Theres nothing wrong with consulting people whom you believe to be wise or have more experience, but if you start feeling like they have some sort of answer that you cant quite grasp, then your talking to the wrong people. \\n\\nThis is not something that anyone can “show” you or “debate” you about. \\n\\nGod isnt in a book. God isnt an idea you learn from the pulpit. God isnt reason nor logic. God isnt bad. God isnt good. \\n\\nYou are engaging in a debate where their is nothing to debate, thus you always be “outwitted.”\\n\\nThink for yourself, walk your own path. You’ll fall flat on your face initially, perhaps for many years and, if you can muster up strength to get up on your own and not ask anybody why you fell and why it hurts so bad - you’ll stop feeling “outwitted.”\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0f9fa\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">You are engaging in a debate where their is nothing to debate, thus you always be “outwitted.”\\n\\n>Think for yourself, walk your own path. You’ll fall flat on your face initially, perhaps for many years and, if you can muster up strength to get up on your own and not ask anybody why you fell and why it hurts so bad - you’ll stop feeling “outwitted.”\\n\\nIsn't this the problem though? Most people can earn external respect being just who they are. In contrast, I have to prove my respectability, and prove why I have valid views, and I always lose.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw2llv2\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jw0f9fa\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CIABrainBugs\",\n \"body\": \"If God was real, his actions would prevent me from giving him any respect. I don't care if he's real.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0fl5d\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Nghtmare-Moon\",\n \"body\": \"Read Carl Sagan’s demon haunted world. It’s the best essay to counter all religious arguments\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0g6mu\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"GainPornCity\",\n \"body\": \"It's not that there's a rebuttle for everything. There's just a different lens to look through. \\n\\nSay an atheist has blue shades on and sees everything as blue. Christian sees everything as red. However, the one commonality between the Athiest and the Christian is the human construct..thereby despite being in different mindsets, they both acknowledge phenomena as they unfold in the world\\n\\nNo matter how much blue you speak regarding world phenomena, the Christian will respond to *each* phenomenon with a red response. \\n\\n\\nThis phenomenon, you look at through a blue lens and say: \\\"The Christian has an excuse for everything, no matter how blue, there's always gonna be some red to speak on from their side.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0gw4r\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Realistic-Cat4116\",\n \"body\": \"The only rebuttal you need is: \\\"Prove it.\\\" Keep repeating that over and over again. They can't, you win, end of argument.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0h3pm\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Okami_The_Agressor_0\",\n \"body\": \"Debating things that are designed to explain all with a basis in non-falsifiable statements is impossible. Religions are all memetic viruses that are meant to superimpose a false sense of the world on their followers, there are other belief systems that do the same that don't involve god but a well designed memetic virus can't be successful with out being impervious to logic or ways to side step rational thinking. That being said many modern political beliefs are structured similarly and operate in a similar fashion to religions. \\n\\nReligion imparts a base line culture and morality to people that allows for a more respectful and peaceful society. Part of what make that possible is ideological sanitation of a populace. Diversity of ways of life sparks conflict and religion solves that a good portion of the time. You could potentially see how many recent events have been the result of diverse culture and belief systems, so any derivation of heterogenization of society would logically be rejected by such belief systems with understandable cause.\\n\\nI believe people should be able to do what ever they please but when there is no respect in society people seek control from government to maintain the peace. So the easiest way for a country to stay free is to remain an ethno/ideological-state, or very slow and controlled change. When accounting these things you must satisfy for the lowest common denominator which will inevitable reject things on the basis of tribal instinct.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0k3j1\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"ApeMummy\",\n \"body\": \"You’re outwitted because you lack wit not because christianity is special.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0k3sk\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"SeymoreButz38\",\n \"body\": \"1st is a citation needed. Second was a semantic argument. Third is a no true scotsman fallacy.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0kns0\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Ecoronel1989\",\n \"body\": \"I think the issue here is your brother does a few things to confuse you.\\n1. Switching between defending spirituality and Christianity.\\n2. Berating you with words so it's hard for you to rebuttal everything that is said (an overwhelming tactic).\\n3. Throws out unprovable claims that are opinions as facts.\\n\\nFor #1, there's a big difference between spirituality and Christianity. Christianity asserts it is the one true religion, all others are wrong and lead to a wrong lifestyle. Spirituality is a general idea about believing in something outside oneself. To Christians, spirituality is paganism (unless it's Christianity itself) and therefore wrong and cannot be accepted or celebrated. So your brother can't simply pick and choose to say spirituality is good for the health and then switch to say Islam is not a good religion as these are contradictory statements.\\n\\nBut this issue is linked to #2, he berates arguments with a ton of words and makes multiple \\\"points\\\" at once. This is a similar tactic to what Donald Trump has used during his time as a politician. Simply overload the other side with a word soup, throwing out multiple arguments that are each wrong, but takes effort to debate each of them. By the time you gather your thoughts about the first wrong statement, he's moved on to the next 3, it's overwhelming.\\n\\nWhich leads to the last point, that is throwing out unprovable claims in the midst of his word soup. Claims such as there would be no morality without religion are unprovable for modern science since we have had religion in all cultures for over 2000 years, so it's hard to test this \\\"fact\\\". Another one that comes to mind is saying there's objective morality in the Bible, which you argued is not because of the Bible. Another counterargument is that the interpretation to the Bibles teachings changes across generations (i.e. slavery allowed for priests) and is therefore not objective, but his claim is unprovable in general as you can only offer up counter examples he can claim we're people not following the \\\"truth\\\".\\n\\nOverall, I think you're doing better than you think at debating this issue. The larger issue is what others have pointed out, that you don't have to win this argument, simply live by what you believe is true like they do.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0m923\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"TimeFliesFaster\",\n \"body\": \"It doesn’t have a good rebuttal as to why Jesus is the prophesied messiah of a religion that believes in a single unitary god. Especially when Jesus didn’t have the right ancestors and failed to meet the applicable prophesies (ie dead all coming back to life, temple being restored for all time, diaspora returning, war coming to permanent end, and entire world embracing scripture in messiah’s lifetime)\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0sjyl\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"David_Warden\",\n \"body\": \"You are trying to prove a negative which is a waste of time.\\n\\nThey are the ones making the improbable claims so the burden of proof lies with them. \\n\\nIf they continue to pester you, ask them to prove it.\\n\\nI think you will find that it boils down to belief in the highly improbable that is not adequately supported by either evidence or reasoning.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw1cnr9\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"SaltiestRaccoon\",\n \"body\": \"Sure. They have rebuttals. They're just not as good as you think they are. And they tend to be the same rebuttals over and over.\\n\\nI mean just to refute the ones you were hit with... In the first example, he paints the 'pagan' world monolithically while citing the worst examples from many different cultures, while kind of also ignoring that many of those things also apply to Christian nations. Pretty sure the weak and poor weren't running Medieval England, for instance. Likewise slaves were absolutely still a thing among Christians... the slaves just couldn't also be Christian. There were Christian Germanic warriors pillaging right along with the rest of them. Finally virtually any civilization that has kept slaves does in fact have laws about how they can be treated. It can certainly even be argued that serfdom is still just slavery but called something else to make it acceptable, as people can still be bought and sold, they just count as part of the land instead and likewise must work for their lord or face abuse or death. Sounds a lot like slavery to me.\\n\\nAltruism is in fact a part of human nature. It evolved because we are a social species and we are inclined to act for the good of our group, as our group is beneficial to our survival. There's a [great example](https://www.upi.com/Archives/1987/11/04/Cavemen-took-care-of-physically-disabled/5137563000400/) of a cave man skeleton with some pretty crippling deformities, who could not have hunted for himself that lived to old age. That means his tribe or his family unit was caring for him despite the fact he was a burden. And this is humanity in the stone age, at our least civilized. The Gauls, as well routinely collected a portion of taxes to help pay for their disabled citizens (though in Rome, it was preached if not always practiced that disabled children should be put to death.)\\n\\nIn a lot of instances he just seems ignorant on history and expects you to go along with it. A lot of it is very gish-gallupy too. He says so many wrong things that there's no way to correct them all without getting so bogged down with corrections that you can never make a point of your own, or even refute all of his errors. Don't allow that. Insist on arguing one point at a time.\\n\\nReally I think it's gaps in your knowledge more than Christianity being particularly difficult to criticize. I find it quite easy.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-14\",\n \"id\": \"jw3kj7g\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ]\n]","isConversational":false},"2":{"kind":"string","value":"challenge"}}},{"rowIdx":54,"cells":{"0":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Poly_and_RA","body":"Why do you think that you're \"trapped\" and need to \"win\" debates in order to be allowed to simply live your life like you want, including such things as NOT going to mass and supporting LGBT rights?\n\nSimply stop attending and offer the support. It's unlikely that anyone challenge you on it, but if they do nothing stops you from simply saying that you simply don't want to attend. You don't owe anyone a justification for wanting and not wanting things. \n\nYou seem very deeply indoctrinated here though. Christianity doesn't have a \"rebuttal\" to everything. Instead their beliefs are a mixture of ideas common in a wide variety of beliefs and also common among atheists, and religious claims for which no evidence whatsoever exist.\n\n* Forgiveness, kindness, honesty and so on are virtues: common claim in lots of different faiths and among atheists, thus NOT values christianity has any monopoly on.\n* Jesus was the son of God and came back from the dead: Religious claim that contradicts all available evidence and for which there is zero credible evidence.\n* Murder is bad: common claim in lots of different faiths and among atheists. Not a value that Christianity has a monopoly on.\n* Having sex with someone of the same gender is a \"sin\" and God disapproves of it: Religious claim that lacks rational justification and for which there is zero credible evidence.\n\nIt's like this with literally all parts of Christianity. There are many parts that are sensible and that most folks agree with -- but those parts aren't unique to Christianity. Then there's some parts that are religious in nature, those aren't all unique to Christianity either, but in addition to that they lack any credible evidence.\n\nWhich makes sense, that's why it's a \\*faith\\* not a \\*science\\*\n\nBut take away the faith, and the only parts that it still makes sense to adhere to, are those that can be rationally justified WITHOUT simply asserting that something is a sin or a virtue because God says so.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzqs9t","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">Simply stop attending and offer the support. It's unlikely that anyone challenge you on it, but if they do nothing stops you from simply saying that you simply don't want to attend. You don't owe anyone a justification for wanting and not wanting things.\n\nSee the first 2 links of the post details. I did try exactly that, and was challenged on it, and I lost both times.\n\n>You seem very deeply indoctrinated here though. Christianity doesn't have a \"rebuttal\" to everything. Instead their beliefs are a mixture of ideas common in a wide variety of beliefs and also common among atheists, and religious claims for which no evidence whatsoever exist. \n> \n>Forgiveness, kindness, honesty and so on are virtues: common claim in lots of different faiths and among atheists, thus NOT values christianity has any monopoly on.\n\nI used to be a lot more indoctrinated. [Being exposed to church lies and hypocrisy was a key moment in destroying my faith](https://www.reddit.com/r/OpenChristian/comments/1575mgo/comment/jt34yet/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\n>Which makes sense, that's why it's a \\*faith\\* not a \\*science\\*\r \n\r\n\nI didn't claim that Christianity was a science, only that it's hard to debate against.\n\n>But take away the faith, and the only parts that it still makes sense to adhere to, are those that can be rationally justified WITHOUT simply asserting that something is a sin or a virtue because God says so.\r \n\r\n\n!delta\n\nBecause this addresses the core point. Everything good about Christianity can either be justified without religion, or is not unique. Everything else is hard to prove.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzyq5l","parent_id":"jvzqs9t","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"DeltaBot","body":"Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/Poly_and_RA ([10∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/Poly_and_RA)).\n\n^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzyt9q","parent_id":"jvzyq5l","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],"string":"[\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Poly_and_RA\",\n \"body\": \"Why do you think that you're \\\"trapped\\\" and need to \\\"win\\\" debates in order to be allowed to simply live your life like you want, including such things as NOT going to mass and supporting LGBT rights?\\n\\nSimply stop attending and offer the support. It's unlikely that anyone challenge you on it, but if they do nothing stops you from simply saying that you simply don't want to attend. You don't owe anyone a justification for wanting and not wanting things. \\n\\nYou seem very deeply indoctrinated here though. Christianity doesn't have a \\\"rebuttal\\\" to everything. Instead their beliefs are a mixture of ideas common in a wide variety of beliefs and also common among atheists, and religious claims for which no evidence whatsoever exist.\\n\\n* Forgiveness, kindness, honesty and so on are virtues: common claim in lots of different faiths and among atheists, thus NOT values christianity has any monopoly on.\\n* Jesus was the son of God and came back from the dead: Religious claim that contradicts all available evidence and for which there is zero credible evidence.\\n* Murder is bad: common claim in lots of different faiths and among atheists. Not a value that Christianity has a monopoly on.\\n* Having sex with someone of the same gender is a \\\"sin\\\" and God disapproves of it: Religious claim that lacks rational justification and for which there is zero credible evidence.\\n\\nIt's like this with literally all parts of Christianity. There are many parts that are sensible and that most folks agree with -- but those parts aren't unique to Christianity. Then there's some parts that are religious in nature, those aren't all unique to Christianity either, but in addition to that they lack any credible evidence.\\n\\nWhich makes sense, that's why it's a \\\\*faith\\\\* not a \\\\*science\\\\*\\n\\nBut take away the faith, and the only parts that it still makes sense to adhere to, are those that can be rationally justified WITHOUT simply asserting that something is a sin or a virtue because God says so.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzqs9t\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">Simply stop attending and offer the support. It's unlikely that anyone challenge you on it, but if they do nothing stops you from simply saying that you simply don't want to attend. You don't owe anyone a justification for wanting and not wanting things.\\n\\nSee the first 2 links of the post details. I did try exactly that, and was challenged on it, and I lost both times.\\n\\n>You seem very deeply indoctrinated here though. Christianity doesn't have a \\\"rebuttal\\\" to everything. Instead their beliefs are a mixture of ideas common in a wide variety of beliefs and also common among atheists, and religious claims for which no evidence whatsoever exist. \\n> \\n>Forgiveness, kindness, honesty and so on are virtues: common claim in lots of different faiths and among atheists, thus NOT values christianity has any monopoly on.\\n\\nI used to be a lot more indoctrinated. [Being exposed to church lies and hypocrisy was a key moment in destroying my faith](https://www.reddit.com/r/OpenChristian/comments/1575mgo/comment/jt34yet/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\n>Which makes sense, that's why it's a \\\\*faith\\\\* not a \\\\*science\\\\*\\r \\n\\r\\n\\nI didn't claim that Christianity was a science, only that it's hard to debate against.\\n\\n>But take away the faith, and the only parts that it still makes sense to adhere to, are those that can be rationally justified WITHOUT simply asserting that something is a sin or a virtue because God says so.\\r \\n\\r\\n\\n!delta\\n\\nBecause this addresses the core point. Everything good about Christianity can either be justified without religion, or is not unique. Everything else is hard to prove.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzyq5l\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzqs9t\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"DeltaBot\",\n \"body\": \"Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/Poly_and_RA ([10∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/Poly_and_RA)).\\n\\n^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzyt9q\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzyq5l\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n]","isConversational":false},"1":{"kind":"list like","value":[[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"DeadCupcakes23","body":"Why does it matter if Christianity has a rebuttal for something? You can criticise the bible and Christianity based on what it says and the actions done in its name (context depending).\n\nPeople have moral values without Christianity and most things people appreciate nowadays are not inherent to Christianity, for example the bible allows slavery.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzggd4","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">Why does it matter if Christianity has a rebuttal for something? You can criticise the bible and Christianity based on what it says and the actions done in its name (context depending).\n\nBecause losing a debate due to their rebuttals makes me look stupid. Also, if you follow the links to their arguments, even the atrocities done in its name don't count because those fall under \"false prophets\". \n\nIt's like the Bible was written with this possibility in mind to entrap us.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzh2ui","parent_id":"jvzggd4","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"tipoima","body":"Christianity *was* fabricated, but not by geniuses. \nYou're fighting against over two thousand years worth of apologetics, where all the weakest arguments have been pruned away. \nHowever, as expected of something that isn't actually true, those arguments are often plainly wrong, be it due to logical fallacies, appeals to unknown, obtuse philosophy you probably don't know you don't subscribe to, no-true-scotsmanning, e.t.c.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzh8ep","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">However, as expected of something that isn't actually true, those arguments are often plainly wrong, be it due to logical fallacies, appeals to unknown, obtuse philosophy you probably don't know you don't subscribe to, no-true-scotsmanning, e.t.c.\n\nThis is exactly what they do. The problem is that \"I don't know\" is not an acceptable answer to them ([see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvhr81y/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)), whereas they already have something up their sleeve to entrap me. \n\nAs you mentioned, with 2000 years of experience creating answers, I even if I am able to point out something wrong or intellectually dishonest, they'll still have an answer for that, forcing me to spend yet more time and effort to come up with an answer. And I am not intelligent enough to create an answer for everything they throw at me, so I'm trapped.\n\nIt's an uphill battle, and one that can easily be lost. Until we can come up with a rebuttal they can't defeat, there will always be a risk that secular society and LGBT rights might be defeated.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzhurp","parent_id":"jvzh8ep","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Watchyobackistan","body":"Not really, most of their \"rebuttals\" are stuff like \"god doesn't give us all the answers\" and \"Don't worry jesus loves you\" Non-answers.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzhdab","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"MercurianAspirations","body":"But why should you give a shit? If you have conviction in your own beliefs, it shouldn't matter whether or not you can convince others using your super debater skillz or not. After all, if somebody were sufficiently dumb or insane, it would be impossible to convince them of the truth, no matter how clear and apparent the truth were; therefore, whether or not a thing is widely believed and people are readily convinced of its truth is not a guide to truth. When there was only one person on the earth who believed in heliocentrism they were still right, and the geocentrists were still wrong. The geocentrists had answers for every single objection, and they won every single debate, yet, they were still wrong. \n\nMoreover, it isn't that Christianity is super well designed or anything. It's just that people who have strongly held convictions are not available to be convinced by facts and logic. That's just how people are: they do not actually change their minds that much.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzhezx","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">But why should you give a shit?\n\nBecause I don't want my stances to look stupid. I was once likened to an anti-vaxxer for not being able to provide evidence to back my lack of faith.\n\n> If you have conviction in your own beliefs, it shouldn't matter whether or not you can convince others using your super debater skillz or not. \n\nConviction in your own beliefs doesn't make one right. Besides, their side also has a firm conviction in their beliefs.\n\n>When there was only one person on the earth who believed in heliocentrism they were still right, and the geocentrists were still wrong. The geocentrists had answers for every single objection, and they won every single debate, yet, they were still wrong.\n\nScience doesn't care about number of believers, what matters is the evidence. And in the case of heliocentrism, it was proven right by overwhelming evidence. I wish I had overwhelming evidence to back my lack of faith.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzih4p","parent_id":"jvzhezx","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Mr-Bitter","body":"Send your brother my way. I know of a way to convince him that it was Satan that wrote the Bible and can kill every single one of his arguments. I would thoroughly enjoy a civilized religious debate.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzhg91","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"ApocalypseYay","body":">CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\n\nThis makes zero sense. Rebuttals require logic and facts, and there are only apologia and special pleasing fallacy described herein. \n\nLet's start from the basic - where is the evidence for chris, the alleged son of god, and somehow also god, that killed himself to please himself? There is zero historical evidence for this event, before we even get to the easily debunked claims of miracles, or the plainly immoral laws being promulgated as divine commandments.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzhig9","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">where is the evidence for chris,\n\n[Most historians accept that Jesus Christ existed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus). The rest of the biblical story isn't accepted by historians.\n\n>before we even get to the easily debunked claims of miracles,\n\n[I miserably failed at convincing someone that I don't believe in miracles](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvai6qm/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). How would you convince him?\n\n> or the plainly immoral laws being promulgated as divine commandments.\n\nHow would you convince them that their side is immoral? They have methods up their sleeve to dismiss the malice conducted in the name of Christianity, and justify the anti-LGBT commandments.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzj8qx","parent_id":"jvzhig9","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"physioworld","body":"The most important concept you have to remember is the burden of proof. It’s not up to you to prove the Christianity ISNT TRUE, it’s up to them to prove that it IS TRUE. So if they can’t prove their own religion you need to accept it, you don’t have to worry about disproving their beliefs. \n\nA good way to illustrate this, is whether they would accept comparable claims with comparable evidence from other religions. So if they claim that Christianity is true because it says so in the bible, ask whether you should also accept Islam because it says so in the Quran.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzhlry","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">The most important concept you have to remember is the burden of proof. It’s not up to you to prove the Christianity ISNT TRUE, it’s up to them to prove that it IS TRUE. So if they can’t prove their own religion you need to accept it, you don’t have to worry about disproving their beliefs.\n\nBut that's the problem - they consider themselves as proving it is true. For example, one guy who told me of miracles he received - [and I lacked a sufficient rebuttal to convince him he's wrong](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvai6qm/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzjexi","parent_id":"jvzhlry","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Adam__B","body":"You don’t have to defend not believing in something that is invisible, utterly silent, immeasurable, illogical, unscientific, undetectable and untestable. The burden is on them to prove a positive, not you a negative.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzi1gp","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"OrangeBlancmange","body":"Why do you think you are losing? They obviously haven’t convinced you in these arguments and just falling back to faith (which is all they really have) doesn’t ‘win’ anything in any meaningful way. You won’t be able to argue them out of their faith so you can’t ‘win’ either. Ultimately it’s not an argument in the philosophical sense - they aren’t engaging in good faith and simply will not change their minds regardless of what you say.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzi24f","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"> they aren’t engaging in good faith and simply will not change their minds regardless of what you say.\n\nBad faith arguments are like doping in sports - they make it easier for them to win. You just need to be a good enough debater to win despite the disadvantage.\n\n>Why do you think you are losing? \n\nBecause I failed to be that \"good enough debater\". Any argument I can throw at them is utterly crushed and thrown back at me.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzk4ge","parent_id":"jvzi24f","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Cayowin","body":"How did you lose that debate?\n\nSlavery - Christians used the bible to promote the slave trade\n\n[https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/01/a-harvard-exhibit-on-slavery-and-christianity/#:\\~:text=In%20the%20modern%20era%2C%20Christianity,often%20used%20to%20justify%20slavery](https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/01/a-harvard-exhibit-on-slavery-and-christianity/#:~:text=In%20the%20modern%20era%2C%20Christianity,often%20used%20to%20justify%20slavery).\n\nYes there were abolitionists, but if the same text can be used to both justify and condemn an action how is that text a good moral guide?\n\nThe bible explicitly allows the owning of humans as property. So either god is not unchanging or he changed his mind. \n\n1 Peter 2:18, Saint Peter writes \"Slaves, be subject to your masters with all reverence, not only to those who are good and equitable but also to those who are perverse.\"\n\nYes they have prepared apologetics, it just means you need to do more research. Remember they have no evidence for their claims beyond personal gut feelings and a collection of contradictory, fictional and historic works.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzi8a8","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">Slavery - Christians used the bible to promote the slave trade\n\nI've miserably failed when using the \"what about slavery argument\" - it's in the link following \"It all started 3 years ago\". Sure, I could point out the pro-slavery parts, but they'll have a reason why that bit is irrelevant or misinterpreted. It's exhausting, finding every argument to throw at them, and having each one of those utterly crushed with more rebuttals thrown your way.\n\n>Yes they have prepared apologetics, it just means you need to do more research. Remember they have no evidence for their claims beyond personal gut feelings and a collection of contradictory, fictional and historic works.\r \n\r\n\nI tried pointing out to someone that I don't believe in his \"miracle\". [My attempt failed miserably](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvai6qm/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzkhnt","parent_id":"jvzi8a8","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Augnelli","body":"What is the rebuttal for the Ark? What did the carnivores eat? How did the Kangaroos and Koalas make it up from Australia? What about fresh water fish? How much space was designated for JUST the elephants food?\n\nYou don't need to debate every detail, just enough to invalidate the core; the truth on which they base their faith.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzikz2","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">What is the rebuttal for the Ark? What did the carnivores eat? How did the Kangaroos and Koalas make it up from Australia? What about fresh water fish? How much space was designated for JUST the elephants food?\n\nThat's the problem - even since the medieval era, most Christians disavowed biblical literalism, because biblical literalism is easier to poke holes into. Instead, they've come up with apologia, and now, with over 2000 years of apologia to defend against, it's become an unwinnable fight.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzlcvy","parent_id":"jvzikz2","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"ch0cko","body":"No. I am a frequent debater on subs like r/DebateReligion and r/DebateAnAtheist and everything you've said here is just... no. The vast majority of arguments for theism or counterarguments against arguments against theism, generally lead to special pleading or other fallacies.\n\nHere's one post I recently made: [https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/15pjew5/extraordinary\\_claims\\_need\\_extraordinary\\_evidence/](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/15pjew5/extraordinary_claims_need_extraordinary_evidence/) which then links to another one of my posts that goes more in-depth: [https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/15ey939/if\\_religious\\_beliefs\\_were\\_subject\\_to\\_consistent/](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/15ey939/if_religious_beliefs_were_subject_to_consistent/)\n\nA lot of what Christianity said is very similar to other religions and old mythologies. It has a generic reward-punishment system/carrot and stick system, that is, a hell and heaven. On top of that, all of the claims in Christianity hold no good evidence with most being anecdotal. Most arguments for Christianity are not Christian-specific and more so just theism in general. Even then, those thesitic arguments lead to either, 1. fallacies, or 2. only making theism \"more likely,\" but even then, these arguments have counters.\n\nThey were not geniuses. A little clever, but they essentially copied other religions and mythologies and is a cookie-cutter religion. Christianity isn't wide spread just because of how \"logical\" and \"sound\" it is; indoctrination or generationally passing the idea down is a big part of it. There are also contradictions in the Bible which can be found at this website: [https://www.lyingforjesus.org/Bible-Contradictions/](https://www.lyingforjesus.org/Bible-Contradictions/)","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzirf5","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">They were not geniuses. A little clever, but they essentially copied other beliefs and mythologies and is a cookie-cutter religion. Christianity isn't widespread just because of how \"logical\" and \"sound\" it is; indoctrination or generationally passing the idea down is a big part of it. There are also contradictions in the Bible which can be found at this website: https://www.lyingforjesus.org/Bible-Contradictions/\n\nI wasn't implying that Christianity was \"logical\" and \"sound\". I was implying it was successful because it has so many tricks up its sleeve. It may be full of lies, but for every one I point out, I'll get one or more rebuttals thrown my way.\n\nThink of it as being like in the middle of a dense minefield. Whoever laid the minefield might not have a \"logical\" and \"sound\" reason for it, but any step you could take will blow up in your face.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzlzr1","parent_id":"jvzirf5","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"xper0072","body":"Just because someone has an answer for everything doesn't mean that the answer is a good answer. Your inability to properly debate the topic does not mean that the other side is correct in any way.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzj07m","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">Your inability to properly debate the topic does not mean that the other side is correct in any way.\n\nI wasn't saying the other side was correct. My point is that they are impossible to defeat and are good at ensnaring their critics.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzmc3l","parent_id":"jvzj07m","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"razvanght","body":"In my experience, Christian s believe that God is real because they feel He is real. Then you can ask them whether a person of a different religion can also use the same method (I feel Zeus is real because I feel Him) to conclude that a different god is real. Christians generally agree that that person used the same method (feeling based) to reach an opposite conclusion (Zeus, not God, is real). In my discussions at least, this argument works in that it gives people pause. Of course, it does not change their belief immediately because they have been holding it for some time but I feel like it adds a seed of doubt.\n\nDo you know the official Christian response against this line of argument?","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzj0m8","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">In my experience, Christian s believe that God is real because they feel He is real. Then you can ask them whether a person of a different religion can also use the same method (I feel Zeus is real because I feel Him) to conclude that a different god is real. \n\nHow can I get them to accept the argument that \"oh I don't feel God is real, so don't force me to go to church\"? Because that argument always failed me in the past. Also, on a tangent, how are you able to \"feel\" Zeus?\n\n>adds a seed of doubt.\n\nPlanting seeds of doubt is a great political strategy. For example, in Australia, we have an upcoming referendum on constitutional indigenous recognition - and because the No side is so good at planting seeds of doubt, the Yes side is losing despite having academia and the arts sector on its side. \n\nBut back to the point, I tried planting seeds of doubt and failed miserably. The Christians I've had to defend my opinions from don't merely consider themselves as \"feelings based\", they consider their views as backed by literature (the Bible).","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzmy3i","parent_id":"jvzj0m8","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Apprehensive_Box3199","body":"I dropped my Catholicism at 21 after learning basic logic at University. In year 6 whilst at a Catholic school, we were given a Catholic Catechism - literally the manual for being a good Catholic. Most of the book is written in question-and-answer format. This is indoctrination 101. The first 3 questions are, and I quote:\n\n>1. Question: Who made the world? \n Answer: God made the world. \n> \n>2. Q. Who is God? \n> \n> A. God is the Creator of heaven and earth and of all things and the Supreme Lord of all. \n> \n>3. Q. How do we know there is a God? \n> \n> A. We know that there is a God by the things that He made.\n\nRight there; in the first 3 question-and-answers is a Circular Argument. The entire basis of the Catechism is premised on a Circular Argument. If nothing else, the entire point of Catholicism is to justify the original statement that God exists.\n\nI looked through the whole of the Catechism highlighting anything I still believed. I highlighted a single sentence in the preface about doing unto others etc... NOTHING else.\n\nBefore you have a go at me for not knowing what a circular argument until I was 21 - I went to Catholic schools for all of high school and it is in their best interests NOT to teach that and it was the 80s. That's my excuse and I sticking to it.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzjc23","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">Right there; in the first 3 question-and-answers is a Circular Argument. The entire basis of the Catechism is premised on a Circular Argument. If nothing else, the entire point of Catholicism is to justify the original statement that God exists. \n> \n>I looked through the whole of the Catechism highlighting anything I still believed. I highlighted a single sentence in the preface about doing unto others etc... NOTHING else. \n> \n>Before you have a go at me for not knowing what a circular argument until I was 21 - I went to Catholic schools for all of high school and it is in their best interests NOT to teach that and it was the 80s. That's my excuse and I sticking to it.\n\nIn my experience, pointing out the circular argument leads to one of 2 outcomes:\n\n1. Getting more apologia that I am unable to defeat\n2. The \"*Do you have a better explanation?*\" rebuttal","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvznrln","parent_id":"jvzjc23","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Simbabz","body":"The most important story of the bible is Jesus ressurecction, the gospels contradict each other in the telling of the story, hardly designed by geniuses.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzktxv","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">The most important story of the bible is Jesus ressurecction, the gospels contradict each other in the telling of the story, hardly designed by geniuses.\n\nNot sure what Protestants say, but Catholicism claims that slight differences with the same overall story prove it's written by real people observing the same things. We can accuse them of using a dodgy argument, but it still wouldn't undermine their side.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzp1ei","parent_id":"jvzktxv","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"vote4bort","body":"I think you're just trying way too hard in these debates and starting from the wrong point. You're coming at them like religion is something that can be proved through debate when it fundamentally can't. \nThe religious rebuttal for every point will always be essentially the same. That is they'll say \"well I believe this I so\". And you can't argue with that because its not a statement that can be argued against.\n\nWhat can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzkuyc","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.\n\nThe problem is when they think they have evidence and you think they don't. [Here's an example with a Protestant](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jv9g3kt/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3), and we can't agree on anything.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzp2i6","parent_id":"jvzkuyc","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"sapphireminds","body":"You seem to be a poor debater. You are accepting a lot of arguments as true when they aren't. \n\nAll children are born atheists. Coincidentally, they just happen to usually believe in the god(s) their parents/community believes it. \n\nAnd personally, if there is a god with the power ascribed to it by the bible, I would refuse to worship it. \n\nYou also need to educate yourself about the null hypothesis.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzl8ri","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">You seem to be a poor debater. You are accepting a lot of arguments as true when they aren't.\r\n\nI don't accept their arguments as true. I accept them as difficult to defeat.\n\n>And personally, if there is a god with the power ascribed to it by the bible, I would refuse to worship it.\n\nI wouldn't want to worship such a God either. [I've told a Protestant that if I were to accept that he indeed received a miracle, it would still prove that the Christian god is unjust](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvkkegk/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). But that argument still failed to sway him.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzqf91","parent_id":"jvzl8ri","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"-paperbrain-","body":"What you seem to be saying is just that you are not able, with the mere power of logic, to get Christians to abandon their belief.\n\nI hate to break it to you, but this is not a particular quality of Christianity. Anything people are dug in on will face this hill. Not only will you encounter it with every religion, but you won't argue many people out of their political doctrine, flat earth belief, or whether they side with Ross or Rachel on friends. People have rebuttals for everything about many totally conflicting positions. It's part of having strong beliefs and giving it some thought. And religions in particular have had a long time and tons of resources to give it thought.\n\nThat doesn't mean there's no room for criticism. Just that your expectation about change is ridiculously optimistic.\n\nHowever, regardless of how your personal debates are going, people are leaving Christianity in droves, partly because they don't find those rebuttals to critique to be logically, morally or emotionally satisfying. The fastest growing religious affiliation is \"none\".","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzlzcb","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">That doesn't mean there's no room for criticism. Just that your expectation about change is ridiculously optimistic.\n\nSometimes, I'm challenged to debate when I'm not looking for one (see my first link in the post details). I wasn't expecting to change anyone's views, just successfully defend my decision, and I failed even that.\n\n>However, regardless of how your personal debates are going, people are leaving Christianity in droves, partly because they don't find those rebuttals to critique to be logically, morally or emotionally satisfying. The fastest growing religious affiliation is \"none\".\n\n[Christianity is still growing overall](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_population_growth). Even if it's not growing in the Western World, this shrinkage is negated by growth outside the Western World.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzs5r5","parent_id":"jvzlzcb","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"wrongfulness","body":"What a waste of time","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzmu4k","parent_id":"15purrs","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"The_White_Ram","body":"This isn't hard. Christianity literally endorses slavery.\n\nIf you believe slavery is wrong then that's the only argument you need.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzniyg","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">This isn't hard. Christianity literally endorses slavery. \n> \n>If you believe slavery is wrong then that's the only argument you need.\n\nI tried using such an argument. [It backfired](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvztyn7","parent_id":"jvzniyg","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"ElPwnero","body":"I like the one Muslims use:\\\nThe word of allah is perfect and if you find inconsistencies, then it’s your human brain that’s incapable of understanding the true meaning.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzoket","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">I like the one Muslims use:\r \n> \n>The word of allah is perfect and if you find inconsistencies, then it’s your human brain that’s incapable of understanding the true meaning.\n\nI mean, they're basically insulting your intelligence. But isn't that a great bad faith tactic, dodging accountability by accusing your opponent of being too dumb to understand? I can't imagine myself faring any better debating a Muslim than debating a Christian.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzvglo","parent_id":"jvzoket","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"indigoneutrino","body":"The interesting thing is I've had the opposite experience. Plenty of experiences online and in person where they can barely rebut *anything* to the point that I've had a minister apologise she can't answer my questions satisfactorily. I've seen no-one rebut or even explain why the crucifixion makes sense without legitimising blood sacrifice. It just constantly defaults to \"Jesus paid for our sins,\" without explaining why the death of an innocent third party was accepted as a valid payment within a supposedly just system.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzppfh","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Pichkuchu","body":">It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted\n\nJust because you got outwitted doesn't mean the other side was right, they were, in fact, blatantly wrong. Christianity is just as guilty of atrocities as any religion. Keep in mind that Christianity is 2000 years old and they enslaved people until 1860 and they had to be \"convinced\" by war to give it up. They genocided native populations in America and colonized Asia and Africa. There was inquisition. They burned people for heresy, including scientists. They weren't different from other big religions or even pagans. The modern view of the world and humanity encompasses non Christian populations too and one could argue that it's in fact the result of secularism.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzqu5n","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"StrangeAssonance","body":"I’m curious why you think one has to prove God exists? \n\nAlso, when Jesus was on earth the Jews kept asking for a sign from Him. They were blind to what he was doing with His ministry. The world is blind, so when you try to have these arguments that you feel you can’t win, I think you aren’t ever going to win them. I can show you God through my words and deeds but if you are blind to that, you won’t see what’s there to see.\n\nJesus repeatedly talks about how blind and deaf people are to God and his word.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzr1ue","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">Also, when Jesus was on earth the Jews kept asking for a sign from Him. They were blind to what he was doing with His ministry. The world is blind, so when you try to have these arguments that you feel you can’t win, I think you aren’t ever going to win them. I can show you God through my words and deeds but if you are blind to that, you won’t see what’s there to see.\n\nThis is why I see my inability to believe as a disability comparable to being unable to read.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzzkhs","parent_id":"jvzr1ue","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"mo_ff","body":"You can have faith that your monthly bills will be paid whilst you have no money or means to do so OR you can actually have the money. One will work. The other will leave you with no utilities. Full stop.\n\nIn a debate with a Christian you would encounter, \"Oh, but have you no faith a brother in Christ would not help you?\" And then a large quantity of scriptural examples would be brought forth from whatever version of the bible they are most familiar with.\n\nAs others have stated, the deck is stacked. If you can approach the conversation with your family in a civil manor, stop going to church. Believe what makes you happy and mentally healthy so long as it doesn't hurt others.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzr2rx","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"HansPGruber","body":"You need to read some Thomas Paine my friend. A renegade if the atomic age.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzrn0v","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Morasain","body":"Couple things.\n\nThe first thing is that burden of proof is with the person making a claim - Christians in this case.\n\nThe second thing is - you don't need to refute the religion itself, because you can't.\n\nUsually, if you bring up things like pastors being molesters, or the crusades, or witch burnings, Christians will commit a No True Scotsman fallacy. \"These pastors aren't *real* Christians.\" You don't need to refute that argument because it is in itself wrong - but if you want, you can always go the path of saying that everyone in the church is, in the end, appointed by God.\n\nThe easiest way to reject Christianity is to instead reject God, though. You don't even need to prove that he's bad or anything - you need to use your own morality to reject the idea that a god like depicted in Christianity can be a god you want to believe in.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzrwx0","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"hdhddf","body":"you don't need to convince them, they're arguing from a position of ignorance and indoctrination, you can't argue with that because their arguments aren't built on logic or sound reasoning.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzs63u","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Huffers1010","body":"Let's do it by example. What did they have a rebuttal for that you couldn't respond to?\n\nMy suspicion is that they really didn't.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzt6nt","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"misersoze","body":"Just say: “hey I also met a Muslim, a Mormon, a Jew and a Hindu. They all make the exact same arguments as you do about why their religion is the correct one and they all say they have the one true religion. So why should I join yours over their’s”.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvztpz1","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Potential_Cod_8473","body":"They might win a debate but the world still is a shitty place full of diseases, suffering, birth defeacts. \n\nIt only prove how dishonest someone is to defend a claim it was created my omnipotent and omniscient being. \n\nChristianity was falsified many times\nAdam and Eve? Fairytale\nGreat Flood? Fairytale\nBabel's tower? Fairytale\nExocus? Fairytale \nRessurection? Really improbable\n\nThe fact that the scripture has to be interpreted in the face of new evidence like why would omnipotent God need 4 bilions years to create highly imperfect and miserable beings or why universe is 93 bilion light years wide and we are limited by a speed of light is a powerful evidence against revelation.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvztt3e","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"the_internet_clown","body":"Just because someone says something in response doesn’t make it a good rebuttal","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzugyn","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Relevant_Maybe6747","body":"Christianity doesn’t have a rebuttal against Judaism - they’ve tried and tried to kill us and never succeeded","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzuj4l","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Is that really a good argument though? By that logic, Islam doesn't have a rebuttal against Christianity either (or vice versa).","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw075ml","parent_id":"jvzuj4l","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Scott_The_Protogen","body":"Why \"debate\" someone's faith anyways? Unless they're being a jerk about it like in the last part. I always just have that whole live and let live thing (Even if some fanatics might not be that way either). I know you say some of these people come to you with the debates, but I feel like just giving a solid \"I don't want to talk about it\" or \"My views aren't going to change\" might work, even if they do continue to badger you regarding it, It doesn't have to be a winning-losing game.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzullx","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">Why \"debate\" someone's faith anyways? \n\nIn the first link, I was challenged to a debate out of the blue when I requested not to go to church anymore. He wanted me to read his spiel and change my views, or give a counter-argument strong enough to defend my views.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw07dt4","parent_id":"jvzullx","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Key-Extension1458","body":"2000 years ago there was a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem that took animal sacrifice from the people. This was fulfilling the Mosaic Covenant, and sustained Israel called \"Judea\". Like Jesus said it would happen, the temple was thrown down to the last stone and the sacrificial rite was \"nailed to the cross\" in the words of Paul the Apostle. This leaves us without redemption under the law, and everyone is guilty of sin everywhere. \n\nHence the figure of Christ intervenes, and made the ultimate sacrifice, putting death and guilt and hell itself into the fire. Now we have grace and mercy, and redemption by faith. It seems to work, since 2000 years of Christian history represented the general improvement of life everywhere. At the same time, the movement was hijacked by earthly forces resulting in \"churchianty\" and roman catholicism. All \"debates\" are just scholastic noise from that time, arguing in circles about nothing relevant. It is what it is, the temple of jerusalem was destroyed 2000 years ago and the levitical rites were nailed to the Cross.\n\nNow everything is a free gift, the more we cast off the old man and put on the new. Strong enough faith loses fear of everything and moves mountains, it is divine power given to mankind. God loves the children of this world and Israel in dispersion, which means everyone.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzur3s","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Key-Extension1458","body":"2000 years ago there was a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem that took animal sacrifice from the people. This was fulfilling the Mosaic Covenant, and sustained Israel called \"Judea\". Like Jesus said it would happen, the temple was thrown down to the last stone and the sacrificial rite was \"nailed to the cross\" in the words of Paul the Apostle. This leaves us without redemption under the law, and everyone is guilty of sin everywhere. \n\nHence the figure of Christ intervenes, and made the ultimate sacrifice, putting death and guilt and hell itself into the fire. Now we have grace and mercy, and redemption by faith. It seems to work, since 2000 years of Christian history represented the general improvement of life everywhere. At the same time, the movement was hijacked by earthly forces resulting in \"churchianty\" and roman catholicism. All \"debates\" are just scholastic noise from that time, arguing in circles about nothing relevant. It is what it is, the temple of jerusalem was destroyed 2000 years ago and the levitical rites were nailed to the Cross.\n\nNow everything is a free gift, the more we cast off the old man and put on the new. Strong enough faith loses fear of everything and moves mountains, it is divine power given to mankind. God loves the children of this world and Israel in dispersion, which means everyone.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzurg6","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">2000 years ago the Temple in Jerusalem took animal sacrifice from the people. It was fulfilling the Mosaic Covenant, and sustained Israel called \"Judea\" at the time. Like Jesus said it would happen, the temple was thrown down to the last stone and the sacrificial rite was \"nailed to the cross\" in the words of Paul the Apostle. This leaves us without redemption under the law, and everyone is guilty of sin everywhere. \n> \n>Hence the figure of Christ intervenes, and made the ultimate sacrifice, putting death and guilt and hell itself into the fire. Now we have grace and mercy, and redemption by faith. It seems to work, since 2000 years of Christian history represented the general improvement of life everywhere. At the same time, the movement was hijacked by earthly forces resulting in \"churchianty\" and roman catholicism. All \"debates\" are just scholastic noise from that time, arguing in circles about nothing relevant. It is what it is, the temple of jerusalem was destroyed 2000 years ago and the levitical rites were nailed to the Cross. \n> \n>Now everything is a free gift, the more we cast off the old man and put on the new. Strong enough faith loses fear of everything and moves mountains, it is divine power given to mankind. God loves the children of this world and Israel in dispersion, which means everyone.\n\nIs this supposed to be a promotion of Protestantism?","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw07io1","parent_id":"jvzurg6","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"danmilligan","body":"One thing I'm sensing is that you're thinking of Christianity as a monolith, and while that was once true, it hasn't been for a long, long time. So many types of Christianity exist that there will be Christians on opposite sides of nearly any given issue. The true non-negotiables of the religion are extremely minimal, and highly interpretive. Because of this, you can't really say \"Christians are like this\" or \"Christians do that\", because this will apply to SOME Christians, but certainly not all. For a good example, the majority of American Christians are extremely unique from a global perspective, being far more individualistic, and reading the Bible in a slavishly literal fashion, among other things. So if you say \"Christians are anti-LGBTQ\", there are millions and millions of other Christians ready to counter that.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzusf6","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">One thing I'm sensing is that you're thinking of Christianity as a monolith, and while that was once true, it hasn't been for a long, long time. So many types of Christianity exist that there will be Christians on opposite sides of nearly any given issue. The true non-negotiables of the religion are extremely minimal, and highly interpretive.\n\nI'm well aware of the splits within Christianity. What I mention in my post detail is that I have tried and miserably failed to defend my lack of faith from both Catholics and Protestants. I understand that they'd have different ways of thinking regarding lack of faith, but at the end of the day, both defeated me.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw07u6h","parent_id":"jvzusf6","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"GreasyPorkGoodness","body":"You need to dismantle the church hierarchy and not the “existence of god”. \n\nIt’s not that you don’t believe in god, you don’t believe in Christianities following of god. Their church is corrupt, opulent, child molesters, hypocritical, child marriage, judgmental, in Christ like etcetera. \n\nGod very well might exist, if he does he certainly won’t approve of christianity.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzuv92","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"CutiePopIceberg","body":"Christianity is Middle Eastern mythology. Christians hate when you remind them of this.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzv7py","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"JustSomeDude0605","body":"\"I don't believe in that bullshit\"\n\nDebate over.\n\nContrary to your brother's or pastor's wishes, you don't owe them any sort of debate or explanation. Live your life as you want to, not based on what they think you should do. If that means, no religion then stop going to church. \n\nFuck em.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzvaah","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"CriticalThinkingAT","body":"The thing is, there are a mountain of atheist rebuttals as well. Like literally there are so many atheist channels out there to rebutting every Christian argument that it's just a matter of searching and looking for them. Lol. You'll be fine.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzvipb","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">The thing is, there are a mountain of atheist rebuttals as well. Like literally there are so many atheist channels out there to rebutting every Christian argument that it's just a matter of searching and looking for them. Lol. You'll be fine.\n\nCounterpoint: Only a few of these are useful. Most channels appear to be useful only against Protestant pastors who rely on charisma. Catholicism is much harder to debate against as they have 2000 years of church tradition, intellectuals and apologia on their side.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw09z3v","parent_id":"jvzvipb","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"OpenByTheCure","body":"I don't want to be harsh, but I just think you're not very good at debating","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzvw3c","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"I am bad at debating (and most other things). Maybe that's why I always get challenged to debates, because I will lose.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0b11j","parent_id":"jvzvw3c","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Dr_Keyser_Soze","body":"You need to listen to David C. Smalley. Take in a few podcasts and you won’t be disappointed.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzvzk2","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Wintermute815","body":"It’s really not. It depends on circular logic and faith, both of which are critical flaws.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzx8zv","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"j3rdog","body":"Stop trying to debate facts by point counter point. Learn street epistemology. There’s good YouTube channels and subreddits on it.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzxa1z","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Unable-Food7531","body":"You're:\n\n1. Bad at debating in general\n\n2. An unskilled rhetorician \n\n3. Uneducated on the topic you're debating.\n\nThose Three things together mean than any attempt to draw generally-appliable conclusions from your debating losses is doomed to produce bs.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzxmej","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"How can I get all 3 skills when I'm up against people who have so much more knowledge than me? I hate it when I give others a reason to criticise me.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw05k0t","parent_id":"jvzxmej","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"DangForgotUserName","body":"Christians don't have arguments, just elaborate evasions of criticism.\n\nIn order to be religious, or believe in a supernatural god, to some extent, one has to deny certain aspects of science, and also have to deny the foundations of reason and logic. \n\n\nThere are major undemonstrated claims that come with theism:\n\n-a spiritual, divine, or otherwise supernatural realm exists \n\n-there are nonphysical spiritual forces and entities \n -some kind of afterlife exists\n\n-at least humans have souls, which are the spiritual essence \"attached\" to a physical body\n\nEven if all these were demonstrated, we would still have no way of determining which deities were real. These claims are also far from being demonstrated, likely, or even possible. \n\nEven then, we have no way to link such deities to any religion that anyone worships.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzxv11","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Electrical-Rabbit157","body":"It’s not well designed. It’s the worst designed religion in the world actually. The success of Christianity is based around keeping people from learning about other faiths. The moment that happens the VAST majority of them leave christianity for something else. Myself included. \n\nYou have to go at the fundamental hypocrisy of it. The average Christian rants and raves about the Ten Commandments and yet every single one of them break the first 2 commandments daily and most break 3 commandments every Sunday. The average priest breaks the first 4. Then there’s the fact that the Bible is a corrupt text and Christianity as a whole was founded by Paul, a man who is not a prophet, not a disciple, not an apostle, just a random guy who comes out of nowhere and starts preaching that Jesus is God.\n\nThey worship a trinity which is paganism. There is no excuse for it. It’s the same exact belief system as Hindus which are literally the original pagans that Abraham fought against. This trinity also includes a man. That man is considered a prophet but still. This breaks the first commandment. \n\nThey idolize said man and the cross he died on. They wear necklaces with it. They put big gold crosses at the front of their churches and big wooden ones on the outside of them. This breaks the second commandment \n\nThey go to church on Sunday and the vast majority of them believe this is the sabbath. Which directly breaks the fourth commandment.\n\nThe priesthood commits extortion and sometimes even rape in either the name of God or what they lead people to believe is a house of God. This breaks the third commandment \n\nThen you get to the Bible and it’s non existent integrity. There are about 5 major sects of Christianity. Each one has about 40 versions of the Bible. And the average Christian may think this is normal, it’s not. Jews have 1 version of the Torah. Muslims have 1 version of the Quran. Hell even the Hindus only have 1 version of most of their texts. The new testemant is more written by Paul, who is again, not a prophet, than any actual apostle. All of Paul’s letters are included in the vast majority of bibles yet the book of Enoch, book of Jesus Christ, and lost gospel to Peter are considered “uncanon” by the church and have been removed for centuries. That is not a holy text. It may have been a couple thousand years ago but out of 200+ in circulation today, I’d seriously doubt any can be considered uncorrupted.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzyqtq","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"malorane","body":"Isn't this other person either straight up lying or totally misinformed about the Christianity/Catholicism? Like I could be misremembering but I'm pretty sure there are passages that literally give you guidelines about how to treat your slaves and this dude said both have always been against slavery?","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzz7x7","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"CantKeepMeOutYo","body":"You will never win against someone with faith. They will always always always have some other bullshit excusw up their sleeves. That's what makes religion so fucking dangerous: it uses logic when it works and then completely disregards it when logic doesn't work. Don't bother debating christians, they've accepted a parasite into their body that will defend its ability to feed off the host, even if it means killing the host, or YOU.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzzg1h","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"wibbly-water","body":">If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\r \n\r \nIf you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\n\nIgnoring the second proposition for a second I want to propose 2 more reasonable secular arguments;\n\n1. This is true of all religions because their axioms and methods for diving truth are different. They believe, want to believe, will tie all phenomena in with their argument, will ignore Occam's Razor to do so. \n2. If Christianity is better than (some) other religions at doing this it may be because it is a highly evolved system of memes. A meme is the idea equivalent to a gene. Religions are memetic in nature - they are ideologies, ideas about how the world works. Memes compete for space and survival much like genes do. And every time one of its memes is threatened it is forced to either drop that meme and adapt or bolster it to do the same. Look at the iterations of historical Christianity. Where are the puritans today? Even Protestantism evolved out of Catholicism - many will claim that they are barely the same religion.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzzk96","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"DangForgotUserName","body":"The salvation of man is dependent on the suffering of Jesus Christ. His 'blood sacrifice magic' supposedly forgives original sin - doctrine that we know though biology is utterly wrong. (A couple of garden nudists were guilty of rebellious fruit munching, so everyone deserves death or eternal torment?) This makes the theological story around Jesus one where he is scapegoat of a nonexistent forebear. This should undermine the value of Jesus as well as the foundational basis for belief in God.\n\n \n\nFurther, the idea that the only way to forgive is through ritualized punishment? That is petty and immoral. No forgiveness without bloodshed or death. Horrible, ignorant and outdated ideas.\n\n\nThe idea of a messiah, one who will deliver us from the tribulations of the present, is an ancient idea that distracts us from the hard work that must be done to build a better world.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzzkww","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Emotional_platypuss","body":"The problem here is both sides trying to impose beliefs on others. What you believe or don't believe is your problem. You don't need to explain why you don't follow a religion, specially to religious people. Is like them telling you why their religion is so good. Break out of that circle and move on","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0052z","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"notjuan_f_m","body":"This Is the problem with everything lately. \"I am right, you are wrong, and I will continue to tell you until you accept that i am right\"","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw00l9j","parent_id":"jw0052z","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"JackedLilJill","body":"If anything, just from your text and title, the fact that Christians explain themselves fully in the face of debate, should be the reason to change your view.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw00vuq","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"FerdinandTheGiant","body":"For your first debate with your brother, he was just straight up wrong on so much. Christianity is not and does not serve as the basis for morality in the western world or the world as a whole. \n\nMost of the non-western world like in Asia is not heavily Christian and wasn’t for most of their history. They of course are doing just fine. Christian morals have not been consistent nor are they the basis for a basic society. \n\nAdditionally, you don’t need Christianity to explain altruism as it already has a natural explanation. It’s called kin selection and essentially means that it is beneficial to help out family since they carry your genes. This means more of your genes will get passed on. This is likely how it evolved in humans and then developed into what we consider today. Animals do this. Altruism isn’t human alone. \n\nThen you have slavery which the Bible openly says is fine. Leviticus 25:44-46","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw013nj","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"-Strawdog-","body":"Taking a quick look at one or two of these examples, you have a very noticeable habit of accepting a lot of the other person's premises and arguments without pushing back on them at all. As an example, your brother mentions multiple times that altruistic behavior is the direct result of the Christian faith, an argument that is absolutely ridiculous for a bunch of reasons, not the least of which that our closest genetic relatives (chimpanzees and bonobos) exhibit all kinds of altruistic behaviors as part of their highly social lifestyles (and they also don't sacrifice eachother, something he seems weirdly hung up on).\n\nTo be honest, it doesn't look like the people you're debating have good arguments or are good at expressing them, it seems that you are just very new to debate, particularly on this topic. If debating religious folks is something you want to do (you are incredibly unlikely to change their minds even with very good arguments), you can find plenty of solid resources online that break down and refute just about any apologetics you are likely to encounter.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw01pm9","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"lamabaronvonawesome","body":"I have found the opposite to be true. I would recommend reading some books on logic and debate. Having an answer doesn't make it a good answer. I had a debate teacher that used to day \"the definition of a reason is anything I put forth as a reason.\" This essentially means you SAY anything, that doesn't mean it will hold up under scrutiny. You mentioned miracles that a person had given you examples of in their own life. Debate in essence is about definitions, how we define things. Get them to give you the definition of a miracle. I personally would define that as any event that is ONLY explainable by divine intervention. See if their miracles hold up to that.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw02avd","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"kountze","body":"The Church did have some good effects on political and cultural development in Europe - for example the separation of powers came from the Church being a strong counter force to the government for so long, church limited the government in ways that led to values of separation of powers and limited government, unlike China which was much more state dominated and still is today. Protestantism represented not only a change in religion but also a change in how humans think logically - so yeah a lot of good things can be tied to how Protestantism changed how people think. \n\nThat being said, the above certainly is a far cry from saying that Protestantism values will work in every situation or that it can address all of today’s modern problems. Protectionism ideally is something that should be open to interpretation, which modern Christianity has moved away from that. \n\nIn terms of science the Church does not have credible arguments - that’s the main problem. If you think they do, you really haven’t encountered anyone who actually knows the science and microbiology. \n\nAlso, do not confuse correlation and causation. Certain positive developments in society may correlate, but that correlation does not prove causation. \n\n\nThe issue with","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw035en","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Jaderholt439","body":"If I’m debating Christianity, I like to go straight to the main topic- the Resurrection.\n\nMost people I know and love are Christians; I don’t have a problem w/ their religion. I love these people. But what I don’t like are apologists. Every single one that I’ve ever seen is dishonest. Especially when it comes to the Resurrection.\n\nIt’s not hard to believe that a guy named Yeshua, who had a religious following, was crucified. I can even believe he was put in his own tomb, although most were put in a mass grave, it’s wasn’t unheard of. The stone being put to block the tomb and guards sound like they were plot holes being fixed in Matthew, but for arguments sake, I’ll agree to that too.\n\nJesus wasn’t in the tomb when they went to him 3 days later. What is the most likely explanation? Is it, “he must’ve overcome death and ascended, bc he’s God”? I think a Guy Ritchie style heist is way more plausible. ‘They forgot which cave’ is more plausible. Literally anything is more plausible. If they are being honest, they have to say, “I believe it on faith”. Yet, apologists will not say this, therefore they are dishonest, therefore they don’t have an answer for everything.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw03fxs","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Entropy_Drop","body":"LOL on the first link. Christianity didn't opposed slavery, and doesn't have a monopoly on being a good person. It actually was the ideological fundation of american slavery.\n\nHypocrates wasn't christian, gandi neither, and personal freedom, democracy and equality of genders aren't christian values.\n\nThe golden rule (\"don't do to other what you dont want done to yourself\") and the silver rule (\"do to others what you want to recieve from them\" (bdsm, for example)) are not creation of christianity. \n\nSome christian are propagandiced all their life into the worldview of \"all good comes from christ\", which is clearly a big lie. Is kinda justified for them to sell that lie, tho.\n\nAlso, that motto has a counter-part: \"No bad comes from christ\" which is my only explanation to how incredible bigoted people justify their behavior without ever thinking \"are we the badies?\". Anita \"pie-face\" Bryant comes to mind, who, in her own words \"loved homosexuals\".","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw04f2l","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Jade_Skie","body":"TJ Kirk (aka The Amazing Atheist) on YouTube once mentioned \"unfalsifiable hypothesis.\" In other words, Christians spout the argument that miracles, what is said in the Bible, Satan, and God all exist and are as the answer to everything because immediate evidence to the contrary can normally not be produced by their opponent, thus no argument against them can be made. So in their minds, they are right. That is, of course, not how the world/universe actually works.\n\nTo quote Carl Sagan: \"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.\"","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw04j73","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"JuliusErrrrrring","body":"Remember the following truths: most people who claim they are Christians are good people; most people who are good people and claim they are Christian are good because of their ignorance of the Bible, not because of the Bible. The Bible is an awful immoral book and the religion is completely silly. It is pro slavery, pro genocide, pro forced abortion and pro incest. If you are debating anyone who isn't in favor of those things, they may be actually non believers too, they are just too ignorant of their religion to know any better.\n\n​\n\nIt is completely silly and does not hold up to debate. Just some quick obvious random thoughts off the top of my head: They suck at math - claim to have one god yet believe in a holy trinity as well as an evil god. Many Christians claim to be against abortion, yet the Bible actually gives an abortion recipe, god murdered pregnant women in his Noah's Arc genocide, and Jesus forced abortions on Jezebel. Many Christians are anti-trans and anti gay - yet Eve transitioned from a male rib and now they worship a dress wearing dude with two fathers who identifies as bread and wine. Cain and Abel were the original motherfuckers. The whole bible was written by people who never met Jesus and there is zero historical proof that there even was a man named Jesus pretending to be god. It's just a gigantic hoax that's been accepted due to peer pressure because life is easier and you can make more money and get laid easier if you simply play along with this silly marketing scheme.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw05bz4","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Loose-Technology7787","body":"Christianity is designed that way. Christians are programmed in a way via church and such where they hold their belief to a much higher standard than any facts or logic despite a lack of evidence. On of christianity's main taglines is to just have faith in god even though hes done nothing to show you hes there.\n\nDebating a religious person on religion is an unwinnable debate. You cant argue against someones opinion when the only points they will accept are those that align with said opinion. For example, many christians say good and evil only exist because god decides whats good and bad. I might say that life is meaningless, therefore our thoughts and feelings are all that exist making them all that matters. Meaning we get to choose whats moral; however the christian would then just say life isnt meaningless because god gives meaning to life. This will go on for any length of time.\n\nThe only reason atheists win those official televised debates is because theres a mediator keeping nonsense out of it. They keep the religious side from using unreasonable and illogical arguments, which leads to them losing.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw05l8j","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"BuzzyShizzle","body":"That's funny because, I have yet to hear them lose an argument/debate on the atheist experience yet. \n\nIf you haven't heard of it, there is a call-in radio show called \"the atheist experience\" and the entire show is welcoming any religious to call in and challenge them. If you want your view changed, that show will do a much better job than anything else.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw06l99","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Sad_Confidence8941","body":"I agree, Christianity is very well designed. The smartest people alive for many centuries spent their lives defending Christianity (Thomas Aquinas, Saint Augustine, etc). They have been philosophically attacked for years and years and are still here","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw06orq","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"nomad5926","body":"Homie out here saying the altruism isn't a natural thing without Christianity..... 🤣 Bro be saying Meerkats are all Christians? Or Naked Mole Rats?\n\nI will never understand why people have to force religion upon others. But essentially an easy way out is to ask them to provide solid proof that God existed. Logically you cannot not prove a belief. (Like others have said before me). Typically the ones making the claim \"god exists\" have the burden of proof. \n\nAlso in my experience you're not going to convince anyone to stop believing. It's the same reason kids believe in Santa it gives them something. For most people, religion is a source of comfort. It's why, from what I see, older folks are more religious. (Cause you know.... Closer to death... Heaven seems nicer).\n\nIf you just want them to stop harassing you, you can just say that your relationship with God is personal and need not be on disability for others. (You don't have to say the bit that the relationship is non-existent).","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0753r","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Moraulf232","body":"Christianity has an answer for any criticism but the answers are silly and unconvincing just like the religion.\n\nJust ask yourself “has this answer explained why I should believe these assertions with no evidence or has it just made more assertions with no evidence?” and “could this answer be used to justify the existence of a Flying Spaghetti Monster or literally any other deity?” or “is there any evidence that the person I am talking to can imagine that would cause them to change their mind?” etc.\n\nThe philosophical arguments (apologetics) religions use are just fancy noise. There’s nothing there.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw07atx","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"lpuckeri","body":"Theres many reasons why christianity is absolutely absurd, at a childlike and comical level imo. I have equal belief in it than i do Santa. The apologetics for christianity are just excuses for something as rediculous as believing in flying to heaven on a winged horse.\n\nLets remember, we are arguing about. A cosmic jewish god zombie who is his own father and was born a virgin birth to a women impregnated by a holy ghost. \n\nThere is zero evidence for this that is not heresay. Not a single item or record or peice of evidence contemporary to jesus exists. To confirm this laughably absurd story all we have is stories that contradict each other, written in the wrong language, written decades to centuries after the fact, much of which we know was straight up forged and copied from surrounding greek myths and people.\n\nGetting lost in abologetics is exacty meant to make you forget you are proving an absurd thing eith zero evidence, and get caught up in the weeds.\n\n\nReasons. \n\n1. Supernatural events in the bible are empirically impossible to prove. Christians may use awful arguments like minimal facts etc, but these are all comically bad and fallacious. Abuductive reasoning is all we have access to, and that can never demonstrate supernatural events... This alone is enough, as it is logicalltly impossible to demonstrate christianity through our resources.\n\n2. The bible is self contradictory, the trinity and more is exceedingly illogical. By this i mean it literslly violates the laws of logic... and is isnanely stupid.\n\n3. The bible is obvious myth taken from surrounding cultures.\n\n4. There are no decent biblical scholars who think Moses wrote the old testament. Moses clearly never existed and exodus never happened. This is extremely confirmed... there is extreme evidence the base of both judeaism and christianity is 100% made up.\n\n5. People that claim supernatural events or whatever... 1. Does not prove god, or their god... it proves they had something special happen and nothing more. 2. These are nothing more than claims. 3. People claim this shit for every religion, thousands... if you apply this standard as evidence for one... you must for thousands of gods. 4. Once you understand psychology you realize how the brain works snd how easy it is for people to misnterpret things visually and auditory.\n\n6. Religions are not one off inventions. They are all representations and copyings of popular myths at the time. This can be seen in thousands of religions. Just as it is in christianity... the devil and hell doesnt become a thing until Greek influence, things like rising and dying saviours were popular greek myths too at the time of the bible etc. In fact the bible was wirtten in greek, not aramaic, the language Jesis and his follower would have spoken. You see babylonian myths copied into the parts of the bible, when they were written there...you see the bibles hell and devil and apocalyptic influences copying greek myth during the hellenistic period. Religions are copies of surrounding myth and cultures.\n\n7. Apologists often use arguments to prove god that are diestic. Things like the ontological srgument, teleological argument... aside from these being bad arguments, they only prove A God... not christianity. Even if the Kalam is true... the odds of christianity bring true is still zero... it gets you no closer.\n\n8. The bible wasnt written by geniuses. It was written by copying and adapting popular myths, cultures, and laws at the time. From copying ancient semetic religions and near eastern traditions 4000 tears ago, to adapting greek myths 2000 years ago. It also was written of centuries, adapted, edited, revised, forged, faked, reinterpreted thousands of times by hundeds of people. This idea some geniuses wrote this thing like you see it now is childishly ignorant of scholarship and history.\n\n9. There are actually about 94 gospels. 90 of which christians will admit are 100% bullshit mythological stories... yet they somehow think these are the special true 4, because the church leaders centuries ago simply decided so. \n\n10. These excuses and arguments for christianity are no better and no different than the ones Jews will use, or muslims, or Sikhs. You just live in a place around christians most likely. \n\nIts interesting because i have never heard a christian argument to me than is not childishly rediculous imo.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw07u2w","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Inevitable_Spare_777","body":"You can’t have a factual, logical debate with a person who’s worldview doesn’t subscribe to facts and logic","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw08ays","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"drzowie","body":"There is no direct way to argue a Christian out of Christianity, because it is a faith-based system of beliefs. But you *can* demand respect for your own beliefs.\n\nA couple of years ago, I wrote about just how incompatible Christian beliefs are with the scientific worldview. That line of argument is (like any other argument) unlikely to convince a fervent believer -- but may help you to understand that there are real weaknesses in the edifice of Christian thought. \n\nBelow is [copypasta from an early CMV post I made](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/7zy9wp/cmv_you_can_accept_todays_scientific_theory/durqqmi/):","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw08i8h","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"DouglerK","body":"I mean if they didn't the religion would probably be dead by now.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw08xbe","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"joshp23","body":"> If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniouses\n\nAll they have at their disposal are unfalsifiable claims. You can't prove that the invisible dragon in my garage doesn't exist either. The rest is a con act to attribute personal experience to the dragon. \n\nBut unfalsifiability and con tactics aside, wouldn't a genius be able to construct an effective argument *and* compile an internally consistent document at the same time? You have to do mental gymnastics to apologize for the ignorance and inconsistencies in the Bible.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw09c2d","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Crookwell","body":"OR you just aren't a very good critic?\nBecause I can rebuke shitty religious claims all day","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw09wvx","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"redstar15551","body":"Maybe you should give up then? You're not gonna \"Gotcha\" Christianity so leave them alone. Your lack of faith and overabundance of cynicism does not bug anyone the slightest. Don't trap yourself because you view this as an unwinnable battle against some dogmatic close minded religion, when that in and of itself is close minded. There's a modern pushback against religion, Christianity specifically, that has been pushed hard; but Christianity has and will continue to endue.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0a4wk","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Various_Succotash_79","body":"When my brothers were young, they played a game that was very much like Calvinball (if you've never read the comic Calvin and Hobbes, this is a game they made up on the fly). So it was all stuff like \"now the floor is lava so you burn up!\" \"Oh yeah? I throw 60 million tons of dry uce on it and that cools it off\", \"well that was too much and now you're frozen solid!\" Etc. \n\nThat's pretty much what religion is. Your mistake is in trying to make any sense of it.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0b260","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">When my brothers were young, they played a game that was very much like Calvinball (if you've never read the comic Calvin and Hobbes, this is a game they make up on the fly, so it never has the same rules). So it was all stuff like \"now the floor is lava so you burn up!\" \"Oh yeah? I throw 60 million tons of dry ice on it and that cools it off\", \"well that was too much and now you're frozen solid!\" Etc. \n\n!delta\n\nAs you show, you can't get anywhere trying to defend yourself from a religion which is designed to dodge accountability and make opponents lose. It's not designed for a debate, it's designed to be inescapable.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw25sdi","parent_id":"jw0b260","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Collective82","body":"If you are having such a hard time debating it, shouldn’t you consider it’s right and maybe you should look at converting?","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0bbov","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"I have. The problem is no matter how hard I try, I have zero spirituality and a complete inability to be sincerely connected with any religion. I see this as a disability comparable to being unable to because it's such a drag on my life.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw263jo","parent_id":"jw0bbov","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Fluffy_Candle6800","body":"I'll give you a quote from a book I read - \"God is omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent. However, bad things still happen. This means God cannot stop the bad things - he is not omnipotent, God does not know the things are happening - he is not omniscient, or he allows the bad things to happen - he is not benevolent.\"","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0bhc0","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"I've accepted the last one. How can I possibly believe in a benevolent god, when he gives miracles to some and neglects genuine victims, or when the religion he designed has endless excuses and loopholes to dodge all accountability?","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw26dbi","parent_id":"jw0bhc0","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"ItsAll42","body":"I do feel as though you too quickly concede many points that are not accurate or honest, but stated with such confidence they are difficult to rebutt just as confidently without sufficient background knowledge. In fact, some of these claims are just straight up racist, such as claiming altruism is not only a strictly christian virtue, but that many values such as caring for the sick and needy or having basic human decency are strictly Western practices and values.\n\n This is wildly inaccurate to claim, knowledge of history can easily debunk such ludicrous statments, especially considering much of the Western ideology is more focused on individualism where confucianism is more focused on the community as a whole. Buddhism stresses that all beings have inherent worth and challenges the strictly heiarchichal values of confucianism, yet still plenty of emphasis is placed on how to better the community as a whole and being kind for the sake of altruism and kindness without any expectation of personal rewards. You do not have to be a historian or theologian to debunk so much of what this person is claiming, especially in regard to other Abrahamic religions which are incredibly similar to the teachings of Christianity, you know, because they share a common historical and biblical root. While modern interpretations of Abrahamic faiths run the gamut, they are more alike than many of their subscribers would like to admit. \n\nIn fact, I'd argue that Christianity and most of its branches contain more self-serving motives than many religious beliefs, promising prosperity and wealth in heaven as a reward for good behavior. As an agnostic person I do not need a reward for my good behavior. \n\nAs you tried to point out, when this person claims pagans did not care for the sick or other absurd claims, the burden of proof is on them to substantiate such a ridiculous assumption. \n\nThis person comes across as making many intellectually dishonest arguments, and you more or less concede or gloss many of these points without pushback.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0cszb","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">This person comes across as making many intellectually dishonest arguments, and you more or less concede or gloss many of these points without pushback.\n\nThat's because I didn't study history at a tertiary level. See how I'm a frequent visitor to r/AskHistorians - because I'm not smart or knowledgeable about history. Are you suggesting that to defeat Christianity, I'll need a university degree in history?","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw26yyz","parent_id":"jw0cszb","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"FerdinandTheGiant","body":"Most, if not all of the Western values people like to claim are “Judeo-Christian” in origin simply aren’t. For one “Judeo-Christian values” aren’t a thing as these groups have different values, however let’s consider a few things we value in the west. \n\n#Democracy\n\nIn the Bible, democracy is never extolled or even articulated. Instead, there are endless stories of theocratic, authoritarian rule and the divine right of kings. Power is always concentrated; it’s never distributed. In classical Greece, however, Athenians established what is generally recognized as the world’s first democracy around 500 BCE. This predates Christianity and arose with no Jewish influence.\n\n#Common Humanity/ Equality\n\nThis is simply not biblical. In the New Testament, women are forbidden from holding authority over a man, told to be silent in church, and instructed to be obedient and submissive to their husbands. The same word used for submissive in Colossians also is used to describe how slaves should be to their masters. Women can be killed if they’re suspected of having premarital sex; the tenth commandment forbids coveting property, which includes women in the same sentence as houses and oxen; if a woman was raped, she was forced to marry her rapist if the offender paid her father, and on and on it goes.\n\nNon-Israelites or gentiles were forced into slavery and treated as property. This is seen in Leviticus and all over the Hebrew Bible. Slavery was condoned and justified for thousands of years using the Bible. \n\n#10 Commandments\n\nA common argument is that these “laws” are where we derive most of our morals and values in the west. This is rather silly. \n\nFor starters, a lot of the commandments are about idolatry, however other Rules like “thou shall not kill” predate Christianity and Judaism by hundreds of years. Literally any and all functional societies require this rule to be in place. And all over the world you see non-Christian nations follow similar “laws”. This is because they are beneficial for building a society. \n\n#Other religions\n\nOther religions have much stronger moral codes that Christanity. Jainism believes so much in the value of life that they won’t even talk at night because they could accidentally harm an insect. Buddhists have a deep personal desire to self improve while also improving the lives of those around them. Same could be said for taoists.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0dbxm","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"That's the problem though. You assume that Christianity is pro-democracy and pro-equality when history has shown us that they'd gladly throw these concepts under the bus if it were in the way of their religion.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw27njn","parent_id":"jw0dbxm","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Circular360Angles90","body":"People often conflate these two completely separate ideas. God/Higher Power - whatever you want to call it, with - Religion. \n\nReligion, in its limited ability tries to use the concept of God in an attempt to sway your reasoning capabilities towards their doctrine. God, however is completely separate from Religion.\n\nReligion just seems to have a Monopoly on the word. People feel as though believing in a God or Gods means they should adhere to some way of “knowing” their God. - which is all that a religion really does. But rest assured that it is someone elses ideas you are digesting. Theres nothing wrong with consulting people whom you believe to be wise or have more experience, but if you start feeling like they have some sort of answer that you cant quite grasp, then your talking to the wrong people. \n\nThis is not something that anyone can “show” you or “debate” you about. \n\nGod isnt in a book. God isnt an idea you learn from the pulpit. God isnt reason nor logic. God isnt bad. God isnt good. \n\nYou are engaging in a debate where their is nothing to debate, thus you always be “outwitted.”\n\nThink for yourself, walk your own path. You’ll fall flat on your face initially, perhaps for many years and, if you can muster up strength to get up on your own and not ask anybody why you fell and why it hurts so bad - you’ll stop feeling “outwitted.”","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0f9fa","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">You are engaging in a debate where their is nothing to debate, thus you always be “outwitted.”\n\n>Think for yourself, walk your own path. You’ll fall flat on your face initially, perhaps for many years and, if you can muster up strength to get up on your own and not ask anybody why you fell and why it hurts so bad - you’ll stop feeling “outwitted.”\n\nIsn't this the problem though? Most people can earn external respect being just who they are. In contrast, I have to prove my respectability, and prove why I have valid views, and I always lose.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw2llv2","parent_id":"jw0f9fa","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"CIABrainBugs","body":"If God was real, his actions would prevent me from giving him any respect. I don't care if he's real.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0fl5d","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Nghtmare-Moon","body":"Read Carl Sagan’s demon haunted world. It’s the best essay to counter all religious arguments","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0g6mu","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"GainPornCity","body":"It's not that there's a rebuttle for everything. There's just a different lens to look through. \n\nSay an atheist has blue shades on and sees everything as blue. Christian sees everything as red. However, the one commonality between the Athiest and the Christian is the human construct..thereby despite being in different mindsets, they both acknowledge phenomena as they unfold in the world\n\nNo matter how much blue you speak regarding world phenomena, the Christian will respond to *each* phenomenon with a red response. \n\n\nThis phenomenon, you look at through a blue lens and say: \"The Christian has an excuse for everything, no matter how blue, there's always gonna be some red to speak on from their side.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0gw4r","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Realistic-Cat4116","body":"The only rebuttal you need is: \"Prove it.\" Keep repeating that over and over again. They can't, you win, end of argument.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0h3pm","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Okami_The_Agressor_0","body":"Debating things that are designed to explain all with a basis in non-falsifiable statements is impossible. Religions are all memetic viruses that are meant to superimpose a false sense of the world on their followers, there are other belief systems that do the same that don't involve god but a well designed memetic virus can't be successful with out being impervious to logic or ways to side step rational thinking. That being said many modern political beliefs are structured similarly and operate in a similar fashion to religions. \n\nReligion imparts a base line culture and morality to people that allows for a more respectful and peaceful society. Part of what make that possible is ideological sanitation of a populace. Diversity of ways of life sparks conflict and religion solves that a good portion of the time. You could potentially see how many recent events have been the result of diverse culture and belief systems, so any derivation of heterogenization of society would logically be rejected by such belief systems with understandable cause.\n\nI believe people should be able to do what ever they please but when there is no respect in society people seek control from government to maintain the peace. So the easiest way for a country to stay free is to remain an ethno/ideological-state, or very slow and controlled change. When accounting these things you must satisfy for the lowest common denominator which will inevitable reject things on the basis of tribal instinct.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0k3j1","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"ApeMummy","body":"You’re outwitted because you lack wit not because christianity is special.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0k3sk","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"SeymoreButz38","body":"1st is a citation needed. Second was a semantic argument. Third is a no true scotsman fallacy.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0kns0","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Ecoronel1989","body":"I think the issue here is your brother does a few things to confuse you.\n1. Switching between defending spirituality and Christianity.\n2. Berating you with words so it's hard for you to rebuttal everything that is said (an overwhelming tactic).\n3. Throws out unprovable claims that are opinions as facts.\n\nFor #1, there's a big difference between spirituality and Christianity. Christianity asserts it is the one true religion, all others are wrong and lead to a wrong lifestyle. Spirituality is a general idea about believing in something outside oneself. To Christians, spirituality is paganism (unless it's Christianity itself) and therefore wrong and cannot be accepted or celebrated. So your brother can't simply pick and choose to say spirituality is good for the health and then switch to say Islam is not a good religion as these are contradictory statements.\n\nBut this issue is linked to #2, he berates arguments with a ton of words and makes multiple \"points\" at once. This is a similar tactic to what Donald Trump has used during his time as a politician. Simply overload the other side with a word soup, throwing out multiple arguments that are each wrong, but takes effort to debate each of them. By the time you gather your thoughts about the first wrong statement, he's moved on to the next 3, it's overwhelming.\n\nWhich leads to the last point, that is throwing out unprovable claims in the midst of his word soup. Claims such as there would be no morality without religion are unprovable for modern science since we have had religion in all cultures for over 2000 years, so it's hard to test this \"fact\". Another one that comes to mind is saying there's objective morality in the Bible, which you argued is not because of the Bible. Another counterargument is that the interpretation to the Bibles teachings changes across generations (i.e. slavery allowed for priests) and is therefore not objective, but his claim is unprovable in general as you can only offer up counter examples he can claim we're people not following the \"truth\".\n\nOverall, I think you're doing better than you think at debating this issue. The larger issue is what others have pointed out, that you don't have to win this argument, simply live by what you believe is true like they do.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0m923","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"TimeFliesFaster","body":"It doesn’t have a good rebuttal as to why Jesus is the prophesied messiah of a religion that believes in a single unitary god. Especially when Jesus didn’t have the right ancestors and failed to meet the applicable prophesies (ie dead all coming back to life, temple being restored for all time, diaspora returning, war coming to permanent end, and entire world embracing scripture in messiah’s lifetime)","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0sjyl","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"David_Warden","body":"You are trying to prove a negative which is a waste of time.\n\nThey are the ones making the improbable claims so the burden of proof lies with them. \n\nIf they continue to pester you, ask them to prove it.\n\nI think you will find that it boils down to belief in the highly improbable that is not adequately supported by either evidence or reasoning.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw1cnr9","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"SaltiestRaccoon","body":"Sure. They have rebuttals. They're just not as good as you think they are. And they tend to be the same rebuttals over and over.\n\nI mean just to refute the ones you were hit with... In the first example, he paints the 'pagan' world monolithically while citing the worst examples from many different cultures, while kind of also ignoring that many of those things also apply to Christian nations. Pretty sure the weak and poor weren't running Medieval England, for instance. Likewise slaves were absolutely still a thing among Christians... the slaves just couldn't also be Christian. There were Christian Germanic warriors pillaging right along with the rest of them. Finally virtually any civilization that has kept slaves does in fact have laws about how they can be treated. It can certainly even be argued that serfdom is still just slavery but called something else to make it acceptable, as people can still be bought and sold, they just count as part of the land instead and likewise must work for their lord or face abuse or death. Sounds a lot like slavery to me.\n\nAltruism is in fact a part of human nature. It evolved because we are a social species and we are inclined to act for the good of our group, as our group is beneficial to our survival. There's a [great example](https://www.upi.com/Archives/1987/11/04/Cavemen-took-care-of-physically-disabled/5137563000400/) of a cave man skeleton with some pretty crippling deformities, who could not have hunted for himself that lived to old age. That means his tribe or his family unit was caring for him despite the fact he was a burden. And this is humanity in the stone age, at our least civilized. The Gauls, as well routinely collected a portion of taxes to help pay for their disabled citizens (though in Rome, it was preached if not always practiced that disabled children should be put to death.)\n\nIn a lot of instances he just seems ignorant on history and expects you to go along with it. A lot of it is very gish-gallupy too. He says so many wrong things that there's no way to correct them all without getting so bogged down with corrections that you can never make a point of your own, or even refute all of his errors. Don't allow that. Insist on arguing one point at a time.\n\nReally I think it's gaps in your knowledge more than Christianity being particularly difficult to criticize. I find it quite easy.","date":"2023-08-14","id":"jw3kj7g","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}]],"string":"[\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"DeadCupcakes23\",\n \"body\": \"Why does it matter if Christianity has a rebuttal for something? You can criticise the bible and Christianity based on what it says and the actions done in its name (context depending).\\n\\nPeople have moral values without Christianity and most things people appreciate nowadays are not inherent to Christianity, for example the bible allows slavery.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzggd4\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">Why does it matter if Christianity has a rebuttal for something? You can criticise the bible and Christianity based on what it says and the actions done in its name (context depending).\\n\\nBecause losing a debate due to their rebuttals makes me look stupid. Also, if you follow the links to their arguments, even the atrocities done in its name don't count because those fall under \\\"false prophets\\\". \\n\\nIt's like the Bible was written with this possibility in mind to entrap us.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzh2ui\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzggd4\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"tipoima\",\n \"body\": \"Christianity *was* fabricated, but not by geniuses. \\nYou're fighting against over two thousand years worth of apologetics, where all the weakest arguments have been pruned away. \\nHowever, as expected of something that isn't actually true, those arguments are often plainly wrong, be it due to logical fallacies, appeals to unknown, obtuse philosophy you probably don't know you don't subscribe to, no-true-scotsmanning, e.t.c.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzh8ep\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">However, as expected of something that isn't actually true, those arguments are often plainly wrong, be it due to logical fallacies, appeals to unknown, obtuse philosophy you probably don't know you don't subscribe to, no-true-scotsmanning, e.t.c.\\n\\nThis is exactly what they do. The problem is that \\\"I don't know\\\" is not an acceptable answer to them ([see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvhr81y/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)), whereas they already have something up their sleeve to entrap me. \\n\\nAs you mentioned, with 2000 years of experience creating answers, I even if I am able to point out something wrong or intellectually dishonest, they'll still have an answer for that, forcing me to spend yet more time and effort to come up with an answer. And I am not intelligent enough to create an answer for everything they throw at me, so I'm trapped.\\n\\nIt's an uphill battle, and one that can easily be lost. Until we can come up with a rebuttal they can't defeat, there will always be a risk that secular society and LGBT rights might be defeated.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzhurp\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzh8ep\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Watchyobackistan\",\n \"body\": \"Not really, most of their \\\"rebuttals\\\" are stuff like \\\"god doesn't give us all the answers\\\" and \\\"Don't worry jesus loves you\\\" Non-answers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzhdab\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"MercurianAspirations\",\n \"body\": \"But why should you give a shit? If you have conviction in your own beliefs, it shouldn't matter whether or not you can convince others using your super debater skillz or not. After all, if somebody were sufficiently dumb or insane, it would be impossible to convince them of the truth, no matter how clear and apparent the truth were; therefore, whether or not a thing is widely believed and people are readily convinced of its truth is not a guide to truth. When there was only one person on the earth who believed in heliocentrism they were still right, and the geocentrists were still wrong. The geocentrists had answers for every single objection, and they won every single debate, yet, they were still wrong. \\n\\nMoreover, it isn't that Christianity is super well designed or anything. It's just that people who have strongly held convictions are not available to be convinced by facts and logic. That's just how people are: they do not actually change their minds that much.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzhezx\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">But why should you give a shit?\\n\\nBecause I don't want my stances to look stupid. I was once likened to an anti-vaxxer for not being able to provide evidence to back my lack of faith.\\n\\n> If you have conviction in your own beliefs, it shouldn't matter whether or not you can convince others using your super debater skillz or not. \\n\\nConviction in your own beliefs doesn't make one right. Besides, their side also has a firm conviction in their beliefs.\\n\\n>When there was only one person on the earth who believed in heliocentrism they were still right, and the geocentrists were still wrong. The geocentrists had answers for every single objection, and they won every single debate, yet, they were still wrong.\\n\\nScience doesn't care about number of believers, what matters is the evidence. And in the case of heliocentrism, it was proven right by overwhelming evidence. I wish I had overwhelming evidence to back my lack of faith.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzih4p\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzhezx\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Mr-Bitter\",\n \"body\": \"Send your brother my way. I know of a way to convince him that it was Satan that wrote the Bible and can kill every single one of his arguments. I would thoroughly enjoy a civilized religious debate.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzhg91\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"ApocalypseYay\",\n \"body\": \">CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\\n\\nThis makes zero sense. Rebuttals require logic and facts, and there are only apologia and special pleasing fallacy described herein. \\n\\nLet's start from the basic - where is the evidence for chris, the alleged son of god, and somehow also god, that killed himself to please himself? There is zero historical evidence for this event, before we even get to the easily debunked claims of miracles, or the plainly immoral laws being promulgated as divine commandments.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzhig9\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">where is the evidence for chris,\\n\\n[Most historians accept that Jesus Christ existed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus). The rest of the biblical story isn't accepted by historians.\\n\\n>before we even get to the easily debunked claims of miracles,\\n\\n[I miserably failed at convincing someone that I don't believe in miracles](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvai6qm/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). How would you convince him?\\n\\n> or the plainly immoral laws being promulgated as divine commandments.\\n\\nHow would you convince them that their side is immoral? They have methods up their sleeve to dismiss the malice conducted in the name of Christianity, and justify the anti-LGBT commandments.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzj8qx\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzhig9\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"physioworld\",\n \"body\": \"The most important concept you have to remember is the burden of proof. It’s not up to you to prove the Christianity ISNT TRUE, it’s up to them to prove that it IS TRUE. So if they can’t prove their own religion you need to accept it, you don’t have to worry about disproving their beliefs. \\n\\nA good way to illustrate this, is whether they would accept comparable claims with comparable evidence from other religions. So if they claim that Christianity is true because it says so in the bible, ask whether you should also accept Islam because it says so in the Quran.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzhlry\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">The most important concept you have to remember is the burden of proof. It’s not up to you to prove the Christianity ISNT TRUE, it’s up to them to prove that it IS TRUE. So if they can’t prove their own religion you need to accept it, you don’t have to worry about disproving their beliefs.\\n\\nBut that's the problem - they consider themselves as proving it is true. For example, one guy who told me of miracles he received - [and I lacked a sufficient rebuttal to convince him he's wrong](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvai6qm/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzjexi\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzhlry\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Adam__B\",\n \"body\": \"You don’t have to defend not believing in something that is invisible, utterly silent, immeasurable, illogical, unscientific, undetectable and untestable. The burden is on them to prove a positive, not you a negative.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzi1gp\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"OrangeBlancmange\",\n \"body\": \"Why do you think you are losing? They obviously haven’t convinced you in these arguments and just falling back to faith (which is all they really have) doesn’t ‘win’ anything in any meaningful way. You won’t be able to argue them out of their faith so you can’t ‘win’ either. Ultimately it’s not an argument in the philosophical sense - they aren’t engaging in good faith and simply will not change their minds regardless of what you say.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzi24f\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"> they aren’t engaging in good faith and simply will not change their minds regardless of what you say.\\n\\nBad faith arguments are like doping in sports - they make it easier for them to win. You just need to be a good enough debater to win despite the disadvantage.\\n\\n>Why do you think you are losing? \\n\\nBecause I failed to be that \\\"good enough debater\\\". Any argument I can throw at them is utterly crushed and thrown back at me.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzk4ge\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzi24f\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Cayowin\",\n \"body\": \"How did you lose that debate?\\n\\nSlavery - Christians used the bible to promote the slave trade\\n\\n[https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/01/a-harvard-exhibit-on-slavery-and-christianity/#:\\\\~:text=In%20the%20modern%20era%2C%20Christianity,often%20used%20to%20justify%20slavery](https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/01/a-harvard-exhibit-on-slavery-and-christianity/#:~:text=In%20the%20modern%20era%2C%20Christianity,often%20used%20to%20justify%20slavery).\\n\\nYes there were abolitionists, but if the same text can be used to both justify and condemn an action how is that text a good moral guide?\\n\\nThe bible explicitly allows the owning of humans as property. So either god is not unchanging or he changed his mind. \\n\\n1 Peter 2:18, Saint Peter writes \\\"Slaves, be subject to your masters with all reverence, not only to those who are good and equitable but also to those who are perverse.\\\"\\n\\nYes they have prepared apologetics, it just means you need to do more research. Remember they have no evidence for their claims beyond personal gut feelings and a collection of contradictory, fictional and historic works.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzi8a8\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">Slavery - Christians used the bible to promote the slave trade\\n\\nI've miserably failed when using the \\\"what about slavery argument\\\" - it's in the link following \\\"It all started 3 years ago\\\". Sure, I could point out the pro-slavery parts, but they'll have a reason why that bit is irrelevant or misinterpreted. It's exhausting, finding every argument to throw at them, and having each one of those utterly crushed with more rebuttals thrown your way.\\n\\n>Yes they have prepared apologetics, it just means you need to do more research. Remember they have no evidence for their claims beyond personal gut feelings and a collection of contradictory, fictional and historic works.\\r \\n\\r\\n\\nI tried pointing out to someone that I don't believe in his \\\"miracle\\\". [My attempt failed miserably](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvai6qm/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzkhnt\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzi8a8\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Augnelli\",\n \"body\": \"What is the rebuttal for the Ark? What did the carnivores eat? How did the Kangaroos and Koalas make it up from Australia? What about fresh water fish? How much space was designated for JUST the elephants food?\\n\\nYou don't need to debate every detail, just enough to invalidate the core; the truth on which they base their faith.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzikz2\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">What is the rebuttal for the Ark? What did the carnivores eat? How did the Kangaroos and Koalas make it up from Australia? What about fresh water fish? How much space was designated for JUST the elephants food?\\n\\nThat's the problem - even since the medieval era, most Christians disavowed biblical literalism, because biblical literalism is easier to poke holes into. Instead, they've come up with apologia, and now, with over 2000 years of apologia to defend against, it's become an unwinnable fight.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzlcvy\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzikz2\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"ch0cko\",\n \"body\": \"No. I am a frequent debater on subs like r/DebateReligion and r/DebateAnAtheist and everything you've said here is just... no. The vast majority of arguments for theism or counterarguments against arguments against theism, generally lead to special pleading or other fallacies.\\n\\nHere's one post I recently made: [https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/15pjew5/extraordinary\\\\_claims\\\\_need\\\\_extraordinary\\\\_evidence/](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/15pjew5/extraordinary_claims_need_extraordinary_evidence/) which then links to another one of my posts that goes more in-depth: [https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/15ey939/if\\\\_religious\\\\_beliefs\\\\_were\\\\_subject\\\\_to\\\\_consistent/](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/15ey939/if_religious_beliefs_were_subject_to_consistent/)\\n\\nA lot of what Christianity said is very similar to other religions and old mythologies. It has a generic reward-punishment system/carrot and stick system, that is, a hell and heaven. On top of that, all of the claims in Christianity hold no good evidence with most being anecdotal. Most arguments for Christianity are not Christian-specific and more so just theism in general. Even then, those thesitic arguments lead to either, 1. fallacies, or 2. only making theism \\\"more likely,\\\" but even then, these arguments have counters.\\n\\nThey were not geniuses. A little clever, but they essentially copied other religions and mythologies and is a cookie-cutter religion. Christianity isn't wide spread just because of how \\\"logical\\\" and \\\"sound\\\" it is; indoctrination or generationally passing the idea down is a big part of it. There are also contradictions in the Bible which can be found at this website: [https://www.lyingforjesus.org/Bible-Contradictions/](https://www.lyingforjesus.org/Bible-Contradictions/)\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzirf5\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">They were not geniuses. A little clever, but they essentially copied other beliefs and mythologies and is a cookie-cutter religion. Christianity isn't widespread just because of how \\\"logical\\\" and \\\"sound\\\" it is; indoctrination or generationally passing the idea down is a big part of it. There are also contradictions in the Bible which can be found at this website: https://www.lyingforjesus.org/Bible-Contradictions/\\n\\nI wasn't implying that Christianity was \\\"logical\\\" and \\\"sound\\\". I was implying it was successful because it has so many tricks up its sleeve. It may be full of lies, but for every one I point out, I'll get one or more rebuttals thrown my way.\\n\\nThink of it as being like in the middle of a dense minefield. Whoever laid the minefield might not have a \\\"logical\\\" and \\\"sound\\\" reason for it, but any step you could take will blow up in your face.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzlzr1\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzirf5\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"xper0072\",\n \"body\": \"Just because someone has an answer for everything doesn't mean that the answer is a good answer. Your inability to properly debate the topic does not mean that the other side is correct in any way.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzj07m\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">Your inability to properly debate the topic does not mean that the other side is correct in any way.\\n\\nI wasn't saying the other side was correct. My point is that they are impossible to defeat and are good at ensnaring their critics.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzmc3l\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzj07m\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"razvanght\",\n \"body\": \"In my experience, Christian s believe that God is real because they feel He is real. Then you can ask them whether a person of a different religion can also use the same method (I feel Zeus is real because I feel Him) to conclude that a different god is real. Christians generally agree that that person used the same method (feeling based) to reach an opposite conclusion (Zeus, not God, is real). In my discussions at least, this argument works in that it gives people pause. Of course, it does not change their belief immediately because they have been holding it for some time but I feel like it adds a seed of doubt.\\n\\nDo you know the official Christian response against this line of argument?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzj0m8\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">In my experience, Christian s believe that God is real because they feel He is real. Then you can ask them whether a person of a different religion can also use the same method (I feel Zeus is real because I feel Him) to conclude that a different god is real. \\n\\nHow can I get them to accept the argument that \\\"oh I don't feel God is real, so don't force me to go to church\\\"? Because that argument always failed me in the past. Also, on a tangent, how are you able to \\\"feel\\\" Zeus?\\n\\n>adds a seed of doubt.\\n\\nPlanting seeds of doubt is a great political strategy. For example, in Australia, we have an upcoming referendum on constitutional indigenous recognition - and because the No side is so good at planting seeds of doubt, the Yes side is losing despite having academia and the arts sector on its side. \\n\\nBut back to the point, I tried planting seeds of doubt and failed miserably. The Christians I've had to defend my opinions from don't merely consider themselves as \\\"feelings based\\\", they consider their views as backed by literature (the Bible).\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzmy3i\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzj0m8\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Apprehensive_Box3199\",\n \"body\": \"I dropped my Catholicism at 21 after learning basic logic at University. In year 6 whilst at a Catholic school, we were given a Catholic Catechism - literally the manual for being a good Catholic. Most of the book is written in question-and-answer format. This is indoctrination 101. The first 3 questions are, and I quote:\\n\\n>1. Question: Who made the world? \\n Answer: God made the world. \\n> \\n>2. Q. Who is God? \\n> \\n> A. God is the Creator of heaven and earth and of all things and the Supreme Lord of all. \\n> \\n>3. Q. How do we know there is a God? \\n> \\n> A. We know that there is a God by the things that He made.\\n\\nRight there; in the first 3 question-and-answers is a Circular Argument. The entire basis of the Catechism is premised on a Circular Argument. If nothing else, the entire point of Catholicism is to justify the original statement that God exists.\\n\\nI looked through the whole of the Catechism highlighting anything I still believed. I highlighted a single sentence in the preface about doing unto others etc... NOTHING else.\\n\\nBefore you have a go at me for not knowing what a circular argument until I was 21 - I went to Catholic schools for all of high school and it is in their best interests NOT to teach that and it was the 80s. That's my excuse and I sticking to it.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzjc23\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">Right there; in the first 3 question-and-answers is a Circular Argument. The entire basis of the Catechism is premised on a Circular Argument. If nothing else, the entire point of Catholicism is to justify the original statement that God exists. \\n> \\n>I looked through the whole of the Catechism highlighting anything I still believed. I highlighted a single sentence in the preface about doing unto others etc... NOTHING else. \\n> \\n>Before you have a go at me for not knowing what a circular argument until I was 21 - I went to Catholic schools for all of high school and it is in their best interests NOT to teach that and it was the 80s. That's my excuse and I sticking to it.\\n\\nIn my experience, pointing out the circular argument leads to one of 2 outcomes:\\n\\n1. Getting more apologia that I am unable to defeat\\n2. The \\\"*Do you have a better explanation?*\\\" rebuttal\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvznrln\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzjc23\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Simbabz\",\n \"body\": \"The most important story of the bible is Jesus ressurecction, the gospels contradict each other in the telling of the story, hardly designed by geniuses.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzktxv\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">The most important story of the bible is Jesus ressurecction, the gospels contradict each other in the telling of the story, hardly designed by geniuses.\\n\\nNot sure what Protestants say, but Catholicism claims that slight differences with the same overall story prove it's written by real people observing the same things. We can accuse them of using a dodgy argument, but it still wouldn't undermine their side.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzp1ei\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzktxv\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"vote4bort\",\n \"body\": \"I think you're just trying way too hard in these debates and starting from the wrong point. You're coming at them like religion is something that can be proved through debate when it fundamentally can't. \\nThe religious rebuttal for every point will always be essentially the same. That is they'll say \\\"well I believe this I so\\\". And you can't argue with that because its not a statement that can be argued against.\\n\\nWhat can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzkuyc\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.\\n\\nThe problem is when they think they have evidence and you think they don't. [Here's an example with a Protestant](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jv9g3kt/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3), and we can't agree on anything.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzp2i6\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzkuyc\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"sapphireminds\",\n \"body\": \"You seem to be a poor debater. You are accepting a lot of arguments as true when they aren't. \\n\\nAll children are born atheists. Coincidentally, they just happen to usually believe in the god(s) their parents/community believes it. \\n\\nAnd personally, if there is a god with the power ascribed to it by the bible, I would refuse to worship it. \\n\\nYou also need to educate yourself about the null hypothesis.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzl8ri\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">You seem to be a poor debater. You are accepting a lot of arguments as true when they aren't.\\r\\n\\nI don't accept their arguments as true. I accept them as difficult to defeat.\\n\\n>And personally, if there is a god with the power ascribed to it by the bible, I would refuse to worship it.\\n\\nI wouldn't want to worship such a God either. [I've told a Protestant that if I were to accept that he indeed received a miracle, it would still prove that the Christian god is unjust](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvkkegk/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). But that argument still failed to sway him.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzqf91\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzl8ri\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"-paperbrain-\",\n \"body\": \"What you seem to be saying is just that you are not able, with the mere power of logic, to get Christians to abandon their belief.\\n\\nI hate to break it to you, but this is not a particular quality of Christianity. Anything people are dug in on will face this hill. Not only will you encounter it with every religion, but you won't argue many people out of their political doctrine, flat earth belief, or whether they side with Ross or Rachel on friends. People have rebuttals for everything about many totally conflicting positions. It's part of having strong beliefs and giving it some thought. And religions in particular have had a long time and tons of resources to give it thought.\\n\\nThat doesn't mean there's no room for criticism. Just that your expectation about change is ridiculously optimistic.\\n\\nHowever, regardless of how your personal debates are going, people are leaving Christianity in droves, partly because they don't find those rebuttals to critique to be logically, morally or emotionally satisfying. The fastest growing religious affiliation is \\\"none\\\".\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzlzcb\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">That doesn't mean there's no room for criticism. Just that your expectation about change is ridiculously optimistic.\\n\\nSometimes, I'm challenged to debate when I'm not looking for one (see my first link in the post details). I wasn't expecting to change anyone's views, just successfully defend my decision, and I failed even that.\\n\\n>However, regardless of how your personal debates are going, people are leaving Christianity in droves, partly because they don't find those rebuttals to critique to be logically, morally or emotionally satisfying. The fastest growing religious affiliation is \\\"none\\\".\\n\\n[Christianity is still growing overall](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_population_growth). Even if it's not growing in the Western World, this shrinkage is negated by growth outside the Western World.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzs5r5\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzlzcb\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"wrongfulness\",\n \"body\": \"What a waste of time\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzmu4k\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"The_White_Ram\",\n \"body\": \"This isn't hard. Christianity literally endorses slavery.\\n\\nIf you believe slavery is wrong then that's the only argument you need.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzniyg\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">This isn't hard. Christianity literally endorses slavery. \\n> \\n>If you believe slavery is wrong then that's the only argument you need.\\n\\nI tried using such an argument. [It backfired](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvztyn7\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzniyg\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"ElPwnero\",\n \"body\": \"I like the one Muslims use:\\\\\\nThe word of allah is perfect and if you find inconsistencies, then it’s your human brain that’s incapable of understanding the true meaning.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzoket\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">I like the one Muslims use:\\r \\n> \\n>The word of allah is perfect and if you find inconsistencies, then it’s your human brain that’s incapable of understanding the true meaning.\\n\\nI mean, they're basically insulting your intelligence. But isn't that a great bad faith tactic, dodging accountability by accusing your opponent of being too dumb to understand? I can't imagine myself faring any better debating a Muslim than debating a Christian.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzvglo\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzoket\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"indigoneutrino\",\n \"body\": \"The interesting thing is I've had the opposite experience. Plenty of experiences online and in person where they can barely rebut *anything* to the point that I've had a minister apologise she can't answer my questions satisfactorily. I've seen no-one rebut or even explain why the crucifixion makes sense without legitimising blood sacrifice. It just constantly defaults to \\\"Jesus paid for our sins,\\\" without explaining why the death of an innocent third party was accepted as a valid payment within a supposedly just system.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzppfh\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Pichkuchu\",\n \"body\": \">It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted\\n\\nJust because you got outwitted doesn't mean the other side was right, they were, in fact, blatantly wrong. Christianity is just as guilty of atrocities as any religion. Keep in mind that Christianity is 2000 years old and they enslaved people until 1860 and they had to be \\\"convinced\\\" by war to give it up. They genocided native populations in America and colonized Asia and Africa. There was inquisition. They burned people for heresy, including scientists. They weren't different from other big religions or even pagans. The modern view of the world and humanity encompasses non Christian populations too and one could argue that it's in fact the result of secularism.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzqu5n\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"StrangeAssonance\",\n \"body\": \"I’m curious why you think one has to prove God exists? \\n\\nAlso, when Jesus was on earth the Jews kept asking for a sign from Him. They were blind to what he was doing with His ministry. The world is blind, so when you try to have these arguments that you feel you can’t win, I think you aren’t ever going to win them. I can show you God through my words and deeds but if you are blind to that, you won’t see what’s there to see.\\n\\nJesus repeatedly talks about how blind and deaf people are to God and his word.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzr1ue\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">Also, when Jesus was on earth the Jews kept asking for a sign from Him. They were blind to what he was doing with His ministry. The world is blind, so when you try to have these arguments that you feel you can’t win, I think you aren’t ever going to win them. I can show you God through my words and deeds but if you are blind to that, you won’t see what’s there to see.\\n\\nThis is why I see my inability to believe as a disability comparable to being unable to read.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzzkhs\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzr1ue\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"mo_ff\",\n \"body\": \"You can have faith that your monthly bills will be paid whilst you have no money or means to do so OR you can actually have the money. One will work. The other will leave you with no utilities. Full stop.\\n\\nIn a debate with a Christian you would encounter, \\\"Oh, but have you no faith a brother in Christ would not help you?\\\" And then a large quantity of scriptural examples would be brought forth from whatever version of the bible they are most familiar with.\\n\\nAs others have stated, the deck is stacked. If you can approach the conversation with your family in a civil manor, stop going to church. Believe what makes you happy and mentally healthy so long as it doesn't hurt others.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzr2rx\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"HansPGruber\",\n \"body\": \"You need to read some Thomas Paine my friend. A renegade if the atomic age.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzrn0v\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Morasain\",\n \"body\": \"Couple things.\\n\\nThe first thing is that burden of proof is with the person making a claim - Christians in this case.\\n\\nThe second thing is - you don't need to refute the religion itself, because you can't.\\n\\nUsually, if you bring up things like pastors being molesters, or the crusades, or witch burnings, Christians will commit a No True Scotsman fallacy. \\\"These pastors aren't *real* Christians.\\\" You don't need to refute that argument because it is in itself wrong - but if you want, you can always go the path of saying that everyone in the church is, in the end, appointed by God.\\n\\nThe easiest way to reject Christianity is to instead reject God, though. You don't even need to prove that he's bad or anything - you need to use your own morality to reject the idea that a god like depicted in Christianity can be a god you want to believe in.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzrwx0\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"hdhddf\",\n \"body\": \"you don't need to convince them, they're arguing from a position of ignorance and indoctrination, you can't argue with that because their arguments aren't built on logic or sound reasoning.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzs63u\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Huffers1010\",\n \"body\": \"Let's do it by example. What did they have a rebuttal for that you couldn't respond to?\\n\\nMy suspicion is that they really didn't.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzt6nt\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"misersoze\",\n \"body\": \"Just say: “hey I also met a Muslim, a Mormon, a Jew and a Hindu. They all make the exact same arguments as you do about why their religion is the correct one and they all say they have the one true religion. So why should I join yours over their’s”.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvztpz1\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Potential_Cod_8473\",\n \"body\": \"They might win a debate but the world still is a shitty place full of diseases, suffering, birth defeacts. \\n\\nIt only prove how dishonest someone is to defend a claim it was created my omnipotent and omniscient being. \\n\\nChristianity was falsified many times\\nAdam and Eve? Fairytale\\nGreat Flood? Fairytale\\nBabel's tower? Fairytale\\nExocus? Fairytale \\nRessurection? Really improbable\\n\\nThe fact that the scripture has to be interpreted in the face of new evidence like why would omnipotent God need 4 bilions years to create highly imperfect and miserable beings or why universe is 93 bilion light years wide and we are limited by a speed of light is a powerful evidence against revelation.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvztt3e\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"the_internet_clown\",\n \"body\": \"Just because someone says something in response doesn’t make it a good rebuttal\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzugyn\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Relevant_Maybe6747\",\n \"body\": \"Christianity doesn’t have a rebuttal against Judaism - they’ve tried and tried to kill us and never succeeded\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzuj4l\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Is that really a good argument though? By that logic, Islam doesn't have a rebuttal against Christianity either (or vice versa).\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw075ml\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzuj4l\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Scott_The_Protogen\",\n \"body\": \"Why \\\"debate\\\" someone's faith anyways? Unless they're being a jerk about it like in the last part. I always just have that whole live and let live thing (Even if some fanatics might not be that way either). I know you say some of these people come to you with the debates, but I feel like just giving a solid \\\"I don't want to talk about it\\\" or \\\"My views aren't going to change\\\" might work, even if they do continue to badger you regarding it, It doesn't have to be a winning-losing game.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzullx\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">Why \\\"debate\\\" someone's faith anyways? \\n\\nIn the first link, I was challenged to a debate out of the blue when I requested not to go to church anymore. He wanted me to read his spiel and change my views, or give a counter-argument strong enough to defend my views.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw07dt4\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzullx\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Key-Extension1458\",\n \"body\": \"2000 years ago there was a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem that took animal sacrifice from the people. This was fulfilling the Mosaic Covenant, and sustained Israel called \\\"Judea\\\". Like Jesus said it would happen, the temple was thrown down to the last stone and the sacrificial rite was \\\"nailed to the cross\\\" in the words of Paul the Apostle. This leaves us without redemption under the law, and everyone is guilty of sin everywhere. \\n\\nHence the figure of Christ intervenes, and made the ultimate sacrifice, putting death and guilt and hell itself into the fire. Now we have grace and mercy, and redemption by faith. It seems to work, since 2000 years of Christian history represented the general improvement of life everywhere. At the same time, the movement was hijacked by earthly forces resulting in \\\"churchianty\\\" and roman catholicism. All \\\"debates\\\" are just scholastic noise from that time, arguing in circles about nothing relevant. It is what it is, the temple of jerusalem was destroyed 2000 years ago and the levitical rites were nailed to the Cross.\\n\\nNow everything is a free gift, the more we cast off the old man and put on the new. Strong enough faith loses fear of everything and moves mountains, it is divine power given to mankind. God loves the children of this world and Israel in dispersion, which means everyone.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzur3s\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Key-Extension1458\",\n \"body\": \"2000 years ago there was a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem that took animal sacrifice from the people. This was fulfilling the Mosaic Covenant, and sustained Israel called \\\"Judea\\\". Like Jesus said it would happen, the temple was thrown down to the last stone and the sacrificial rite was \\\"nailed to the cross\\\" in the words of Paul the Apostle. This leaves us without redemption under the law, and everyone is guilty of sin everywhere. \\n\\nHence the figure of Christ intervenes, and made the ultimate sacrifice, putting death and guilt and hell itself into the fire. Now we have grace and mercy, and redemption by faith. It seems to work, since 2000 years of Christian history represented the general improvement of life everywhere. At the same time, the movement was hijacked by earthly forces resulting in \\\"churchianty\\\" and roman catholicism. All \\\"debates\\\" are just scholastic noise from that time, arguing in circles about nothing relevant. It is what it is, the temple of jerusalem was destroyed 2000 years ago and the levitical rites were nailed to the Cross.\\n\\nNow everything is a free gift, the more we cast off the old man and put on the new. Strong enough faith loses fear of everything and moves mountains, it is divine power given to mankind. God loves the children of this world and Israel in dispersion, which means everyone.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzurg6\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">2000 years ago the Temple in Jerusalem took animal sacrifice from the people. It was fulfilling the Mosaic Covenant, and sustained Israel called \\\"Judea\\\" at the time. Like Jesus said it would happen, the temple was thrown down to the last stone and the sacrificial rite was \\\"nailed to the cross\\\" in the words of Paul the Apostle. This leaves us without redemption under the law, and everyone is guilty of sin everywhere. \\n> \\n>Hence the figure of Christ intervenes, and made the ultimate sacrifice, putting death and guilt and hell itself into the fire. Now we have grace and mercy, and redemption by faith. It seems to work, since 2000 years of Christian history represented the general improvement of life everywhere. At the same time, the movement was hijacked by earthly forces resulting in \\\"churchianty\\\" and roman catholicism. All \\\"debates\\\" are just scholastic noise from that time, arguing in circles about nothing relevant. It is what it is, the temple of jerusalem was destroyed 2000 years ago and the levitical rites were nailed to the Cross. \\n> \\n>Now everything is a free gift, the more we cast off the old man and put on the new. Strong enough faith loses fear of everything and moves mountains, it is divine power given to mankind. God loves the children of this world and Israel in dispersion, which means everyone.\\n\\nIs this supposed to be a promotion of Protestantism?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw07io1\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzurg6\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"danmilligan\",\n \"body\": \"One thing I'm sensing is that you're thinking of Christianity as a monolith, and while that was once true, it hasn't been for a long, long time. So many types of Christianity exist that there will be Christians on opposite sides of nearly any given issue. The true non-negotiables of the religion are extremely minimal, and highly interpretive. Because of this, you can't really say \\\"Christians are like this\\\" or \\\"Christians do that\\\", because this will apply to SOME Christians, but certainly not all. For a good example, the majority of American Christians are extremely unique from a global perspective, being far more individualistic, and reading the Bible in a slavishly literal fashion, among other things. So if you say \\\"Christians are anti-LGBTQ\\\", there are millions and millions of other Christians ready to counter that.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzusf6\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">One thing I'm sensing is that you're thinking of Christianity as a monolith, and while that was once true, it hasn't been for a long, long time. So many types of Christianity exist that there will be Christians on opposite sides of nearly any given issue. The true non-negotiables of the religion are extremely minimal, and highly interpretive.\\n\\nI'm well aware of the splits within Christianity. What I mention in my post detail is that I have tried and miserably failed to defend my lack of faith from both Catholics and Protestants. I understand that they'd have different ways of thinking regarding lack of faith, but at the end of the day, both defeated me.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw07u6h\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzusf6\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"GreasyPorkGoodness\",\n \"body\": \"You need to dismantle the church hierarchy and not the “existence of god”. \\n\\nIt’s not that you don’t believe in god, you don’t believe in Christianities following of god. Their church is corrupt, opulent, child molesters, hypocritical, child marriage, judgmental, in Christ like etcetera. \\n\\nGod very well might exist, if he does he certainly won’t approve of christianity.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzuv92\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CutiePopIceberg\",\n \"body\": \"Christianity is Middle Eastern mythology. Christians hate when you remind them of this.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzv7py\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"JustSomeDude0605\",\n \"body\": \"\\\"I don't believe in that bullshit\\\"\\n\\nDebate over.\\n\\nContrary to your brother's or pastor's wishes, you don't owe them any sort of debate or explanation. Live your life as you want to, not based on what they think you should do. If that means, no religion then stop going to church. \\n\\nFuck em.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzvaah\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CriticalThinkingAT\",\n \"body\": \"The thing is, there are a mountain of atheist rebuttals as well. Like literally there are so many atheist channels out there to rebutting every Christian argument that it's just a matter of searching and looking for them. Lol. You'll be fine.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzvipb\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">The thing is, there are a mountain of atheist rebuttals as well. Like literally there are so many atheist channels out there to rebutting every Christian argument that it's just a matter of searching and looking for them. Lol. You'll be fine.\\n\\nCounterpoint: Only a few of these are useful. Most channels appear to be useful only against Protestant pastors who rely on charisma. Catholicism is much harder to debate against as they have 2000 years of church tradition, intellectuals and apologia on their side.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw09z3v\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzvipb\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"OpenByTheCure\",\n \"body\": \"I don't want to be harsh, but I just think you're not very good at debating\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzvw3c\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"I am bad at debating (and most other things). Maybe that's why I always get challenged to debates, because I will lose.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0b11j\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzvw3c\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Dr_Keyser_Soze\",\n \"body\": \"You need to listen to David C. Smalley. Take in a few podcasts and you won’t be disappointed.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzvzk2\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Wintermute815\",\n \"body\": \"It’s really not. It depends on circular logic and faith, both of which are critical flaws.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzx8zv\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"j3rdog\",\n \"body\": \"Stop trying to debate facts by point counter point. Learn street epistemology. There’s good YouTube channels and subreddits on it.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzxa1z\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Unable-Food7531\",\n \"body\": \"You're:\\n\\n1. Bad at debating in general\\n\\n2. An unskilled rhetorician \\n\\n3. Uneducated on the topic you're debating.\\n\\nThose Three things together mean than any attempt to draw generally-appliable conclusions from your debating losses is doomed to produce bs.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzxmej\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"How can I get all 3 skills when I'm up against people who have so much more knowledge than me? I hate it when I give others a reason to criticise me.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw05k0t\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzxmej\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"DangForgotUserName\",\n \"body\": \"Christians don't have arguments, just elaborate evasions of criticism.\\n\\nIn order to be religious, or believe in a supernatural god, to some extent, one has to deny certain aspects of science, and also have to deny the foundations of reason and logic. \\n\\n\\nThere are major undemonstrated claims that come with theism:\\n\\n-a spiritual, divine, or otherwise supernatural realm exists \\n\\n-there are nonphysical spiritual forces and entities \\n -some kind of afterlife exists\\n\\n-at least humans have souls, which are the spiritual essence \\\"attached\\\" to a physical body\\n\\nEven if all these were demonstrated, we would still have no way of determining which deities were real. These claims are also far from being demonstrated, likely, or even possible. \\n\\nEven then, we have no way to link such deities to any religion that anyone worships.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzxv11\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Electrical-Rabbit157\",\n \"body\": \"It’s not well designed. It’s the worst designed religion in the world actually. The success of Christianity is based around keeping people from learning about other faiths. The moment that happens the VAST majority of them leave christianity for something else. Myself included. \\n\\nYou have to go at the fundamental hypocrisy of it. The average Christian rants and raves about the Ten Commandments and yet every single one of them break the first 2 commandments daily and most break 3 commandments every Sunday. The average priest breaks the first 4. Then there’s the fact that the Bible is a corrupt text and Christianity as a whole was founded by Paul, a man who is not a prophet, not a disciple, not an apostle, just a random guy who comes out of nowhere and starts preaching that Jesus is God.\\n\\nThey worship a trinity which is paganism. There is no excuse for it. It’s the same exact belief system as Hindus which are literally the original pagans that Abraham fought against. This trinity also includes a man. That man is considered a prophet but still. This breaks the first commandment. \\n\\nThey idolize said man and the cross he died on. They wear necklaces with it. They put big gold crosses at the front of their churches and big wooden ones on the outside of them. This breaks the second commandment \\n\\nThey go to church on Sunday and the vast majority of them believe this is the sabbath. Which directly breaks the fourth commandment.\\n\\nThe priesthood commits extortion and sometimes even rape in either the name of God or what they lead people to believe is a house of God. This breaks the third commandment \\n\\nThen you get to the Bible and it’s non existent integrity. There are about 5 major sects of Christianity. Each one has about 40 versions of the Bible. And the average Christian may think this is normal, it’s not. Jews have 1 version of the Torah. Muslims have 1 version of the Quran. Hell even the Hindus only have 1 version of most of their texts. The new testemant is more written by Paul, who is again, not a prophet, than any actual apostle. All of Paul’s letters are included in the vast majority of bibles yet the book of Enoch, book of Jesus Christ, and lost gospel to Peter are considered “uncanon” by the church and have been removed for centuries. That is not a holy text. It may have been a couple thousand years ago but out of 200+ in circulation today, I’d seriously doubt any can be considered uncorrupted.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzyqtq\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"malorane\",\n \"body\": \"Isn't this other person either straight up lying or totally misinformed about the Christianity/Catholicism? Like I could be misremembering but I'm pretty sure there are passages that literally give you guidelines about how to treat your slaves and this dude said both have always been against slavery?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzz7x7\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CantKeepMeOutYo\",\n \"body\": \"You will never win against someone with faith. They will always always always have some other bullshit excusw up their sleeves. That's what makes religion so fucking dangerous: it uses logic when it works and then completely disregards it when logic doesn't work. Don't bother debating christians, they've accepted a parasite into their body that will defend its ability to feed off the host, even if it means killing the host, or YOU.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzzg1h\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"wibbly-water\",\n \"body\": \">If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\r \\n\\r \\nIf you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\\n\\nIgnoring the second proposition for a second I want to propose 2 more reasonable secular arguments;\\n\\n1. This is true of all religions because their axioms and methods for diving truth are different. They believe, want to believe, will tie all phenomena in with their argument, will ignore Occam's Razor to do so. \\n2. If Christianity is better than (some) other religions at doing this it may be because it is a highly evolved system of memes. A meme is the idea equivalent to a gene. Religions are memetic in nature - they are ideologies, ideas about how the world works. Memes compete for space and survival much like genes do. And every time one of its memes is threatened it is forced to either drop that meme and adapt or bolster it to do the same. Look at the iterations of historical Christianity. Where are the puritans today? Even Protestantism evolved out of Catholicism - many will claim that they are barely the same religion.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzzk96\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"DangForgotUserName\",\n \"body\": \"The salvation of man is dependent on the suffering of Jesus Christ. His 'blood sacrifice magic' supposedly forgives original sin - doctrine that we know though biology is utterly wrong. (A couple of garden nudists were guilty of rebellious fruit munching, so everyone deserves death or eternal torment?) This makes the theological story around Jesus one where he is scapegoat of a nonexistent forebear. This should undermine the value of Jesus as well as the foundational basis for belief in God.\\n\\n \\n\\nFurther, the idea that the only way to forgive is through ritualized punishment? That is petty and immoral. No forgiveness without bloodshed or death. Horrible, ignorant and outdated ideas.\\n\\n\\nThe idea of a messiah, one who will deliver us from the tribulations of the present, is an ancient idea that distracts us from the hard work that must be done to build a better world.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzzkww\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Emotional_platypuss\",\n \"body\": \"The problem here is both sides trying to impose beliefs on others. What you believe or don't believe is your problem. You don't need to explain why you don't follow a religion, specially to religious people. Is like them telling you why their religion is so good. Break out of that circle and move on\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0052z\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"notjuan_f_m\",\n \"body\": \"This Is the problem with everything lately. \\\"I am right, you are wrong, and I will continue to tell you until you accept that i am right\\\"\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw00l9j\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jw0052z\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"JackedLilJill\",\n \"body\": \"If anything, just from your text and title, the fact that Christians explain themselves fully in the face of debate, should be the reason to change your view.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw00vuq\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"FerdinandTheGiant\",\n \"body\": \"For your first debate with your brother, he was just straight up wrong on so much. Christianity is not and does not serve as the basis for morality in the western world or the world as a whole. \\n\\nMost of the non-western world like in Asia is not heavily Christian and wasn’t for most of their history. They of course are doing just fine. Christian morals have not been consistent nor are they the basis for a basic society. \\n\\nAdditionally, you don’t need Christianity to explain altruism as it already has a natural explanation. It’s called kin selection and essentially means that it is beneficial to help out family since they carry your genes. This means more of your genes will get passed on. This is likely how it evolved in humans and then developed into what we consider today. Animals do this. Altruism isn’t human alone. \\n\\nThen you have slavery which the Bible openly says is fine. Leviticus 25:44-46\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw013nj\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"-Strawdog-\",\n \"body\": \"Taking a quick look at one or two of these examples, you have a very noticeable habit of accepting a lot of the other person's premises and arguments without pushing back on them at all. As an example, your brother mentions multiple times that altruistic behavior is the direct result of the Christian faith, an argument that is absolutely ridiculous for a bunch of reasons, not the least of which that our closest genetic relatives (chimpanzees and bonobos) exhibit all kinds of altruistic behaviors as part of their highly social lifestyles (and they also don't sacrifice eachother, something he seems weirdly hung up on).\\n\\nTo be honest, it doesn't look like the people you're debating have good arguments or are good at expressing them, it seems that you are just very new to debate, particularly on this topic. If debating religious folks is something you want to do (you are incredibly unlikely to change their minds even with very good arguments), you can find plenty of solid resources online that break down and refute just about any apologetics you are likely to encounter.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw01pm9\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"lamabaronvonawesome\",\n \"body\": \"I have found the opposite to be true. I would recommend reading some books on logic and debate. Having an answer doesn't make it a good answer. I had a debate teacher that used to day \\\"the definition of a reason is anything I put forth as a reason.\\\" This essentially means you SAY anything, that doesn't mean it will hold up under scrutiny. You mentioned miracles that a person had given you examples of in their own life. Debate in essence is about definitions, how we define things. Get them to give you the definition of a miracle. I personally would define that as any event that is ONLY explainable by divine intervention. See if their miracles hold up to that.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw02avd\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"kountze\",\n \"body\": \"The Church did have some good effects on political and cultural development in Europe - for example the separation of powers came from the Church being a strong counter force to the government for so long, church limited the government in ways that led to values of separation of powers and limited government, unlike China which was much more state dominated and still is today. Protestantism represented not only a change in religion but also a change in how humans think logically - so yeah a lot of good things can be tied to how Protestantism changed how people think. \\n\\nThat being said, the above certainly is a far cry from saying that Protestantism values will work in every situation or that it can address all of today’s modern problems. Protectionism ideally is something that should be open to interpretation, which modern Christianity has moved away from that. \\n\\nIn terms of science the Church does not have credible arguments - that’s the main problem. If you think they do, you really haven’t encountered anyone who actually knows the science and microbiology. \\n\\nAlso, do not confuse correlation and causation. Certain positive developments in society may correlate, but that correlation does not prove causation. \\n\\n\\nThe issue with\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw035en\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Jaderholt439\",\n \"body\": \"If I’m debating Christianity, I like to go straight to the main topic- the Resurrection.\\n\\nMost people I know and love are Christians; I don’t have a problem w/ their religion. I love these people. But what I don’t like are apologists. Every single one that I’ve ever seen is dishonest. Especially when it comes to the Resurrection.\\n\\nIt’s not hard to believe that a guy named Yeshua, who had a religious following, was crucified. I can even believe he was put in his own tomb, although most were put in a mass grave, it’s wasn’t unheard of. The stone being put to block the tomb and guards sound like they were plot holes being fixed in Matthew, but for arguments sake, I’ll agree to that too.\\n\\nJesus wasn’t in the tomb when they went to him 3 days later. What is the most likely explanation? Is it, “he must’ve overcome death and ascended, bc he’s God”? I think a Guy Ritchie style heist is way more plausible. ‘They forgot which cave’ is more plausible. Literally anything is more plausible. If they are being honest, they have to say, “I believe it on faith”. Yet, apologists will not say this, therefore they are dishonest, therefore they don’t have an answer for everything.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw03fxs\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Entropy_Drop\",\n \"body\": \"LOL on the first link. Christianity didn't opposed slavery, and doesn't have a monopoly on being a good person. It actually was the ideological fundation of american slavery.\\n\\nHypocrates wasn't christian, gandi neither, and personal freedom, democracy and equality of genders aren't christian values.\\n\\nThe golden rule (\\\"don't do to other what you dont want done to yourself\\\") and the silver rule (\\\"do to others what you want to recieve from them\\\" (bdsm, for example)) are not creation of christianity. \\n\\nSome christian are propagandiced all their life into the worldview of \\\"all good comes from christ\\\", which is clearly a big lie. Is kinda justified for them to sell that lie, tho.\\n\\nAlso, that motto has a counter-part: \\\"No bad comes from christ\\\" which is my only explanation to how incredible bigoted people justify their behavior without ever thinking \\\"are we the badies?\\\". Anita \\\"pie-face\\\" Bryant comes to mind, who, in her own words \\\"loved homosexuals\\\".\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw04f2l\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Jade_Skie\",\n \"body\": \"TJ Kirk (aka The Amazing Atheist) on YouTube once mentioned \\\"unfalsifiable hypothesis.\\\" In other words, Christians spout the argument that miracles, what is said in the Bible, Satan, and God all exist and are as the answer to everything because immediate evidence to the contrary can normally not be produced by their opponent, thus no argument against them can be made. So in their minds, they are right. That is, of course, not how the world/universe actually works.\\n\\nTo quote Carl Sagan: \\\"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.\\\"\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw04j73\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"JuliusErrrrrring\",\n \"body\": \"Remember the following truths: most people who claim they are Christians are good people; most people who are good people and claim they are Christian are good because of their ignorance of the Bible, not because of the Bible. The Bible is an awful immoral book and the religion is completely silly. It is pro slavery, pro genocide, pro forced abortion and pro incest. If you are debating anyone who isn't in favor of those things, they may be actually non believers too, they are just too ignorant of their religion to know any better.\\n\\n​\\n\\nIt is completely silly and does not hold up to debate. Just some quick obvious random thoughts off the top of my head: They suck at math - claim to have one god yet believe in a holy trinity as well as an evil god. Many Christians claim to be against abortion, yet the Bible actually gives an abortion recipe, god murdered pregnant women in his Noah's Arc genocide, and Jesus forced abortions on Jezebel. Many Christians are anti-trans and anti gay - yet Eve transitioned from a male rib and now they worship a dress wearing dude with two fathers who identifies as bread and wine. Cain and Abel were the original motherfuckers. The whole bible was written by people who never met Jesus and there is zero historical proof that there even was a man named Jesus pretending to be god. It's just a gigantic hoax that's been accepted due to peer pressure because life is easier and you can make more money and get laid easier if you simply play along with this silly marketing scheme.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw05bz4\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Loose-Technology7787\",\n \"body\": \"Christianity is designed that way. Christians are programmed in a way via church and such where they hold their belief to a much higher standard than any facts or logic despite a lack of evidence. On of christianity's main taglines is to just have faith in god even though hes done nothing to show you hes there.\\n\\nDebating a religious person on religion is an unwinnable debate. You cant argue against someones opinion when the only points they will accept are those that align with said opinion. For example, many christians say good and evil only exist because god decides whats good and bad. I might say that life is meaningless, therefore our thoughts and feelings are all that exist making them all that matters. Meaning we get to choose whats moral; however the christian would then just say life isnt meaningless because god gives meaning to life. This will go on for any length of time.\\n\\nThe only reason atheists win those official televised debates is because theres a mediator keeping nonsense out of it. They keep the religious side from using unreasonable and illogical arguments, which leads to them losing.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw05l8j\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"BuzzyShizzle\",\n \"body\": \"That's funny because, I have yet to hear them lose an argument/debate on the atheist experience yet. \\n\\nIf you haven't heard of it, there is a call-in radio show called \\\"the atheist experience\\\" and the entire show is welcoming any religious to call in and challenge them. If you want your view changed, that show will do a much better job than anything else.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw06l99\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Sad_Confidence8941\",\n \"body\": \"I agree, Christianity is very well designed. The smartest people alive for many centuries spent their lives defending Christianity (Thomas Aquinas, Saint Augustine, etc). They have been philosophically attacked for years and years and are still here\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw06orq\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"nomad5926\",\n \"body\": \"Homie out here saying the altruism isn't a natural thing without Christianity..... 🤣 Bro be saying Meerkats are all Christians? Or Naked Mole Rats?\\n\\nI will never understand why people have to force religion upon others. But essentially an easy way out is to ask them to provide solid proof that God existed. Logically you cannot not prove a belief. (Like others have said before me). Typically the ones making the claim \\\"god exists\\\" have the burden of proof. \\n\\nAlso in my experience you're not going to convince anyone to stop believing. It's the same reason kids believe in Santa it gives them something. For most people, religion is a source of comfort. It's why, from what I see, older folks are more religious. (Cause you know.... Closer to death... Heaven seems nicer).\\n\\nIf you just want them to stop harassing you, you can just say that your relationship with God is personal and need not be on disability for others. (You don't have to say the bit that the relationship is non-existent).\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0753r\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Moraulf232\",\n \"body\": \"Christianity has an answer for any criticism but the answers are silly and unconvincing just like the religion.\\n\\nJust ask yourself “has this answer explained why I should believe these assertions with no evidence or has it just made more assertions with no evidence?” and “could this answer be used to justify the existence of a Flying Spaghetti Monster or literally any other deity?” or “is there any evidence that the person I am talking to can imagine that would cause them to change their mind?” etc.\\n\\nThe philosophical arguments (apologetics) religions use are just fancy noise. There’s nothing there.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw07atx\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"lpuckeri\",\n \"body\": \"Theres many reasons why christianity is absolutely absurd, at a childlike and comical level imo. I have equal belief in it than i do Santa. The apologetics for christianity are just excuses for something as rediculous as believing in flying to heaven on a winged horse.\\n\\nLets remember, we are arguing about. A cosmic jewish god zombie who is his own father and was born a virgin birth to a women impregnated by a holy ghost. \\n\\nThere is zero evidence for this that is not heresay. Not a single item or record or peice of evidence contemporary to jesus exists. To confirm this laughably absurd story all we have is stories that contradict each other, written in the wrong language, written decades to centuries after the fact, much of which we know was straight up forged and copied from surrounding greek myths and people.\\n\\nGetting lost in abologetics is exacty meant to make you forget you are proving an absurd thing eith zero evidence, and get caught up in the weeds.\\n\\n\\nReasons. \\n\\n1. Supernatural events in the bible are empirically impossible to prove. Christians may use awful arguments like minimal facts etc, but these are all comically bad and fallacious. Abuductive reasoning is all we have access to, and that can never demonstrate supernatural events... This alone is enough, as it is logicalltly impossible to demonstrate christianity through our resources.\\n\\n2. The bible is self contradictory, the trinity and more is exceedingly illogical. By this i mean it literslly violates the laws of logic... and is isnanely stupid.\\n\\n3. The bible is obvious myth taken from surrounding cultures.\\n\\n4. There are no decent biblical scholars who think Moses wrote the old testament. Moses clearly never existed and exodus never happened. This is extremely confirmed... there is extreme evidence the base of both judeaism and christianity is 100% made up.\\n\\n5. People that claim supernatural events or whatever... 1. Does not prove god, or their god... it proves they had something special happen and nothing more. 2. These are nothing more than claims. 3. People claim this shit for every religion, thousands... if you apply this standard as evidence for one... you must for thousands of gods. 4. Once you understand psychology you realize how the brain works snd how easy it is for people to misnterpret things visually and auditory.\\n\\n6. Religions are not one off inventions. They are all representations and copyings of popular myths at the time. This can be seen in thousands of religions. Just as it is in christianity... the devil and hell doesnt become a thing until Greek influence, things like rising and dying saviours were popular greek myths too at the time of the bible etc. In fact the bible was wirtten in greek, not aramaic, the language Jesis and his follower would have spoken. You see babylonian myths copied into the parts of the bible, when they were written there...you see the bibles hell and devil and apocalyptic influences copying greek myth during the hellenistic period. Religions are copies of surrounding myth and cultures.\\n\\n7. Apologists often use arguments to prove god that are diestic. Things like the ontological srgument, teleological argument... aside from these being bad arguments, they only prove A God... not christianity. Even if the Kalam is true... the odds of christianity bring true is still zero... it gets you no closer.\\n\\n8. The bible wasnt written by geniuses. It was written by copying and adapting popular myths, cultures, and laws at the time. From copying ancient semetic religions and near eastern traditions 4000 tears ago, to adapting greek myths 2000 years ago. It also was written of centuries, adapted, edited, revised, forged, faked, reinterpreted thousands of times by hundeds of people. This idea some geniuses wrote this thing like you see it now is childishly ignorant of scholarship and history.\\n\\n9. There are actually about 94 gospels. 90 of which christians will admit are 100% bullshit mythological stories... yet they somehow think these are the special true 4, because the church leaders centuries ago simply decided so. \\n\\n10. These excuses and arguments for christianity are no better and no different than the ones Jews will use, or muslims, or Sikhs. You just live in a place around christians most likely. \\n\\nIts interesting because i have never heard a christian argument to me than is not childishly rediculous imo.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw07u2w\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Inevitable_Spare_777\",\n \"body\": \"You can’t have a factual, logical debate with a person who’s worldview doesn’t subscribe to facts and logic\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw08ays\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"drzowie\",\n \"body\": \"There is no direct way to argue a Christian out of Christianity, because it is a faith-based system of beliefs. But you *can* demand respect for your own beliefs.\\n\\nA couple of years ago, I wrote about just how incompatible Christian beliefs are with the scientific worldview. That line of argument is (like any other argument) unlikely to convince a fervent believer -- but may help you to understand that there are real weaknesses in the edifice of Christian thought. \\n\\nBelow is [copypasta from an early CMV post I made](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/7zy9wp/cmv_you_can_accept_todays_scientific_theory/durqqmi/):\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw08i8h\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"DouglerK\",\n \"body\": \"I mean if they didn't the religion would probably be dead by now.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw08xbe\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"joshp23\",\n \"body\": \"> If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniouses\\n\\nAll they have at their disposal are unfalsifiable claims. You can't prove that the invisible dragon in my garage doesn't exist either. The rest is a con act to attribute personal experience to the dragon. \\n\\nBut unfalsifiability and con tactics aside, wouldn't a genius be able to construct an effective argument *and* compile an internally consistent document at the same time? You have to do mental gymnastics to apologize for the ignorance and inconsistencies in the Bible.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw09c2d\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Crookwell\",\n \"body\": \"OR you just aren't a very good critic?\\nBecause I can rebuke shitty religious claims all day\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw09wvx\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"redstar15551\",\n \"body\": \"Maybe you should give up then? You're not gonna \\\"Gotcha\\\" Christianity so leave them alone. Your lack of faith and overabundance of cynicism does not bug anyone the slightest. Don't trap yourself because you view this as an unwinnable battle against some dogmatic close minded religion, when that in and of itself is close minded. There's a modern pushback against religion, Christianity specifically, that has been pushed hard; but Christianity has and will continue to endue.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0a4wk\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Various_Succotash_79\",\n \"body\": \"When my brothers were young, they played a game that was very much like Calvinball (if you've never read the comic Calvin and Hobbes, this is a game they made up on the fly). So it was all stuff like \\\"now the floor is lava so you burn up!\\\" \\\"Oh yeah? I throw 60 million tons of dry uce on it and that cools it off\\\", \\\"well that was too much and now you're frozen solid!\\\" Etc. \\n\\nThat's pretty much what religion is. Your mistake is in trying to make any sense of it.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0b260\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">When my brothers were young, they played a game that was very much like Calvinball (if you've never read the comic Calvin and Hobbes, this is a game they make up on the fly, so it never has the same rules). So it was all stuff like \\\"now the floor is lava so you burn up!\\\" \\\"Oh yeah? I throw 60 million tons of dry ice on it and that cools it off\\\", \\\"well that was too much and now you're frozen solid!\\\" Etc. \\n\\n!delta\\n\\nAs you show, you can't get anywhere trying to defend yourself from a religion which is designed to dodge accountability and make opponents lose. It's not designed for a debate, it's designed to be inescapable.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw25sdi\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jw0b260\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Collective82\",\n \"body\": \"If you are having such a hard time debating it, shouldn’t you consider it’s right and maybe you should look at converting?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0bbov\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"I have. The problem is no matter how hard I try, I have zero spirituality and a complete inability to be sincerely connected with any religion. I see this as a disability comparable to being unable to because it's such a drag on my life.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw263jo\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jw0bbov\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Fluffy_Candle6800\",\n \"body\": \"I'll give you a quote from a book I read - \\\"God is omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent. However, bad things still happen. This means God cannot stop the bad things - he is not omnipotent, God does not know the things are happening - he is not omniscient, or he allows the bad things to happen - he is not benevolent.\\\"\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0bhc0\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"I've accepted the last one. How can I possibly believe in a benevolent god, when he gives miracles to some and neglects genuine victims, or when the religion he designed has endless excuses and loopholes to dodge all accountability?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw26dbi\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jw0bhc0\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"ItsAll42\",\n \"body\": \"I do feel as though you too quickly concede many points that are not accurate or honest, but stated with such confidence they are difficult to rebutt just as confidently without sufficient background knowledge. In fact, some of these claims are just straight up racist, such as claiming altruism is not only a strictly christian virtue, but that many values such as caring for the sick and needy or having basic human decency are strictly Western practices and values.\\n\\n This is wildly inaccurate to claim, knowledge of history can easily debunk such ludicrous statments, especially considering much of the Western ideology is more focused on individualism where confucianism is more focused on the community as a whole. Buddhism stresses that all beings have inherent worth and challenges the strictly heiarchichal values of confucianism, yet still plenty of emphasis is placed on how to better the community as a whole and being kind for the sake of altruism and kindness without any expectation of personal rewards. You do not have to be a historian or theologian to debunk so much of what this person is claiming, especially in regard to other Abrahamic religions which are incredibly similar to the teachings of Christianity, you know, because they share a common historical and biblical root. While modern interpretations of Abrahamic faiths run the gamut, they are more alike than many of their subscribers would like to admit. \\n\\nIn fact, I'd argue that Christianity and most of its branches contain more self-serving motives than many religious beliefs, promising prosperity and wealth in heaven as a reward for good behavior. As an agnostic person I do not need a reward for my good behavior. \\n\\nAs you tried to point out, when this person claims pagans did not care for the sick or other absurd claims, the burden of proof is on them to substantiate such a ridiculous assumption. \\n\\nThis person comes across as making many intellectually dishonest arguments, and you more or less concede or gloss many of these points without pushback.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0cszb\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">This person comes across as making many intellectually dishonest arguments, and you more or less concede or gloss many of these points without pushback.\\n\\nThat's because I didn't study history at a tertiary level. See how I'm a frequent visitor to r/AskHistorians - because I'm not smart or knowledgeable about history. Are you suggesting that to defeat Christianity, I'll need a university degree in history?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw26yyz\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jw0cszb\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"FerdinandTheGiant\",\n \"body\": \"Most, if not all of the Western values people like to claim are “Judeo-Christian” in origin simply aren’t. For one “Judeo-Christian values” aren’t a thing as these groups have different values, however let’s consider a few things we value in the west. \\n\\n#Democracy\\n\\nIn the Bible, democracy is never extolled or even articulated. Instead, there are endless stories of theocratic, authoritarian rule and the divine right of kings. Power is always concentrated; it’s never distributed. In classical Greece, however, Athenians established what is generally recognized as the world’s first democracy around 500 BCE. This predates Christianity and arose with no Jewish influence.\\n\\n#Common Humanity/ Equality\\n\\nThis is simply not biblical. In the New Testament, women are forbidden from holding authority over a man, told to be silent in church, and instructed to be obedient and submissive to their husbands. The same word used for submissive in Colossians also is used to describe how slaves should be to their masters. Women can be killed if they’re suspected of having premarital sex; the tenth commandment forbids coveting property, which includes women in the same sentence as houses and oxen; if a woman was raped, she was forced to marry her rapist if the offender paid her father, and on and on it goes.\\n\\nNon-Israelites or gentiles were forced into slavery and treated as property. This is seen in Leviticus and all over the Hebrew Bible. Slavery was condoned and justified for thousands of years using the Bible. \\n\\n#10 Commandments\\n\\nA common argument is that these “laws” are where we derive most of our morals and values in the west. This is rather silly. \\n\\nFor starters, a lot of the commandments are about idolatry, however other Rules like “thou shall not kill” predate Christianity and Judaism by hundreds of years. Literally any and all functional societies require this rule to be in place. And all over the world you see non-Christian nations follow similar “laws”. This is because they are beneficial for building a society. \\n\\n#Other religions\\n\\nOther religions have much stronger moral codes that Christanity. Jainism believes so much in the value of life that they won’t even talk at night because they could accidentally harm an insect. Buddhists have a deep personal desire to self improve while also improving the lives of those around them. Same could be said for taoists.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0dbxm\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"That's the problem though. You assume that Christianity is pro-democracy and pro-equality when history has shown us that they'd gladly throw these concepts under the bus if it were in the way of their religion.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw27njn\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jw0dbxm\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Circular360Angles90\",\n \"body\": \"People often conflate these two completely separate ideas. God/Higher Power - whatever you want to call it, with - Religion. \\n\\nReligion, in its limited ability tries to use the concept of God in an attempt to sway your reasoning capabilities towards their doctrine. God, however is completely separate from Religion.\\n\\nReligion just seems to have a Monopoly on the word. People feel as though believing in a God or Gods means they should adhere to some way of “knowing” their God. - which is all that a religion really does. But rest assured that it is someone elses ideas you are digesting. Theres nothing wrong with consulting people whom you believe to be wise or have more experience, but if you start feeling like they have some sort of answer that you cant quite grasp, then your talking to the wrong people. \\n\\nThis is not something that anyone can “show” you or “debate” you about. \\n\\nGod isnt in a book. God isnt an idea you learn from the pulpit. God isnt reason nor logic. God isnt bad. God isnt good. \\n\\nYou are engaging in a debate where their is nothing to debate, thus you always be “outwitted.”\\n\\nThink for yourself, walk your own path. You’ll fall flat on your face initially, perhaps for many years and, if you can muster up strength to get up on your own and not ask anybody why you fell and why it hurts so bad - you’ll stop feeling “outwitted.”\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0f9fa\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">You are engaging in a debate where their is nothing to debate, thus you always be “outwitted.”\\n\\n>Think for yourself, walk your own path. You’ll fall flat on your face initially, perhaps for many years and, if you can muster up strength to get up on your own and not ask anybody why you fell and why it hurts so bad - you’ll stop feeling “outwitted.”\\n\\nIsn't this the problem though? Most people can earn external respect being just who they are. In contrast, I have to prove my respectability, and prove why I have valid views, and I always lose.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw2llv2\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jw0f9fa\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CIABrainBugs\",\n \"body\": \"If God was real, his actions would prevent me from giving him any respect. I don't care if he's real.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0fl5d\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Nghtmare-Moon\",\n \"body\": \"Read Carl Sagan’s demon haunted world. It’s the best essay to counter all religious arguments\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0g6mu\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"GainPornCity\",\n \"body\": \"It's not that there's a rebuttle for everything. There's just a different lens to look through. \\n\\nSay an atheist has blue shades on and sees everything as blue. Christian sees everything as red. However, the one commonality between the Athiest and the Christian is the human construct..thereby despite being in different mindsets, they both acknowledge phenomena as they unfold in the world\\n\\nNo matter how much blue you speak regarding world phenomena, the Christian will respond to *each* phenomenon with a red response. \\n\\n\\nThis phenomenon, you look at through a blue lens and say: \\\"The Christian has an excuse for everything, no matter how blue, there's always gonna be some red to speak on from their side.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0gw4r\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Realistic-Cat4116\",\n \"body\": \"The only rebuttal you need is: \\\"Prove it.\\\" Keep repeating that over and over again. They can't, you win, end of argument.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0h3pm\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Okami_The_Agressor_0\",\n \"body\": \"Debating things that are designed to explain all with a basis in non-falsifiable statements is impossible. Religions are all memetic viruses that are meant to superimpose a false sense of the world on their followers, there are other belief systems that do the same that don't involve god but a well designed memetic virus can't be successful with out being impervious to logic or ways to side step rational thinking. That being said many modern political beliefs are structured similarly and operate in a similar fashion to religions. \\n\\nReligion imparts a base line culture and morality to people that allows for a more respectful and peaceful society. Part of what make that possible is ideological sanitation of a populace. Diversity of ways of life sparks conflict and religion solves that a good portion of the time. You could potentially see how many recent events have been the result of diverse culture and belief systems, so any derivation of heterogenization of society would logically be rejected by such belief systems with understandable cause.\\n\\nI believe people should be able to do what ever they please but when there is no respect in society people seek control from government to maintain the peace. So the easiest way for a country to stay free is to remain an ethno/ideological-state, or very slow and controlled change. When accounting these things you must satisfy for the lowest common denominator which will inevitable reject things on the basis of tribal instinct.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0k3j1\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"ApeMummy\",\n \"body\": \"You’re outwitted because you lack wit not because christianity is special.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0k3sk\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"SeymoreButz38\",\n \"body\": \"1st is a citation needed. Second was a semantic argument. Third is a no true scotsman fallacy.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0kns0\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Ecoronel1989\",\n \"body\": \"I think the issue here is your brother does a few things to confuse you.\\n1. Switching between defending spirituality and Christianity.\\n2. Berating you with words so it's hard for you to rebuttal everything that is said (an overwhelming tactic).\\n3. Throws out unprovable claims that are opinions as facts.\\n\\nFor #1, there's a big difference between spirituality and Christianity. Christianity asserts it is the one true religion, all others are wrong and lead to a wrong lifestyle. Spirituality is a general idea about believing in something outside oneself. To Christians, spirituality is paganism (unless it's Christianity itself) and therefore wrong and cannot be accepted or celebrated. So your brother can't simply pick and choose to say spirituality is good for the health and then switch to say Islam is not a good religion as these are contradictory statements.\\n\\nBut this issue is linked to #2, he berates arguments with a ton of words and makes multiple \\\"points\\\" at once. This is a similar tactic to what Donald Trump has used during his time as a politician. Simply overload the other side with a word soup, throwing out multiple arguments that are each wrong, but takes effort to debate each of them. By the time you gather your thoughts about the first wrong statement, he's moved on to the next 3, it's overwhelming.\\n\\nWhich leads to the last point, that is throwing out unprovable claims in the midst of his word soup. Claims such as there would be no morality without religion are unprovable for modern science since we have had religion in all cultures for over 2000 years, so it's hard to test this \\\"fact\\\". Another one that comes to mind is saying there's objective morality in the Bible, which you argued is not because of the Bible. Another counterargument is that the interpretation to the Bibles teachings changes across generations (i.e. slavery allowed for priests) and is therefore not objective, but his claim is unprovable in general as you can only offer up counter examples he can claim we're people not following the \\\"truth\\\".\\n\\nOverall, I think you're doing better than you think at debating this issue. The larger issue is what others have pointed out, that you don't have to win this argument, simply live by what you believe is true like they do.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0m923\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"TimeFliesFaster\",\n \"body\": \"It doesn’t have a good rebuttal as to why Jesus is the prophesied messiah of a religion that believes in a single unitary god. Especially when Jesus didn’t have the right ancestors and failed to meet the applicable prophesies (ie dead all coming back to life, temple being restored for all time, diaspora returning, war coming to permanent end, and entire world embracing scripture in messiah’s lifetime)\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0sjyl\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"David_Warden\",\n \"body\": \"You are trying to prove a negative which is a waste of time.\\n\\nThey are the ones making the improbable claims so the burden of proof lies with them. \\n\\nIf they continue to pester you, ask them to prove it.\\n\\nI think you will find that it boils down to belief in the highly improbable that is not adequately supported by either evidence or reasoning.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw1cnr9\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"SaltiestRaccoon\",\n \"body\": \"Sure. They have rebuttals. They're just not as good as you think they are. And they tend to be the same rebuttals over and over.\\n\\nI mean just to refute the ones you were hit with... In the first example, he paints the 'pagan' world monolithically while citing the worst examples from many different cultures, while kind of also ignoring that many of those things also apply to Christian nations. Pretty sure the weak and poor weren't running Medieval England, for instance. Likewise slaves were absolutely still a thing among Christians... the slaves just couldn't also be Christian. There were Christian Germanic warriors pillaging right along with the rest of them. Finally virtually any civilization that has kept slaves does in fact have laws about how they can be treated. It can certainly even be argued that serfdom is still just slavery but called something else to make it acceptable, as people can still be bought and sold, they just count as part of the land instead and likewise must work for their lord or face abuse or death. Sounds a lot like slavery to me.\\n\\nAltruism is in fact a part of human nature. It evolved because we are a social species and we are inclined to act for the good of our group, as our group is beneficial to our survival. There's a [great example](https://www.upi.com/Archives/1987/11/04/Cavemen-took-care-of-physically-disabled/5137563000400/) of a cave man skeleton with some pretty crippling deformities, who could not have hunted for himself that lived to old age. That means his tribe or his family unit was caring for him despite the fact he was a burden. And this is humanity in the stone age, at our least civilized. The Gauls, as well routinely collected a portion of taxes to help pay for their disabled citizens (though in Rome, it was preached if not always practiced that disabled children should be put to death.)\\n\\nIn a lot of instances he just seems ignorant on history and expects you to go along with it. A lot of it is very gish-gallupy too. He says so many wrong things that there's no way to correct them all without getting so bogged down with corrections that you can never make a point of your own, or even refute all of his errors. Don't allow that. Insist on arguing one point at a time.\\n\\nReally I think it's gaps in your knowledge more than Christianity being particularly difficult to criticize. I find it quite easy.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-14\",\n \"id\": \"jw3kj7g\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ]\n]","isConversational":false},"2":{"kind":"string","value":"challenge"}}},{"rowIdx":55,"cells":{"0":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Fun_Year3765","body":"Lack of faith in a Christian paradigm doesn’t need to be for debate. Religions are a faith based system. \n\nIt might be more interesting for you to look at the nature of belief and philosophy is going to help with that. Don’t get into the mud puddle over it. \n\nReligions aren’t necessarily designed by a genius. IMO the truth of it offers a nicer and more ironic view. The religions that have survived have evolved to have barbs built into them that trap the believer. Example: most surviving religions have names for outsiders that are condescending - hieratic, infidel, gentile, etc. They also often have serious consequences for anyone that doesn’t believe. Usually an eternity of torment or a great reward for compliance. These systems of belief have survived therefore they posses attributes that help them survive. There are many dead religions. I’m not even going to get into the politics of the religions over history and what was done to outsiders.\n\nIf you’re not wired for faith, don’t sweat it. Understand that you already are likely to be subscribing to ideological belief systems. Philosophy may help you to see those signs as well.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzrfxp","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">Religions aren’t necessarily designed by a genius. IMO the truth of it offers a nicer and more ironic view. The religions that have survived have evolved to have barbs built into them that trap the believer. Example: most surviving religions have names for outsiders that are condescending - hieratic, infidel, gentile, etc. They also often have serious consequences for anyone that doesn’t believe. Usually an eternity of torment or a great reward for compliance. These systems of belief have survived therefore they posses attributes that help them survive. There are many dead religions. I’m not even going to get into the politics of the religions over history and what was done to outsiders.\n\n!delta\n\nI shouldn't have said that Christianity was \"fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses\". I should have written that it was written by fearmongers, and fearmongering works. And even on Reddit, [they're still fearmongering](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jv7q4jc/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw00f3a","parent_id":"jvzrfxp","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"DeltaBot","body":"Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/Fun_Year3765 ([1∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/Fun_Year3765)).\n\n^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw00hui","parent_id":"jw00f3a","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],"string":"[\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Fun_Year3765\",\n \"body\": \"Lack of faith in a Christian paradigm doesn’t need to be for debate. Religions are a faith based system. \\n\\nIt might be more interesting for you to look at the nature of belief and philosophy is going to help with that. Don’t get into the mud puddle over it. \\n\\nReligions aren’t necessarily designed by a genius. IMO the truth of it offers a nicer and more ironic view. The religions that have survived have evolved to have barbs built into them that trap the believer. Example: most surviving religions have names for outsiders that are condescending - hieratic, infidel, gentile, etc. They also often have serious consequences for anyone that doesn’t believe. Usually an eternity of torment or a great reward for compliance. These systems of belief have survived therefore they posses attributes that help them survive. There are many dead religions. I’m not even going to get into the politics of the religions over history and what was done to outsiders.\\n\\nIf you’re not wired for faith, don’t sweat it. Understand that you already are likely to be subscribing to ideological belief systems. Philosophy may help you to see those signs as well.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzrfxp\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">Religions aren’t necessarily designed by a genius. IMO the truth of it offers a nicer and more ironic view. The religions that have survived have evolved to have barbs built into them that trap the believer. Example: most surviving religions have names for outsiders that are condescending - hieratic, infidel, gentile, etc. They also often have serious consequences for anyone that doesn’t believe. Usually an eternity of torment or a great reward for compliance. These systems of belief have survived therefore they posses attributes that help them survive. There are many dead religions. I’m not even going to get into the politics of the religions over history and what was done to outsiders.\\n\\n!delta\\n\\nI shouldn't have said that Christianity was \\\"fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses\\\". I should have written that it was written by fearmongers, and fearmongering works. And even on Reddit, [they're still fearmongering](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jv7q4jc/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw00f3a\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzrfxp\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"DeltaBot\",\n \"body\": \"Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/Fun_Year3765 ([1∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/Fun_Year3765)).\\n\\n^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw00hui\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jw00f3a\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n]","isConversational":false},"1":{"kind":"list like","value":[[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"DeadCupcakes23","body":"Why does it matter if Christianity has a rebuttal for something? You can criticise the bible and Christianity based on what it says and the actions done in its name (context depending).\n\nPeople have moral values without Christianity and most things people appreciate nowadays are not inherent to Christianity, for example the bible allows slavery.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzggd4","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">Why does it matter if Christianity has a rebuttal for something? You can criticise the bible and Christianity based on what it says and the actions done in its name (context depending).\n\nBecause losing a debate due to their rebuttals makes me look stupid. Also, if you follow the links to their arguments, even the atrocities done in its name don't count because those fall under \"false prophets\". \n\nIt's like the Bible was written with this possibility in mind to entrap us.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzh2ui","parent_id":"jvzggd4","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"tipoima","body":"Christianity *was* fabricated, but not by geniuses. \nYou're fighting against over two thousand years worth of apologetics, where all the weakest arguments have been pruned away. \nHowever, as expected of something that isn't actually true, those arguments are often plainly wrong, be it due to logical fallacies, appeals to unknown, obtuse philosophy you probably don't know you don't subscribe to, no-true-scotsmanning, e.t.c.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzh8ep","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">However, as expected of something that isn't actually true, those arguments are often plainly wrong, be it due to logical fallacies, appeals to unknown, obtuse philosophy you probably don't know you don't subscribe to, no-true-scotsmanning, e.t.c.\n\nThis is exactly what they do. The problem is that \"I don't know\" is not an acceptable answer to them ([see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvhr81y/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)), whereas they already have something up their sleeve to entrap me. \n\nAs you mentioned, with 2000 years of experience creating answers, I even if I am able to point out something wrong or intellectually dishonest, they'll still have an answer for that, forcing me to spend yet more time and effort to come up with an answer. And I am not intelligent enough to create an answer for everything they throw at me, so I'm trapped.\n\nIt's an uphill battle, and one that can easily be lost. Until we can come up with a rebuttal they can't defeat, there will always be a risk that secular society and LGBT rights might be defeated.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzhurp","parent_id":"jvzh8ep","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Watchyobackistan","body":"Not really, most of their \"rebuttals\" are stuff like \"god doesn't give us all the answers\" and \"Don't worry jesus loves you\" Non-answers.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzhdab","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"MercurianAspirations","body":"But why should you give a shit? If you have conviction in your own beliefs, it shouldn't matter whether or not you can convince others using your super debater skillz or not. After all, if somebody were sufficiently dumb or insane, it would be impossible to convince them of the truth, no matter how clear and apparent the truth were; therefore, whether or not a thing is widely believed and people are readily convinced of its truth is not a guide to truth. When there was only one person on the earth who believed in heliocentrism they were still right, and the geocentrists were still wrong. The geocentrists had answers for every single objection, and they won every single debate, yet, they were still wrong. \n\nMoreover, it isn't that Christianity is super well designed or anything. It's just that people who have strongly held convictions are not available to be convinced by facts and logic. That's just how people are: they do not actually change their minds that much.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzhezx","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">But why should you give a shit?\n\nBecause I don't want my stances to look stupid. I was once likened to an anti-vaxxer for not being able to provide evidence to back my lack of faith.\n\n> If you have conviction in your own beliefs, it shouldn't matter whether or not you can convince others using your super debater skillz or not. \n\nConviction in your own beliefs doesn't make one right. Besides, their side also has a firm conviction in their beliefs.\n\n>When there was only one person on the earth who believed in heliocentrism they were still right, and the geocentrists were still wrong. The geocentrists had answers for every single objection, and they won every single debate, yet, they were still wrong.\n\nScience doesn't care about number of believers, what matters is the evidence. And in the case of heliocentrism, it was proven right by overwhelming evidence. I wish I had overwhelming evidence to back my lack of faith.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzih4p","parent_id":"jvzhezx","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Mr-Bitter","body":"Send your brother my way. I know of a way to convince him that it was Satan that wrote the Bible and can kill every single one of his arguments. I would thoroughly enjoy a civilized religious debate.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzhg91","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"ApocalypseYay","body":">CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\n\nThis makes zero sense. Rebuttals require logic and facts, and there are only apologia and special pleasing fallacy described herein. \n\nLet's start from the basic - where is the evidence for chris, the alleged son of god, and somehow also god, that killed himself to please himself? There is zero historical evidence for this event, before we even get to the easily debunked claims of miracles, or the plainly immoral laws being promulgated as divine commandments.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzhig9","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">where is the evidence for chris,\n\n[Most historians accept that Jesus Christ existed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus). The rest of the biblical story isn't accepted by historians.\n\n>before we even get to the easily debunked claims of miracles,\n\n[I miserably failed at convincing someone that I don't believe in miracles](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvai6qm/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). How would you convince him?\n\n> or the plainly immoral laws being promulgated as divine commandments.\n\nHow would you convince them that their side is immoral? They have methods up their sleeve to dismiss the malice conducted in the name of Christianity, and justify the anti-LGBT commandments.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzj8qx","parent_id":"jvzhig9","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"physioworld","body":"The most important concept you have to remember is the burden of proof. It’s not up to you to prove the Christianity ISNT TRUE, it’s up to them to prove that it IS TRUE. So if they can’t prove their own religion you need to accept it, you don’t have to worry about disproving their beliefs. \n\nA good way to illustrate this, is whether they would accept comparable claims with comparable evidence from other religions. So if they claim that Christianity is true because it says so in the bible, ask whether you should also accept Islam because it says so in the Quran.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzhlry","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">The most important concept you have to remember is the burden of proof. It’s not up to you to prove the Christianity ISNT TRUE, it’s up to them to prove that it IS TRUE. So if they can’t prove their own religion you need to accept it, you don’t have to worry about disproving their beliefs.\n\nBut that's the problem - they consider themselves as proving it is true. For example, one guy who told me of miracles he received - [and I lacked a sufficient rebuttal to convince him he's wrong](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvai6qm/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzjexi","parent_id":"jvzhlry","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Adam__B","body":"You don’t have to defend not believing in something that is invisible, utterly silent, immeasurable, illogical, unscientific, undetectable and untestable. The burden is on them to prove a positive, not you a negative.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzi1gp","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"OrangeBlancmange","body":"Why do you think you are losing? They obviously haven’t convinced you in these arguments and just falling back to faith (which is all they really have) doesn’t ‘win’ anything in any meaningful way. You won’t be able to argue them out of their faith so you can’t ‘win’ either. Ultimately it’s not an argument in the philosophical sense - they aren’t engaging in good faith and simply will not change their minds regardless of what you say.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzi24f","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"> they aren’t engaging in good faith and simply will not change their minds regardless of what you say.\n\nBad faith arguments are like doping in sports - they make it easier for them to win. You just need to be a good enough debater to win despite the disadvantage.\n\n>Why do you think you are losing? \n\nBecause I failed to be that \"good enough debater\". Any argument I can throw at them is utterly crushed and thrown back at me.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzk4ge","parent_id":"jvzi24f","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Cayowin","body":"How did you lose that debate?\n\nSlavery - Christians used the bible to promote the slave trade\n\n[https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/01/a-harvard-exhibit-on-slavery-and-christianity/#:\\~:text=In%20the%20modern%20era%2C%20Christianity,often%20used%20to%20justify%20slavery](https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/01/a-harvard-exhibit-on-slavery-and-christianity/#:~:text=In%20the%20modern%20era%2C%20Christianity,often%20used%20to%20justify%20slavery).\n\nYes there were abolitionists, but if the same text can be used to both justify and condemn an action how is that text a good moral guide?\n\nThe bible explicitly allows the owning of humans as property. So either god is not unchanging or he changed his mind. \n\n1 Peter 2:18, Saint Peter writes \"Slaves, be subject to your masters with all reverence, not only to those who are good and equitable but also to those who are perverse.\"\n\nYes they have prepared apologetics, it just means you need to do more research. Remember they have no evidence for their claims beyond personal gut feelings and a collection of contradictory, fictional and historic works.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzi8a8","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">Slavery - Christians used the bible to promote the slave trade\n\nI've miserably failed when using the \"what about slavery argument\" - it's in the link following \"It all started 3 years ago\". Sure, I could point out the pro-slavery parts, but they'll have a reason why that bit is irrelevant or misinterpreted. It's exhausting, finding every argument to throw at them, and having each one of those utterly crushed with more rebuttals thrown your way.\n\n>Yes they have prepared apologetics, it just means you need to do more research. Remember they have no evidence for their claims beyond personal gut feelings and a collection of contradictory, fictional and historic works.\r \n\r\n\nI tried pointing out to someone that I don't believe in his \"miracle\". [My attempt failed miserably](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvai6qm/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzkhnt","parent_id":"jvzi8a8","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Augnelli","body":"What is the rebuttal for the Ark? What did the carnivores eat? How did the Kangaroos and Koalas make it up from Australia? What about fresh water fish? How much space was designated for JUST the elephants food?\n\nYou don't need to debate every detail, just enough to invalidate the core; the truth on which they base their faith.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzikz2","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">What is the rebuttal for the Ark? What did the carnivores eat? How did the Kangaroos and Koalas make it up from Australia? What about fresh water fish? How much space was designated for JUST the elephants food?\n\nThat's the problem - even since the medieval era, most Christians disavowed biblical literalism, because biblical literalism is easier to poke holes into. Instead, they've come up with apologia, and now, with over 2000 years of apologia to defend against, it's become an unwinnable fight.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzlcvy","parent_id":"jvzikz2","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"ch0cko","body":"No. I am a frequent debater on subs like r/DebateReligion and r/DebateAnAtheist and everything you've said here is just... no. The vast majority of arguments for theism or counterarguments against arguments against theism, generally lead to special pleading or other fallacies.\n\nHere's one post I recently made: [https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/15pjew5/extraordinary\\_claims\\_need\\_extraordinary\\_evidence/](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/15pjew5/extraordinary_claims_need_extraordinary_evidence/) which then links to another one of my posts that goes more in-depth: [https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/15ey939/if\\_religious\\_beliefs\\_were\\_subject\\_to\\_consistent/](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/15ey939/if_religious_beliefs_were_subject_to_consistent/)\n\nA lot of what Christianity said is very similar to other religions and old mythologies. It has a generic reward-punishment system/carrot and stick system, that is, a hell and heaven. On top of that, all of the claims in Christianity hold no good evidence with most being anecdotal. Most arguments for Christianity are not Christian-specific and more so just theism in general. Even then, those thesitic arguments lead to either, 1. fallacies, or 2. only making theism \"more likely,\" but even then, these arguments have counters.\n\nThey were not geniuses. A little clever, but they essentially copied other religions and mythologies and is a cookie-cutter religion. Christianity isn't wide spread just because of how \"logical\" and \"sound\" it is; indoctrination or generationally passing the idea down is a big part of it. There are also contradictions in the Bible which can be found at this website: [https://www.lyingforjesus.org/Bible-Contradictions/](https://www.lyingforjesus.org/Bible-Contradictions/)","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzirf5","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">They were not geniuses. A little clever, but they essentially copied other beliefs and mythologies and is a cookie-cutter religion. Christianity isn't widespread just because of how \"logical\" and \"sound\" it is; indoctrination or generationally passing the idea down is a big part of it. There are also contradictions in the Bible which can be found at this website: https://www.lyingforjesus.org/Bible-Contradictions/\n\nI wasn't implying that Christianity was \"logical\" and \"sound\". I was implying it was successful because it has so many tricks up its sleeve. It may be full of lies, but for every one I point out, I'll get one or more rebuttals thrown my way.\n\nThink of it as being like in the middle of a dense minefield. Whoever laid the minefield might not have a \"logical\" and \"sound\" reason for it, but any step you could take will blow up in your face.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzlzr1","parent_id":"jvzirf5","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"xper0072","body":"Just because someone has an answer for everything doesn't mean that the answer is a good answer. Your inability to properly debate the topic does not mean that the other side is correct in any way.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzj07m","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">Your inability to properly debate the topic does not mean that the other side is correct in any way.\n\nI wasn't saying the other side was correct. My point is that they are impossible to defeat and are good at ensnaring their critics.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzmc3l","parent_id":"jvzj07m","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"razvanght","body":"In my experience, Christian s believe that God is real because they feel He is real. Then you can ask them whether a person of a different religion can also use the same method (I feel Zeus is real because I feel Him) to conclude that a different god is real. Christians generally agree that that person used the same method (feeling based) to reach an opposite conclusion (Zeus, not God, is real). In my discussions at least, this argument works in that it gives people pause. Of course, it does not change their belief immediately because they have been holding it for some time but I feel like it adds a seed of doubt.\n\nDo you know the official Christian response against this line of argument?","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzj0m8","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">In my experience, Christian s believe that God is real because they feel He is real. Then you can ask them whether a person of a different religion can also use the same method (I feel Zeus is real because I feel Him) to conclude that a different god is real. \n\nHow can I get them to accept the argument that \"oh I don't feel God is real, so don't force me to go to church\"? Because that argument always failed me in the past. Also, on a tangent, how are you able to \"feel\" Zeus?\n\n>adds a seed of doubt.\n\nPlanting seeds of doubt is a great political strategy. For example, in Australia, we have an upcoming referendum on constitutional indigenous recognition - and because the No side is so good at planting seeds of doubt, the Yes side is losing despite having academia and the arts sector on its side. \n\nBut back to the point, I tried planting seeds of doubt and failed miserably. The Christians I've had to defend my opinions from don't merely consider themselves as \"feelings based\", they consider their views as backed by literature (the Bible).","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzmy3i","parent_id":"jvzj0m8","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Apprehensive_Box3199","body":"I dropped my Catholicism at 21 after learning basic logic at University. In year 6 whilst at a Catholic school, we were given a Catholic Catechism - literally the manual for being a good Catholic. Most of the book is written in question-and-answer format. This is indoctrination 101. The first 3 questions are, and I quote:\n\n>1. Question: Who made the world? \n Answer: God made the world. \n> \n>2. Q. Who is God? \n> \n> A. God is the Creator of heaven and earth and of all things and the Supreme Lord of all. \n> \n>3. Q. How do we know there is a God? \n> \n> A. We know that there is a God by the things that He made.\n\nRight there; in the first 3 question-and-answers is a Circular Argument. The entire basis of the Catechism is premised on a Circular Argument. If nothing else, the entire point of Catholicism is to justify the original statement that God exists.\n\nI looked through the whole of the Catechism highlighting anything I still believed. I highlighted a single sentence in the preface about doing unto others etc... NOTHING else.\n\nBefore you have a go at me for not knowing what a circular argument until I was 21 - I went to Catholic schools for all of high school and it is in their best interests NOT to teach that and it was the 80s. That's my excuse and I sticking to it.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzjc23","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">Right there; in the first 3 question-and-answers is a Circular Argument. The entire basis of the Catechism is premised on a Circular Argument. If nothing else, the entire point of Catholicism is to justify the original statement that God exists. \n> \n>I looked through the whole of the Catechism highlighting anything I still believed. I highlighted a single sentence in the preface about doing unto others etc... NOTHING else. \n> \n>Before you have a go at me for not knowing what a circular argument until I was 21 - I went to Catholic schools for all of high school and it is in their best interests NOT to teach that and it was the 80s. That's my excuse and I sticking to it.\n\nIn my experience, pointing out the circular argument leads to one of 2 outcomes:\n\n1. Getting more apologia that I am unable to defeat\n2. The \"*Do you have a better explanation?*\" rebuttal","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvznrln","parent_id":"jvzjc23","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Simbabz","body":"The most important story of the bible is Jesus ressurecction, the gospels contradict each other in the telling of the story, hardly designed by geniuses.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzktxv","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">The most important story of the bible is Jesus ressurecction, the gospels contradict each other in the telling of the story, hardly designed by geniuses.\n\nNot sure what Protestants say, but Catholicism claims that slight differences with the same overall story prove it's written by real people observing the same things. We can accuse them of using a dodgy argument, but it still wouldn't undermine their side.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzp1ei","parent_id":"jvzktxv","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"vote4bort","body":"I think you're just trying way too hard in these debates and starting from the wrong point. You're coming at them like religion is something that can be proved through debate when it fundamentally can't. \nThe religious rebuttal for every point will always be essentially the same. That is they'll say \"well I believe this I so\". And you can't argue with that because its not a statement that can be argued against.\n\nWhat can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzkuyc","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.\n\nThe problem is when they think they have evidence and you think they don't. [Here's an example with a Protestant](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jv9g3kt/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3), and we can't agree on anything.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzp2i6","parent_id":"jvzkuyc","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"sapphireminds","body":"You seem to be a poor debater. You are accepting a lot of arguments as true when they aren't. \n\nAll children are born atheists. Coincidentally, they just happen to usually believe in the god(s) their parents/community believes it. \n\nAnd personally, if there is a god with the power ascribed to it by the bible, I would refuse to worship it. \n\nYou also need to educate yourself about the null hypothesis.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzl8ri","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">You seem to be a poor debater. You are accepting a lot of arguments as true when they aren't.\r\n\nI don't accept their arguments as true. I accept them as difficult to defeat.\n\n>And personally, if there is a god with the power ascribed to it by the bible, I would refuse to worship it.\n\nI wouldn't want to worship such a God either. [I've told a Protestant that if I were to accept that he indeed received a miracle, it would still prove that the Christian god is unjust](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvkkegk/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). But that argument still failed to sway him.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzqf91","parent_id":"jvzl8ri","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"-paperbrain-","body":"What you seem to be saying is just that you are not able, with the mere power of logic, to get Christians to abandon their belief.\n\nI hate to break it to you, but this is not a particular quality of Christianity. Anything people are dug in on will face this hill. Not only will you encounter it with every religion, but you won't argue many people out of their political doctrine, flat earth belief, or whether they side with Ross or Rachel on friends. People have rebuttals for everything about many totally conflicting positions. It's part of having strong beliefs and giving it some thought. And religions in particular have had a long time and tons of resources to give it thought.\n\nThat doesn't mean there's no room for criticism. Just that your expectation about change is ridiculously optimistic.\n\nHowever, regardless of how your personal debates are going, people are leaving Christianity in droves, partly because they don't find those rebuttals to critique to be logically, morally or emotionally satisfying. The fastest growing religious affiliation is \"none\".","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzlzcb","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">That doesn't mean there's no room for criticism. Just that your expectation about change is ridiculously optimistic.\n\nSometimes, I'm challenged to debate when I'm not looking for one (see my first link in the post details). I wasn't expecting to change anyone's views, just successfully defend my decision, and I failed even that.\n\n>However, regardless of how your personal debates are going, people are leaving Christianity in droves, partly because they don't find those rebuttals to critique to be logically, morally or emotionally satisfying. The fastest growing religious affiliation is \"none\".\n\n[Christianity is still growing overall](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_population_growth). Even if it's not growing in the Western World, this shrinkage is negated by growth outside the Western World.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzs5r5","parent_id":"jvzlzcb","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"wrongfulness","body":"What a waste of time","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzmu4k","parent_id":"15purrs","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"The_White_Ram","body":"This isn't hard. Christianity literally endorses slavery.\n\nIf you believe slavery is wrong then that's the only argument you need.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzniyg","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">This isn't hard. Christianity literally endorses slavery. \n> \n>If you believe slavery is wrong then that's the only argument you need.\n\nI tried using such an argument. [It backfired](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvztyn7","parent_id":"jvzniyg","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"ElPwnero","body":"I like the one Muslims use:\\\nThe word of allah is perfect and if you find inconsistencies, then it’s your human brain that’s incapable of understanding the true meaning.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzoket","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">I like the one Muslims use:\r \n> \n>The word of allah is perfect and if you find inconsistencies, then it’s your human brain that’s incapable of understanding the true meaning.\n\nI mean, they're basically insulting your intelligence. But isn't that a great bad faith tactic, dodging accountability by accusing your opponent of being too dumb to understand? I can't imagine myself faring any better debating a Muslim than debating a Christian.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzvglo","parent_id":"jvzoket","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"indigoneutrino","body":"The interesting thing is I've had the opposite experience. Plenty of experiences online and in person where they can barely rebut *anything* to the point that I've had a minister apologise she can't answer my questions satisfactorily. I've seen no-one rebut or even explain why the crucifixion makes sense without legitimising blood sacrifice. It just constantly defaults to \"Jesus paid for our sins,\" without explaining why the death of an innocent third party was accepted as a valid payment within a supposedly just system.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzppfh","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Pichkuchu","body":">It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted\n\nJust because you got outwitted doesn't mean the other side was right, they were, in fact, blatantly wrong. Christianity is just as guilty of atrocities as any religion. Keep in mind that Christianity is 2000 years old and they enslaved people until 1860 and they had to be \"convinced\" by war to give it up. They genocided native populations in America and colonized Asia and Africa. There was inquisition. They burned people for heresy, including scientists. They weren't different from other big religions or even pagans. The modern view of the world and humanity encompasses non Christian populations too and one could argue that it's in fact the result of secularism.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzqu5n","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"StrangeAssonance","body":"I’m curious why you think one has to prove God exists? \n\nAlso, when Jesus was on earth the Jews kept asking for a sign from Him. They were blind to what he was doing with His ministry. The world is blind, so when you try to have these arguments that you feel you can’t win, I think you aren’t ever going to win them. I can show you God through my words and deeds but if you are blind to that, you won’t see what’s there to see.\n\nJesus repeatedly talks about how blind and deaf people are to God and his word.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzr1ue","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">Also, when Jesus was on earth the Jews kept asking for a sign from Him. They were blind to what he was doing with His ministry. The world is blind, so when you try to have these arguments that you feel you can’t win, I think you aren’t ever going to win them. I can show you God through my words and deeds but if you are blind to that, you won’t see what’s there to see.\n\nThis is why I see my inability to believe as a disability comparable to being unable to read.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzzkhs","parent_id":"jvzr1ue","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"mo_ff","body":"You can have faith that your monthly bills will be paid whilst you have no money or means to do so OR you can actually have the money. One will work. The other will leave you with no utilities. Full stop.\n\nIn a debate with a Christian you would encounter, \"Oh, but have you no faith a brother in Christ would not help you?\" And then a large quantity of scriptural examples would be brought forth from whatever version of the bible they are most familiar with.\n\nAs others have stated, the deck is stacked. If you can approach the conversation with your family in a civil manor, stop going to church. Believe what makes you happy and mentally healthy so long as it doesn't hurt others.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzr2rx","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"HansPGruber","body":"You need to read some Thomas Paine my friend. A renegade if the atomic age.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzrn0v","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Morasain","body":"Couple things.\n\nThe first thing is that burden of proof is with the person making a claim - Christians in this case.\n\nThe second thing is - you don't need to refute the religion itself, because you can't.\n\nUsually, if you bring up things like pastors being molesters, or the crusades, or witch burnings, Christians will commit a No True Scotsman fallacy. \"These pastors aren't *real* Christians.\" You don't need to refute that argument because it is in itself wrong - but if you want, you can always go the path of saying that everyone in the church is, in the end, appointed by God.\n\nThe easiest way to reject Christianity is to instead reject God, though. You don't even need to prove that he's bad or anything - you need to use your own morality to reject the idea that a god like depicted in Christianity can be a god you want to believe in.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzrwx0","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"hdhddf","body":"you don't need to convince them, they're arguing from a position of ignorance and indoctrination, you can't argue with that because their arguments aren't built on logic or sound reasoning.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzs63u","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Huffers1010","body":"Let's do it by example. What did they have a rebuttal for that you couldn't respond to?\n\nMy suspicion is that they really didn't.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzt6nt","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"misersoze","body":"Just say: “hey I also met a Muslim, a Mormon, a Jew and a Hindu. They all make the exact same arguments as you do about why their religion is the correct one and they all say they have the one true religion. So why should I join yours over their’s”.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvztpz1","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Potential_Cod_8473","body":"They might win a debate but the world still is a shitty place full of diseases, suffering, birth defeacts. \n\nIt only prove how dishonest someone is to defend a claim it was created my omnipotent and omniscient being. \n\nChristianity was falsified many times\nAdam and Eve? Fairytale\nGreat Flood? Fairytale\nBabel's tower? Fairytale\nExocus? Fairytale \nRessurection? Really improbable\n\nThe fact that the scripture has to be interpreted in the face of new evidence like why would omnipotent God need 4 bilions years to create highly imperfect and miserable beings or why universe is 93 bilion light years wide and we are limited by a speed of light is a powerful evidence against revelation.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvztt3e","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"the_internet_clown","body":"Just because someone says something in response doesn’t make it a good rebuttal","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzugyn","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Relevant_Maybe6747","body":"Christianity doesn’t have a rebuttal against Judaism - they’ve tried and tried to kill us and never succeeded","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzuj4l","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Is that really a good argument though? By that logic, Islam doesn't have a rebuttal against Christianity either (or vice versa).","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw075ml","parent_id":"jvzuj4l","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Scott_The_Protogen","body":"Why \"debate\" someone's faith anyways? Unless they're being a jerk about it like in the last part. I always just have that whole live and let live thing (Even if some fanatics might not be that way either). I know you say some of these people come to you with the debates, but I feel like just giving a solid \"I don't want to talk about it\" or \"My views aren't going to change\" might work, even if they do continue to badger you regarding it, It doesn't have to be a winning-losing game.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzullx","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">Why \"debate\" someone's faith anyways? \n\nIn the first link, I was challenged to a debate out of the blue when I requested not to go to church anymore. He wanted me to read his spiel and change my views, or give a counter-argument strong enough to defend my views.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw07dt4","parent_id":"jvzullx","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Key-Extension1458","body":"2000 years ago there was a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem that took animal sacrifice from the people. This was fulfilling the Mosaic Covenant, and sustained Israel called \"Judea\". Like Jesus said it would happen, the temple was thrown down to the last stone and the sacrificial rite was \"nailed to the cross\" in the words of Paul the Apostle. This leaves us without redemption under the law, and everyone is guilty of sin everywhere. \n\nHence the figure of Christ intervenes, and made the ultimate sacrifice, putting death and guilt and hell itself into the fire. Now we have grace and mercy, and redemption by faith. It seems to work, since 2000 years of Christian history represented the general improvement of life everywhere. At the same time, the movement was hijacked by earthly forces resulting in \"churchianty\" and roman catholicism. All \"debates\" are just scholastic noise from that time, arguing in circles about nothing relevant. It is what it is, the temple of jerusalem was destroyed 2000 years ago and the levitical rites were nailed to the Cross.\n\nNow everything is a free gift, the more we cast off the old man and put on the new. Strong enough faith loses fear of everything and moves mountains, it is divine power given to mankind. God loves the children of this world and Israel in dispersion, which means everyone.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzur3s","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Key-Extension1458","body":"2000 years ago there was a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem that took animal sacrifice from the people. This was fulfilling the Mosaic Covenant, and sustained Israel called \"Judea\". Like Jesus said it would happen, the temple was thrown down to the last stone and the sacrificial rite was \"nailed to the cross\" in the words of Paul the Apostle. This leaves us without redemption under the law, and everyone is guilty of sin everywhere. \n\nHence the figure of Christ intervenes, and made the ultimate sacrifice, putting death and guilt and hell itself into the fire. Now we have grace and mercy, and redemption by faith. It seems to work, since 2000 years of Christian history represented the general improvement of life everywhere. At the same time, the movement was hijacked by earthly forces resulting in \"churchianty\" and roman catholicism. All \"debates\" are just scholastic noise from that time, arguing in circles about nothing relevant. It is what it is, the temple of jerusalem was destroyed 2000 years ago and the levitical rites were nailed to the Cross.\n\nNow everything is a free gift, the more we cast off the old man and put on the new. Strong enough faith loses fear of everything and moves mountains, it is divine power given to mankind. God loves the children of this world and Israel in dispersion, which means everyone.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzurg6","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">2000 years ago the Temple in Jerusalem took animal sacrifice from the people. It was fulfilling the Mosaic Covenant, and sustained Israel called \"Judea\" at the time. Like Jesus said it would happen, the temple was thrown down to the last stone and the sacrificial rite was \"nailed to the cross\" in the words of Paul the Apostle. This leaves us without redemption under the law, and everyone is guilty of sin everywhere. \n> \n>Hence the figure of Christ intervenes, and made the ultimate sacrifice, putting death and guilt and hell itself into the fire. Now we have grace and mercy, and redemption by faith. It seems to work, since 2000 years of Christian history represented the general improvement of life everywhere. At the same time, the movement was hijacked by earthly forces resulting in \"churchianty\" and roman catholicism. All \"debates\" are just scholastic noise from that time, arguing in circles about nothing relevant. It is what it is, the temple of jerusalem was destroyed 2000 years ago and the levitical rites were nailed to the Cross. \n> \n>Now everything is a free gift, the more we cast off the old man and put on the new. Strong enough faith loses fear of everything and moves mountains, it is divine power given to mankind. God loves the children of this world and Israel in dispersion, which means everyone.\n\nIs this supposed to be a promotion of Protestantism?","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw07io1","parent_id":"jvzurg6","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"danmilligan","body":"One thing I'm sensing is that you're thinking of Christianity as a monolith, and while that was once true, it hasn't been for a long, long time. So many types of Christianity exist that there will be Christians on opposite sides of nearly any given issue. The true non-negotiables of the religion are extremely minimal, and highly interpretive. Because of this, you can't really say \"Christians are like this\" or \"Christians do that\", because this will apply to SOME Christians, but certainly not all. For a good example, the majority of American Christians are extremely unique from a global perspective, being far more individualistic, and reading the Bible in a slavishly literal fashion, among other things. So if you say \"Christians are anti-LGBTQ\", there are millions and millions of other Christians ready to counter that.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzusf6","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">One thing I'm sensing is that you're thinking of Christianity as a monolith, and while that was once true, it hasn't been for a long, long time. So many types of Christianity exist that there will be Christians on opposite sides of nearly any given issue. The true non-negotiables of the religion are extremely minimal, and highly interpretive.\n\nI'm well aware of the splits within Christianity. What I mention in my post detail is that I have tried and miserably failed to defend my lack of faith from both Catholics and Protestants. I understand that they'd have different ways of thinking regarding lack of faith, but at the end of the day, both defeated me.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw07u6h","parent_id":"jvzusf6","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"GreasyPorkGoodness","body":"You need to dismantle the church hierarchy and not the “existence of god”. \n\nIt’s not that you don’t believe in god, you don’t believe in Christianities following of god. Their church is corrupt, opulent, child molesters, hypocritical, child marriage, judgmental, in Christ like etcetera. \n\nGod very well might exist, if he does he certainly won’t approve of christianity.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzuv92","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"CutiePopIceberg","body":"Christianity is Middle Eastern mythology. Christians hate when you remind them of this.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzv7py","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"JustSomeDude0605","body":"\"I don't believe in that bullshit\"\n\nDebate over.\n\nContrary to your brother's or pastor's wishes, you don't owe them any sort of debate or explanation. Live your life as you want to, not based on what they think you should do. If that means, no religion then stop going to church. \n\nFuck em.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzvaah","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"CriticalThinkingAT","body":"The thing is, there are a mountain of atheist rebuttals as well. Like literally there are so many atheist channels out there to rebutting every Christian argument that it's just a matter of searching and looking for them. Lol. You'll be fine.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzvipb","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">The thing is, there are a mountain of atheist rebuttals as well. Like literally there are so many atheist channels out there to rebutting every Christian argument that it's just a matter of searching and looking for them. Lol. You'll be fine.\n\nCounterpoint: Only a few of these are useful. Most channels appear to be useful only against Protestant pastors who rely on charisma. Catholicism is much harder to debate against as they have 2000 years of church tradition, intellectuals and apologia on their side.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw09z3v","parent_id":"jvzvipb","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"OpenByTheCure","body":"I don't want to be harsh, but I just think you're not very good at debating","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzvw3c","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"I am bad at debating (and most other things). Maybe that's why I always get challenged to debates, because I will lose.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0b11j","parent_id":"jvzvw3c","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Dr_Keyser_Soze","body":"You need to listen to David C. Smalley. Take in a few podcasts and you won’t be disappointed.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzvzk2","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Wintermute815","body":"It’s really not. It depends on circular logic and faith, both of which are critical flaws.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzx8zv","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"j3rdog","body":"Stop trying to debate facts by point counter point. Learn street epistemology. There’s good YouTube channels and subreddits on it.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzxa1z","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Unable-Food7531","body":"You're:\n\n1. Bad at debating in general\n\n2. An unskilled rhetorician \n\n3. Uneducated on the topic you're debating.\n\nThose Three things together mean than any attempt to draw generally-appliable conclusions from your debating losses is doomed to produce bs.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzxmej","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"How can I get all 3 skills when I'm up against people who have so much more knowledge than me? I hate it when I give others a reason to criticise me.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw05k0t","parent_id":"jvzxmej","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"DangForgotUserName","body":"Christians don't have arguments, just elaborate evasions of criticism.\n\nIn order to be religious, or believe in a supernatural god, to some extent, one has to deny certain aspects of science, and also have to deny the foundations of reason and logic. \n\n\nThere are major undemonstrated claims that come with theism:\n\n-a spiritual, divine, or otherwise supernatural realm exists \n\n-there are nonphysical spiritual forces and entities \n -some kind of afterlife exists\n\n-at least humans have souls, which are the spiritual essence \"attached\" to a physical body\n\nEven if all these were demonstrated, we would still have no way of determining which deities were real. These claims are also far from being demonstrated, likely, or even possible. \n\nEven then, we have no way to link such deities to any religion that anyone worships.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzxv11","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Electrical-Rabbit157","body":"It’s not well designed. It’s the worst designed religion in the world actually. The success of Christianity is based around keeping people from learning about other faiths. The moment that happens the VAST majority of them leave christianity for something else. Myself included. \n\nYou have to go at the fundamental hypocrisy of it. The average Christian rants and raves about the Ten Commandments and yet every single one of them break the first 2 commandments daily and most break 3 commandments every Sunday. The average priest breaks the first 4. Then there’s the fact that the Bible is a corrupt text and Christianity as a whole was founded by Paul, a man who is not a prophet, not a disciple, not an apostle, just a random guy who comes out of nowhere and starts preaching that Jesus is God.\n\nThey worship a trinity which is paganism. There is no excuse for it. It’s the same exact belief system as Hindus which are literally the original pagans that Abraham fought against. This trinity also includes a man. That man is considered a prophet but still. This breaks the first commandment. \n\nThey idolize said man and the cross he died on. They wear necklaces with it. They put big gold crosses at the front of their churches and big wooden ones on the outside of them. This breaks the second commandment \n\nThey go to church on Sunday and the vast majority of them believe this is the sabbath. Which directly breaks the fourth commandment.\n\nThe priesthood commits extortion and sometimes even rape in either the name of God or what they lead people to believe is a house of God. This breaks the third commandment \n\nThen you get to the Bible and it’s non existent integrity. There are about 5 major sects of Christianity. Each one has about 40 versions of the Bible. And the average Christian may think this is normal, it’s not. Jews have 1 version of the Torah. Muslims have 1 version of the Quran. Hell even the Hindus only have 1 version of most of their texts. The new testemant is more written by Paul, who is again, not a prophet, than any actual apostle. All of Paul’s letters are included in the vast majority of bibles yet the book of Enoch, book of Jesus Christ, and lost gospel to Peter are considered “uncanon” by the church and have been removed for centuries. That is not a holy text. It may have been a couple thousand years ago but out of 200+ in circulation today, I’d seriously doubt any can be considered uncorrupted.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzyqtq","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"malorane","body":"Isn't this other person either straight up lying or totally misinformed about the Christianity/Catholicism? Like I could be misremembering but I'm pretty sure there are passages that literally give you guidelines about how to treat your slaves and this dude said both have always been against slavery?","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzz7x7","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"CantKeepMeOutYo","body":"You will never win against someone with faith. They will always always always have some other bullshit excusw up their sleeves. That's what makes religion so fucking dangerous: it uses logic when it works and then completely disregards it when logic doesn't work. Don't bother debating christians, they've accepted a parasite into their body that will defend its ability to feed off the host, even if it means killing the host, or YOU.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzzg1h","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"wibbly-water","body":">If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\r \n\r \nIf you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\n\nIgnoring the second proposition for a second I want to propose 2 more reasonable secular arguments;\n\n1. This is true of all religions because their axioms and methods for diving truth are different. They believe, want to believe, will tie all phenomena in with their argument, will ignore Occam's Razor to do so. \n2. If Christianity is better than (some) other religions at doing this it may be because it is a highly evolved system of memes. A meme is the idea equivalent to a gene. Religions are memetic in nature - they are ideologies, ideas about how the world works. Memes compete for space and survival much like genes do. And every time one of its memes is threatened it is forced to either drop that meme and adapt or bolster it to do the same. Look at the iterations of historical Christianity. Where are the puritans today? Even Protestantism evolved out of Catholicism - many will claim that they are barely the same religion.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzzk96","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"DangForgotUserName","body":"The salvation of man is dependent on the suffering of Jesus Christ. His 'blood sacrifice magic' supposedly forgives original sin - doctrine that we know though biology is utterly wrong. (A couple of garden nudists were guilty of rebellious fruit munching, so everyone deserves death or eternal torment?) This makes the theological story around Jesus one where he is scapegoat of a nonexistent forebear. This should undermine the value of Jesus as well as the foundational basis for belief in God.\n\n \n\nFurther, the idea that the only way to forgive is through ritualized punishment? That is petty and immoral. No forgiveness without bloodshed or death. Horrible, ignorant and outdated ideas.\n\n\nThe idea of a messiah, one who will deliver us from the tribulations of the present, is an ancient idea that distracts us from the hard work that must be done to build a better world.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzzkww","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Emotional_platypuss","body":"The problem here is both sides trying to impose beliefs on others. What you believe or don't believe is your problem. You don't need to explain why you don't follow a religion, specially to religious people. Is like them telling you why their religion is so good. Break out of that circle and move on","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0052z","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"notjuan_f_m","body":"This Is the problem with everything lately. \"I am right, you are wrong, and I will continue to tell you until you accept that i am right\"","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw00l9j","parent_id":"jw0052z","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"JackedLilJill","body":"If anything, just from your text and title, the fact that Christians explain themselves fully in the face of debate, should be the reason to change your view.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw00vuq","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"FerdinandTheGiant","body":"For your first debate with your brother, he was just straight up wrong on so much. Christianity is not and does not serve as the basis for morality in the western world or the world as a whole. \n\nMost of the non-western world like in Asia is not heavily Christian and wasn’t for most of their history. They of course are doing just fine. Christian morals have not been consistent nor are they the basis for a basic society. \n\nAdditionally, you don’t need Christianity to explain altruism as it already has a natural explanation. It’s called kin selection and essentially means that it is beneficial to help out family since they carry your genes. This means more of your genes will get passed on. This is likely how it evolved in humans and then developed into what we consider today. Animals do this. Altruism isn’t human alone. \n\nThen you have slavery which the Bible openly says is fine. Leviticus 25:44-46","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw013nj","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"-Strawdog-","body":"Taking a quick look at one or two of these examples, you have a very noticeable habit of accepting a lot of the other person's premises and arguments without pushing back on them at all. As an example, your brother mentions multiple times that altruistic behavior is the direct result of the Christian faith, an argument that is absolutely ridiculous for a bunch of reasons, not the least of which that our closest genetic relatives (chimpanzees and bonobos) exhibit all kinds of altruistic behaviors as part of their highly social lifestyles (and they also don't sacrifice eachother, something he seems weirdly hung up on).\n\nTo be honest, it doesn't look like the people you're debating have good arguments or are good at expressing them, it seems that you are just very new to debate, particularly on this topic. If debating religious folks is something you want to do (you are incredibly unlikely to change their minds even with very good arguments), you can find plenty of solid resources online that break down and refute just about any apologetics you are likely to encounter.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw01pm9","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"lamabaronvonawesome","body":"I have found the opposite to be true. I would recommend reading some books on logic and debate. Having an answer doesn't make it a good answer. I had a debate teacher that used to day \"the definition of a reason is anything I put forth as a reason.\" This essentially means you SAY anything, that doesn't mean it will hold up under scrutiny. You mentioned miracles that a person had given you examples of in their own life. Debate in essence is about definitions, how we define things. Get them to give you the definition of a miracle. I personally would define that as any event that is ONLY explainable by divine intervention. See if their miracles hold up to that.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw02avd","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"kountze","body":"The Church did have some good effects on political and cultural development in Europe - for example the separation of powers came from the Church being a strong counter force to the government for so long, church limited the government in ways that led to values of separation of powers and limited government, unlike China which was much more state dominated and still is today. Protestantism represented not only a change in religion but also a change in how humans think logically - so yeah a lot of good things can be tied to how Protestantism changed how people think. \n\nThat being said, the above certainly is a far cry from saying that Protestantism values will work in every situation or that it can address all of today’s modern problems. Protectionism ideally is something that should be open to interpretation, which modern Christianity has moved away from that. \n\nIn terms of science the Church does not have credible arguments - that’s the main problem. If you think they do, you really haven’t encountered anyone who actually knows the science and microbiology. \n\nAlso, do not confuse correlation and causation. Certain positive developments in society may correlate, but that correlation does not prove causation. \n\n\nThe issue with","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw035en","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Jaderholt439","body":"If I’m debating Christianity, I like to go straight to the main topic- the Resurrection.\n\nMost people I know and love are Christians; I don’t have a problem w/ their religion. I love these people. But what I don’t like are apologists. Every single one that I’ve ever seen is dishonest. Especially when it comes to the Resurrection.\n\nIt’s not hard to believe that a guy named Yeshua, who had a religious following, was crucified. I can even believe he was put in his own tomb, although most were put in a mass grave, it’s wasn’t unheard of. The stone being put to block the tomb and guards sound like they were plot holes being fixed in Matthew, but for arguments sake, I’ll agree to that too.\n\nJesus wasn’t in the tomb when they went to him 3 days later. What is the most likely explanation? Is it, “he must’ve overcome death and ascended, bc he’s God”? I think a Guy Ritchie style heist is way more plausible. ‘They forgot which cave’ is more plausible. Literally anything is more plausible. If they are being honest, they have to say, “I believe it on faith”. Yet, apologists will not say this, therefore they are dishonest, therefore they don’t have an answer for everything.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw03fxs","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Entropy_Drop","body":"LOL on the first link. Christianity didn't opposed slavery, and doesn't have a monopoly on being a good person. It actually was the ideological fundation of american slavery.\n\nHypocrates wasn't christian, gandi neither, and personal freedom, democracy and equality of genders aren't christian values.\n\nThe golden rule (\"don't do to other what you dont want done to yourself\") and the silver rule (\"do to others what you want to recieve from them\" (bdsm, for example)) are not creation of christianity. \n\nSome christian are propagandiced all their life into the worldview of \"all good comes from christ\", which is clearly a big lie. Is kinda justified for them to sell that lie, tho.\n\nAlso, that motto has a counter-part: \"No bad comes from christ\" which is my only explanation to how incredible bigoted people justify their behavior without ever thinking \"are we the badies?\". Anita \"pie-face\" Bryant comes to mind, who, in her own words \"loved homosexuals\".","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw04f2l","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Jade_Skie","body":"TJ Kirk (aka The Amazing Atheist) on YouTube once mentioned \"unfalsifiable hypothesis.\" In other words, Christians spout the argument that miracles, what is said in the Bible, Satan, and God all exist and are as the answer to everything because immediate evidence to the contrary can normally not be produced by their opponent, thus no argument against them can be made. So in their minds, they are right. That is, of course, not how the world/universe actually works.\n\nTo quote Carl Sagan: \"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.\"","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw04j73","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"JuliusErrrrrring","body":"Remember the following truths: most people who claim they are Christians are good people; most people who are good people and claim they are Christian are good because of their ignorance of the Bible, not because of the Bible. The Bible is an awful immoral book and the religion is completely silly. It is pro slavery, pro genocide, pro forced abortion and pro incest. If you are debating anyone who isn't in favor of those things, they may be actually non believers too, they are just too ignorant of their religion to know any better.\n\n​\n\nIt is completely silly and does not hold up to debate. Just some quick obvious random thoughts off the top of my head: They suck at math - claim to have one god yet believe in a holy trinity as well as an evil god. Many Christians claim to be against abortion, yet the Bible actually gives an abortion recipe, god murdered pregnant women in his Noah's Arc genocide, and Jesus forced abortions on Jezebel. Many Christians are anti-trans and anti gay - yet Eve transitioned from a male rib and now they worship a dress wearing dude with two fathers who identifies as bread and wine. Cain and Abel were the original motherfuckers. The whole bible was written by people who never met Jesus and there is zero historical proof that there even was a man named Jesus pretending to be god. It's just a gigantic hoax that's been accepted due to peer pressure because life is easier and you can make more money and get laid easier if you simply play along with this silly marketing scheme.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw05bz4","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Loose-Technology7787","body":"Christianity is designed that way. Christians are programmed in a way via church and such where they hold their belief to a much higher standard than any facts or logic despite a lack of evidence. On of christianity's main taglines is to just have faith in god even though hes done nothing to show you hes there.\n\nDebating a religious person on religion is an unwinnable debate. You cant argue against someones opinion when the only points they will accept are those that align with said opinion. For example, many christians say good and evil only exist because god decides whats good and bad. I might say that life is meaningless, therefore our thoughts and feelings are all that exist making them all that matters. Meaning we get to choose whats moral; however the christian would then just say life isnt meaningless because god gives meaning to life. This will go on for any length of time.\n\nThe only reason atheists win those official televised debates is because theres a mediator keeping nonsense out of it. They keep the religious side from using unreasonable and illogical arguments, which leads to them losing.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw05l8j","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"BuzzyShizzle","body":"That's funny because, I have yet to hear them lose an argument/debate on the atheist experience yet. \n\nIf you haven't heard of it, there is a call-in radio show called \"the atheist experience\" and the entire show is welcoming any religious to call in and challenge them. If you want your view changed, that show will do a much better job than anything else.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw06l99","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Sad_Confidence8941","body":"I agree, Christianity is very well designed. The smartest people alive for many centuries spent their lives defending Christianity (Thomas Aquinas, Saint Augustine, etc). They have been philosophically attacked for years and years and are still here","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw06orq","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"nomad5926","body":"Homie out here saying the altruism isn't a natural thing without Christianity..... 🤣 Bro be saying Meerkats are all Christians? Or Naked Mole Rats?\n\nI will never understand why people have to force religion upon others. But essentially an easy way out is to ask them to provide solid proof that God existed. Logically you cannot not prove a belief. (Like others have said before me). Typically the ones making the claim \"god exists\" have the burden of proof. \n\nAlso in my experience you're not going to convince anyone to stop believing. It's the same reason kids believe in Santa it gives them something. For most people, religion is a source of comfort. It's why, from what I see, older folks are more religious. (Cause you know.... Closer to death... Heaven seems nicer).\n\nIf you just want them to stop harassing you, you can just say that your relationship with God is personal and need not be on disability for others. (You don't have to say the bit that the relationship is non-existent).","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0753r","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Moraulf232","body":"Christianity has an answer for any criticism but the answers are silly and unconvincing just like the religion.\n\nJust ask yourself “has this answer explained why I should believe these assertions with no evidence or has it just made more assertions with no evidence?” and “could this answer be used to justify the existence of a Flying Spaghetti Monster or literally any other deity?” or “is there any evidence that the person I am talking to can imagine that would cause them to change their mind?” etc.\n\nThe philosophical arguments (apologetics) religions use are just fancy noise. There’s nothing there.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw07atx","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"lpuckeri","body":"Theres many reasons why christianity is absolutely absurd, at a childlike and comical level imo. I have equal belief in it than i do Santa. The apologetics for christianity are just excuses for something as rediculous as believing in flying to heaven on a winged horse.\n\nLets remember, we are arguing about. A cosmic jewish god zombie who is his own father and was born a virgin birth to a women impregnated by a holy ghost. \n\nThere is zero evidence for this that is not heresay. Not a single item or record or peice of evidence contemporary to jesus exists. To confirm this laughably absurd story all we have is stories that contradict each other, written in the wrong language, written decades to centuries after the fact, much of which we know was straight up forged and copied from surrounding greek myths and people.\n\nGetting lost in abologetics is exacty meant to make you forget you are proving an absurd thing eith zero evidence, and get caught up in the weeds.\n\n\nReasons. \n\n1. Supernatural events in the bible are empirically impossible to prove. Christians may use awful arguments like minimal facts etc, but these are all comically bad and fallacious. Abuductive reasoning is all we have access to, and that can never demonstrate supernatural events... This alone is enough, as it is logicalltly impossible to demonstrate christianity through our resources.\n\n2. The bible is self contradictory, the trinity and more is exceedingly illogical. By this i mean it literslly violates the laws of logic... and is isnanely stupid.\n\n3. The bible is obvious myth taken from surrounding cultures.\n\n4. There are no decent biblical scholars who think Moses wrote the old testament. Moses clearly never existed and exodus never happened. This is extremely confirmed... there is extreme evidence the base of both judeaism and christianity is 100% made up.\n\n5. People that claim supernatural events or whatever... 1. Does not prove god, or their god... it proves they had something special happen and nothing more. 2. These are nothing more than claims. 3. People claim this shit for every religion, thousands... if you apply this standard as evidence for one... you must for thousands of gods. 4. Once you understand psychology you realize how the brain works snd how easy it is for people to misnterpret things visually and auditory.\n\n6. Religions are not one off inventions. They are all representations and copyings of popular myths at the time. This can be seen in thousands of religions. Just as it is in christianity... the devil and hell doesnt become a thing until Greek influence, things like rising and dying saviours were popular greek myths too at the time of the bible etc. In fact the bible was wirtten in greek, not aramaic, the language Jesis and his follower would have spoken. You see babylonian myths copied into the parts of the bible, when they were written there...you see the bibles hell and devil and apocalyptic influences copying greek myth during the hellenistic period. Religions are copies of surrounding myth and cultures.\n\n7. Apologists often use arguments to prove god that are diestic. Things like the ontological srgument, teleological argument... aside from these being bad arguments, they only prove A God... not christianity. Even if the Kalam is true... the odds of christianity bring true is still zero... it gets you no closer.\n\n8. The bible wasnt written by geniuses. It was written by copying and adapting popular myths, cultures, and laws at the time. From copying ancient semetic religions and near eastern traditions 4000 tears ago, to adapting greek myths 2000 years ago. It also was written of centuries, adapted, edited, revised, forged, faked, reinterpreted thousands of times by hundeds of people. This idea some geniuses wrote this thing like you see it now is childishly ignorant of scholarship and history.\n\n9. There are actually about 94 gospels. 90 of which christians will admit are 100% bullshit mythological stories... yet they somehow think these are the special true 4, because the church leaders centuries ago simply decided so. \n\n10. These excuses and arguments for christianity are no better and no different than the ones Jews will use, or muslims, or Sikhs. You just live in a place around christians most likely. \n\nIts interesting because i have never heard a christian argument to me than is not childishly rediculous imo.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw07u2w","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Inevitable_Spare_777","body":"You can’t have a factual, logical debate with a person who’s worldview doesn’t subscribe to facts and logic","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw08ays","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"drzowie","body":"There is no direct way to argue a Christian out of Christianity, because it is a faith-based system of beliefs. But you *can* demand respect for your own beliefs.\n\nA couple of years ago, I wrote about just how incompatible Christian beliefs are with the scientific worldview. That line of argument is (like any other argument) unlikely to convince a fervent believer -- but may help you to understand that there are real weaknesses in the edifice of Christian thought. \n\nBelow is [copypasta from an early CMV post I made](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/7zy9wp/cmv_you_can_accept_todays_scientific_theory/durqqmi/):","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw08i8h","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"DouglerK","body":"I mean if they didn't the religion would probably be dead by now.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw08xbe","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"joshp23","body":"> If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniouses\n\nAll they have at their disposal are unfalsifiable claims. You can't prove that the invisible dragon in my garage doesn't exist either. The rest is a con act to attribute personal experience to the dragon. \n\nBut unfalsifiability and con tactics aside, wouldn't a genius be able to construct an effective argument *and* compile an internally consistent document at the same time? You have to do mental gymnastics to apologize for the ignorance and inconsistencies in the Bible.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw09c2d","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Crookwell","body":"OR you just aren't a very good critic?\nBecause I can rebuke shitty religious claims all day","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw09wvx","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"redstar15551","body":"Maybe you should give up then? You're not gonna \"Gotcha\" Christianity so leave them alone. Your lack of faith and overabundance of cynicism does not bug anyone the slightest. Don't trap yourself because you view this as an unwinnable battle against some dogmatic close minded religion, when that in and of itself is close minded. There's a modern pushback against religion, Christianity specifically, that has been pushed hard; but Christianity has and will continue to endue.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0a4wk","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Various_Succotash_79","body":"When my brothers were young, they played a game that was very much like Calvinball (if you've never read the comic Calvin and Hobbes, this is a game they made up on the fly). So it was all stuff like \"now the floor is lava so you burn up!\" \"Oh yeah? I throw 60 million tons of dry uce on it and that cools it off\", \"well that was too much and now you're frozen solid!\" Etc. \n\nThat's pretty much what religion is. Your mistake is in trying to make any sense of it.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0b260","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">When my brothers were young, they played a game that was very much like Calvinball (if you've never read the comic Calvin and Hobbes, this is a game they make up on the fly, so it never has the same rules). So it was all stuff like \"now the floor is lava so you burn up!\" \"Oh yeah? I throw 60 million tons of dry ice on it and that cools it off\", \"well that was too much and now you're frozen solid!\" Etc. \n\n!delta\n\nAs you show, you can't get anywhere trying to defend yourself from a religion which is designed to dodge accountability and make opponents lose. It's not designed for a debate, it's designed to be inescapable.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw25sdi","parent_id":"jw0b260","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Collective82","body":"If you are having such a hard time debating it, shouldn’t you consider it’s right and maybe you should look at converting?","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0bbov","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"I have. The problem is no matter how hard I try, I have zero spirituality and a complete inability to be sincerely connected with any religion. I see this as a disability comparable to being unable to because it's such a drag on my life.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw263jo","parent_id":"jw0bbov","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Fluffy_Candle6800","body":"I'll give you a quote from a book I read - \"God is omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent. However, bad things still happen. This means God cannot stop the bad things - he is not omnipotent, God does not know the things are happening - he is not omniscient, or he allows the bad things to happen - he is not benevolent.\"","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0bhc0","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"I've accepted the last one. How can I possibly believe in a benevolent god, when he gives miracles to some and neglects genuine victims, or when the religion he designed has endless excuses and loopholes to dodge all accountability?","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw26dbi","parent_id":"jw0bhc0","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"ItsAll42","body":"I do feel as though you too quickly concede many points that are not accurate or honest, but stated with such confidence they are difficult to rebutt just as confidently without sufficient background knowledge. In fact, some of these claims are just straight up racist, such as claiming altruism is not only a strictly christian virtue, but that many values such as caring for the sick and needy or having basic human decency are strictly Western practices and values.\n\n This is wildly inaccurate to claim, knowledge of history can easily debunk such ludicrous statments, especially considering much of the Western ideology is more focused on individualism where confucianism is more focused on the community as a whole. Buddhism stresses that all beings have inherent worth and challenges the strictly heiarchichal values of confucianism, yet still plenty of emphasis is placed on how to better the community as a whole and being kind for the sake of altruism and kindness without any expectation of personal rewards. You do not have to be a historian or theologian to debunk so much of what this person is claiming, especially in regard to other Abrahamic religions which are incredibly similar to the teachings of Christianity, you know, because they share a common historical and biblical root. While modern interpretations of Abrahamic faiths run the gamut, they are more alike than many of their subscribers would like to admit. \n\nIn fact, I'd argue that Christianity and most of its branches contain more self-serving motives than many religious beliefs, promising prosperity and wealth in heaven as a reward for good behavior. As an agnostic person I do not need a reward for my good behavior. \n\nAs you tried to point out, when this person claims pagans did not care for the sick or other absurd claims, the burden of proof is on them to substantiate such a ridiculous assumption. \n\nThis person comes across as making many intellectually dishonest arguments, and you more or less concede or gloss many of these points without pushback.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0cszb","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">This person comes across as making many intellectually dishonest arguments, and you more or less concede or gloss many of these points without pushback.\n\nThat's because I didn't study history at a tertiary level. See how I'm a frequent visitor to r/AskHistorians - because I'm not smart or knowledgeable about history. Are you suggesting that to defeat Christianity, I'll need a university degree in history?","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw26yyz","parent_id":"jw0cszb","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"FerdinandTheGiant","body":"Most, if not all of the Western values people like to claim are “Judeo-Christian” in origin simply aren’t. For one “Judeo-Christian values” aren’t a thing as these groups have different values, however let’s consider a few things we value in the west. \n\n#Democracy\n\nIn the Bible, democracy is never extolled or even articulated. Instead, there are endless stories of theocratic, authoritarian rule and the divine right of kings. Power is always concentrated; it’s never distributed. In classical Greece, however, Athenians established what is generally recognized as the world’s first democracy around 500 BCE. This predates Christianity and arose with no Jewish influence.\n\n#Common Humanity/ Equality\n\nThis is simply not biblical. In the New Testament, women are forbidden from holding authority over a man, told to be silent in church, and instructed to be obedient and submissive to their husbands. The same word used for submissive in Colossians also is used to describe how slaves should be to their masters. Women can be killed if they’re suspected of having premarital sex; the tenth commandment forbids coveting property, which includes women in the same sentence as houses and oxen; if a woman was raped, she was forced to marry her rapist if the offender paid her father, and on and on it goes.\n\nNon-Israelites or gentiles were forced into slavery and treated as property. This is seen in Leviticus and all over the Hebrew Bible. Slavery was condoned and justified for thousands of years using the Bible. \n\n#10 Commandments\n\nA common argument is that these “laws” are where we derive most of our morals and values in the west. This is rather silly. \n\nFor starters, a lot of the commandments are about idolatry, however other Rules like “thou shall not kill” predate Christianity and Judaism by hundreds of years. Literally any and all functional societies require this rule to be in place. And all over the world you see non-Christian nations follow similar “laws”. This is because they are beneficial for building a society. \n\n#Other religions\n\nOther religions have much stronger moral codes that Christanity. Jainism believes so much in the value of life that they won’t even talk at night because they could accidentally harm an insect. Buddhists have a deep personal desire to self improve while also improving the lives of those around them. Same could be said for taoists.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0dbxm","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"That's the problem though. You assume that Christianity is pro-democracy and pro-equality when history has shown us that they'd gladly throw these concepts under the bus if it were in the way of their religion.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw27njn","parent_id":"jw0dbxm","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Circular360Angles90","body":"People often conflate these two completely separate ideas. God/Higher Power - whatever you want to call it, with - Religion. \n\nReligion, in its limited ability tries to use the concept of God in an attempt to sway your reasoning capabilities towards their doctrine. God, however is completely separate from Religion.\n\nReligion just seems to have a Monopoly on the word. People feel as though believing in a God or Gods means they should adhere to some way of “knowing” their God. - which is all that a religion really does. But rest assured that it is someone elses ideas you are digesting. Theres nothing wrong with consulting people whom you believe to be wise or have more experience, but if you start feeling like they have some sort of answer that you cant quite grasp, then your talking to the wrong people. \n\nThis is not something that anyone can “show” you or “debate” you about. \n\nGod isnt in a book. God isnt an idea you learn from the pulpit. God isnt reason nor logic. God isnt bad. God isnt good. \n\nYou are engaging in a debate where their is nothing to debate, thus you always be “outwitted.”\n\nThink for yourself, walk your own path. You’ll fall flat on your face initially, perhaps for many years and, if you can muster up strength to get up on your own and not ask anybody why you fell and why it hurts so bad - you’ll stop feeling “outwitted.”","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0f9fa","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">You are engaging in a debate where their is nothing to debate, thus you always be “outwitted.”\n\n>Think for yourself, walk your own path. You’ll fall flat on your face initially, perhaps for many years and, if you can muster up strength to get up on your own and not ask anybody why you fell and why it hurts so bad - you’ll stop feeling “outwitted.”\n\nIsn't this the problem though? Most people can earn external respect being just who they are. In contrast, I have to prove my respectability, and prove why I have valid views, and I always lose.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw2llv2","parent_id":"jw0f9fa","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"CIABrainBugs","body":"If God was real, his actions would prevent me from giving him any respect. I don't care if he's real.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0fl5d","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Nghtmare-Moon","body":"Read Carl Sagan’s demon haunted world. It’s the best essay to counter all religious arguments","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0g6mu","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"GainPornCity","body":"It's not that there's a rebuttle for everything. There's just a different lens to look through. \n\nSay an atheist has blue shades on and sees everything as blue. Christian sees everything as red. However, the one commonality between the Athiest and the Christian is the human construct..thereby despite being in different mindsets, they both acknowledge phenomena as they unfold in the world\n\nNo matter how much blue you speak regarding world phenomena, the Christian will respond to *each* phenomenon with a red response. \n\n\nThis phenomenon, you look at through a blue lens and say: \"The Christian has an excuse for everything, no matter how blue, there's always gonna be some red to speak on from their side.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0gw4r","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Realistic-Cat4116","body":"The only rebuttal you need is: \"Prove it.\" Keep repeating that over and over again. They can't, you win, end of argument.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0h3pm","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Okami_The_Agressor_0","body":"Debating things that are designed to explain all with a basis in non-falsifiable statements is impossible. Religions are all memetic viruses that are meant to superimpose a false sense of the world on their followers, there are other belief systems that do the same that don't involve god but a well designed memetic virus can't be successful with out being impervious to logic or ways to side step rational thinking. That being said many modern political beliefs are structured similarly and operate in a similar fashion to religions. \n\nReligion imparts a base line culture and morality to people that allows for a more respectful and peaceful society. Part of what make that possible is ideological sanitation of a populace. Diversity of ways of life sparks conflict and religion solves that a good portion of the time. You could potentially see how many recent events have been the result of diverse culture and belief systems, so any derivation of heterogenization of society would logically be rejected by such belief systems with understandable cause.\n\nI believe people should be able to do what ever they please but when there is no respect in society people seek control from government to maintain the peace. So the easiest way for a country to stay free is to remain an ethno/ideological-state, or very slow and controlled change. When accounting these things you must satisfy for the lowest common denominator which will inevitable reject things on the basis of tribal instinct.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0k3j1","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"ApeMummy","body":"You’re outwitted because you lack wit not because christianity is special.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0k3sk","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"SeymoreButz38","body":"1st is a citation needed. Second was a semantic argument. Third is a no true scotsman fallacy.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0kns0","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Ecoronel1989","body":"I think the issue here is your brother does a few things to confuse you.\n1. Switching between defending spirituality and Christianity.\n2. Berating you with words so it's hard for you to rebuttal everything that is said (an overwhelming tactic).\n3. Throws out unprovable claims that are opinions as facts.\n\nFor #1, there's a big difference between spirituality and Christianity. Christianity asserts it is the one true religion, all others are wrong and lead to a wrong lifestyle. Spirituality is a general idea about believing in something outside oneself. To Christians, spirituality is paganism (unless it's Christianity itself) and therefore wrong and cannot be accepted or celebrated. So your brother can't simply pick and choose to say spirituality is good for the health and then switch to say Islam is not a good religion as these are contradictory statements.\n\nBut this issue is linked to #2, he berates arguments with a ton of words and makes multiple \"points\" at once. This is a similar tactic to what Donald Trump has used during his time as a politician. Simply overload the other side with a word soup, throwing out multiple arguments that are each wrong, but takes effort to debate each of them. By the time you gather your thoughts about the first wrong statement, he's moved on to the next 3, it's overwhelming.\n\nWhich leads to the last point, that is throwing out unprovable claims in the midst of his word soup. Claims such as there would be no morality without religion are unprovable for modern science since we have had religion in all cultures for over 2000 years, so it's hard to test this \"fact\". Another one that comes to mind is saying there's objective morality in the Bible, which you argued is not because of the Bible. Another counterargument is that the interpretation to the Bibles teachings changes across generations (i.e. slavery allowed for priests) and is therefore not objective, but his claim is unprovable in general as you can only offer up counter examples he can claim we're people not following the \"truth\".\n\nOverall, I think you're doing better than you think at debating this issue. The larger issue is what others have pointed out, that you don't have to win this argument, simply live by what you believe is true like they do.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0m923","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"TimeFliesFaster","body":"It doesn’t have a good rebuttal as to why Jesus is the prophesied messiah of a religion that believes in a single unitary god. Especially when Jesus didn’t have the right ancestors and failed to meet the applicable prophesies (ie dead all coming back to life, temple being restored for all time, diaspora returning, war coming to permanent end, and entire world embracing scripture in messiah’s lifetime)","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0sjyl","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"David_Warden","body":"You are trying to prove a negative which is a waste of time.\n\nThey are the ones making the improbable claims so the burden of proof lies with them. \n\nIf they continue to pester you, ask them to prove it.\n\nI think you will find that it boils down to belief in the highly improbable that is not adequately supported by either evidence or reasoning.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw1cnr9","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"SaltiestRaccoon","body":"Sure. They have rebuttals. They're just not as good as you think they are. And they tend to be the same rebuttals over and over.\n\nI mean just to refute the ones you were hit with... In the first example, he paints the 'pagan' world monolithically while citing the worst examples from many different cultures, while kind of also ignoring that many of those things also apply to Christian nations. Pretty sure the weak and poor weren't running Medieval England, for instance. Likewise slaves were absolutely still a thing among Christians... the slaves just couldn't also be Christian. There were Christian Germanic warriors pillaging right along with the rest of them. Finally virtually any civilization that has kept slaves does in fact have laws about how they can be treated. It can certainly even be argued that serfdom is still just slavery but called something else to make it acceptable, as people can still be bought and sold, they just count as part of the land instead and likewise must work for their lord or face abuse or death. Sounds a lot like slavery to me.\n\nAltruism is in fact a part of human nature. It evolved because we are a social species and we are inclined to act for the good of our group, as our group is beneficial to our survival. There's a [great example](https://www.upi.com/Archives/1987/11/04/Cavemen-took-care-of-physically-disabled/5137563000400/) of a cave man skeleton with some pretty crippling deformities, who could not have hunted for himself that lived to old age. That means his tribe or his family unit was caring for him despite the fact he was a burden. And this is humanity in the stone age, at our least civilized. The Gauls, as well routinely collected a portion of taxes to help pay for their disabled citizens (though in Rome, it was preached if not always practiced that disabled children should be put to death.)\n\nIn a lot of instances he just seems ignorant on history and expects you to go along with it. A lot of it is very gish-gallupy too. He says so many wrong things that there's no way to correct them all without getting so bogged down with corrections that you can never make a point of your own, or even refute all of his errors. Don't allow that. Insist on arguing one point at a time.\n\nReally I think it's gaps in your knowledge more than Christianity being particularly difficult to criticize. I find it quite easy.","date":"2023-08-14","id":"jw3kj7g","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}]],"string":"[\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"DeadCupcakes23\",\n \"body\": \"Why does it matter if Christianity has a rebuttal for something? You can criticise the bible and Christianity based on what it says and the actions done in its name (context depending).\\n\\nPeople have moral values without Christianity and most things people appreciate nowadays are not inherent to Christianity, for example the bible allows slavery.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzggd4\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">Why does it matter if Christianity has a rebuttal for something? You can criticise the bible and Christianity based on what it says and the actions done in its name (context depending).\\n\\nBecause losing a debate due to their rebuttals makes me look stupid. Also, if you follow the links to their arguments, even the atrocities done in its name don't count because those fall under \\\"false prophets\\\". \\n\\nIt's like the Bible was written with this possibility in mind to entrap us.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzh2ui\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzggd4\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"tipoima\",\n \"body\": \"Christianity *was* fabricated, but not by geniuses. \\nYou're fighting against over two thousand years worth of apologetics, where all the weakest arguments have been pruned away. \\nHowever, as expected of something that isn't actually true, those arguments are often plainly wrong, be it due to logical fallacies, appeals to unknown, obtuse philosophy you probably don't know you don't subscribe to, no-true-scotsmanning, e.t.c.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzh8ep\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">However, as expected of something that isn't actually true, those arguments are often plainly wrong, be it due to logical fallacies, appeals to unknown, obtuse philosophy you probably don't know you don't subscribe to, no-true-scotsmanning, e.t.c.\\n\\nThis is exactly what they do. The problem is that \\\"I don't know\\\" is not an acceptable answer to them ([see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvhr81y/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)), whereas they already have something up their sleeve to entrap me. \\n\\nAs you mentioned, with 2000 years of experience creating answers, I even if I am able to point out something wrong or intellectually dishonest, they'll still have an answer for that, forcing me to spend yet more time and effort to come up with an answer. And I am not intelligent enough to create an answer for everything they throw at me, so I'm trapped.\\n\\nIt's an uphill battle, and one that can easily be lost. Until we can come up with a rebuttal they can't defeat, there will always be a risk that secular society and LGBT rights might be defeated.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzhurp\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzh8ep\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Watchyobackistan\",\n \"body\": \"Not really, most of their \\\"rebuttals\\\" are stuff like \\\"god doesn't give us all the answers\\\" and \\\"Don't worry jesus loves you\\\" Non-answers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzhdab\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"MercurianAspirations\",\n \"body\": \"But why should you give a shit? If you have conviction in your own beliefs, it shouldn't matter whether or not you can convince others using your super debater skillz or not. After all, if somebody were sufficiently dumb or insane, it would be impossible to convince them of the truth, no matter how clear and apparent the truth were; therefore, whether or not a thing is widely believed and people are readily convinced of its truth is not a guide to truth. When there was only one person on the earth who believed in heliocentrism they were still right, and the geocentrists were still wrong. The geocentrists had answers for every single objection, and they won every single debate, yet, they were still wrong. \\n\\nMoreover, it isn't that Christianity is super well designed or anything. It's just that people who have strongly held convictions are not available to be convinced by facts and logic. That's just how people are: they do not actually change their minds that much.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzhezx\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">But why should you give a shit?\\n\\nBecause I don't want my stances to look stupid. I was once likened to an anti-vaxxer for not being able to provide evidence to back my lack of faith.\\n\\n> If you have conviction in your own beliefs, it shouldn't matter whether or not you can convince others using your super debater skillz or not. \\n\\nConviction in your own beliefs doesn't make one right. Besides, their side also has a firm conviction in their beliefs.\\n\\n>When there was only one person on the earth who believed in heliocentrism they were still right, and the geocentrists were still wrong. The geocentrists had answers for every single objection, and they won every single debate, yet, they were still wrong.\\n\\nScience doesn't care about number of believers, what matters is the evidence. And in the case of heliocentrism, it was proven right by overwhelming evidence. I wish I had overwhelming evidence to back my lack of faith.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzih4p\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzhezx\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Mr-Bitter\",\n \"body\": \"Send your brother my way. I know of a way to convince him that it was Satan that wrote the Bible and can kill every single one of his arguments. I would thoroughly enjoy a civilized religious debate.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzhg91\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"ApocalypseYay\",\n \"body\": \">CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\\n\\nThis makes zero sense. Rebuttals require logic and facts, and there are only apologia and special pleasing fallacy described herein. \\n\\nLet's start from the basic - where is the evidence for chris, the alleged son of god, and somehow also god, that killed himself to please himself? There is zero historical evidence for this event, before we even get to the easily debunked claims of miracles, or the plainly immoral laws being promulgated as divine commandments.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzhig9\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">where is the evidence for chris,\\n\\n[Most historians accept that Jesus Christ existed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus). The rest of the biblical story isn't accepted by historians.\\n\\n>before we even get to the easily debunked claims of miracles,\\n\\n[I miserably failed at convincing someone that I don't believe in miracles](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvai6qm/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). How would you convince him?\\n\\n> or the plainly immoral laws being promulgated as divine commandments.\\n\\nHow would you convince them that their side is immoral? They have methods up their sleeve to dismiss the malice conducted in the name of Christianity, and justify the anti-LGBT commandments.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzj8qx\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzhig9\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"physioworld\",\n \"body\": \"The most important concept you have to remember is the burden of proof. It’s not up to you to prove the Christianity ISNT TRUE, it’s up to them to prove that it IS TRUE. So if they can’t prove their own religion you need to accept it, you don’t have to worry about disproving their beliefs. \\n\\nA good way to illustrate this, is whether they would accept comparable claims with comparable evidence from other religions. So if they claim that Christianity is true because it says so in the bible, ask whether you should also accept Islam because it says so in the Quran.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzhlry\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">The most important concept you have to remember is the burden of proof. It’s not up to you to prove the Christianity ISNT TRUE, it’s up to them to prove that it IS TRUE. So if they can’t prove their own religion you need to accept it, you don’t have to worry about disproving their beliefs.\\n\\nBut that's the problem - they consider themselves as proving it is true. For example, one guy who told me of miracles he received - [and I lacked a sufficient rebuttal to convince him he's wrong](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvai6qm/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzjexi\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzhlry\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Adam__B\",\n \"body\": \"You don’t have to defend not believing in something that is invisible, utterly silent, immeasurable, illogical, unscientific, undetectable and untestable. The burden is on them to prove a positive, not you a negative.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzi1gp\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"OrangeBlancmange\",\n \"body\": \"Why do you think you are losing? They obviously haven’t convinced you in these arguments and just falling back to faith (which is all they really have) doesn’t ‘win’ anything in any meaningful way. You won’t be able to argue them out of their faith so you can’t ‘win’ either. Ultimately it’s not an argument in the philosophical sense - they aren’t engaging in good faith and simply will not change their minds regardless of what you say.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzi24f\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"> they aren’t engaging in good faith and simply will not change their minds regardless of what you say.\\n\\nBad faith arguments are like doping in sports - they make it easier for them to win. You just need to be a good enough debater to win despite the disadvantage.\\n\\n>Why do you think you are losing? \\n\\nBecause I failed to be that \\\"good enough debater\\\". Any argument I can throw at them is utterly crushed and thrown back at me.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzk4ge\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzi24f\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Cayowin\",\n \"body\": \"How did you lose that debate?\\n\\nSlavery - Christians used the bible to promote the slave trade\\n\\n[https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/01/a-harvard-exhibit-on-slavery-and-christianity/#:\\\\~:text=In%20the%20modern%20era%2C%20Christianity,often%20used%20to%20justify%20slavery](https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/01/a-harvard-exhibit-on-slavery-and-christianity/#:~:text=In%20the%20modern%20era%2C%20Christianity,often%20used%20to%20justify%20slavery).\\n\\nYes there were abolitionists, but if the same text can be used to both justify and condemn an action how is that text a good moral guide?\\n\\nThe bible explicitly allows the owning of humans as property. So either god is not unchanging or he changed his mind. \\n\\n1 Peter 2:18, Saint Peter writes \\\"Slaves, be subject to your masters with all reverence, not only to those who are good and equitable but also to those who are perverse.\\\"\\n\\nYes they have prepared apologetics, it just means you need to do more research. Remember they have no evidence for their claims beyond personal gut feelings and a collection of contradictory, fictional and historic works.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzi8a8\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">Slavery - Christians used the bible to promote the slave trade\\n\\nI've miserably failed when using the \\\"what about slavery argument\\\" - it's in the link following \\\"It all started 3 years ago\\\". Sure, I could point out the pro-slavery parts, but they'll have a reason why that bit is irrelevant or misinterpreted. It's exhausting, finding every argument to throw at them, and having each one of those utterly crushed with more rebuttals thrown your way.\\n\\n>Yes they have prepared apologetics, it just means you need to do more research. Remember they have no evidence for their claims beyond personal gut feelings and a collection of contradictory, fictional and historic works.\\r \\n\\r\\n\\nI tried pointing out to someone that I don't believe in his \\\"miracle\\\". [My attempt failed miserably](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvai6qm/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzkhnt\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzi8a8\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Augnelli\",\n \"body\": \"What is the rebuttal for the Ark? What did the carnivores eat? How did the Kangaroos and Koalas make it up from Australia? What about fresh water fish? How much space was designated for JUST the elephants food?\\n\\nYou don't need to debate every detail, just enough to invalidate the core; the truth on which they base their faith.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzikz2\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">What is the rebuttal for the Ark? What did the carnivores eat? How did the Kangaroos and Koalas make it up from Australia? What about fresh water fish? How much space was designated for JUST the elephants food?\\n\\nThat's the problem - even since the medieval era, most Christians disavowed biblical literalism, because biblical literalism is easier to poke holes into. Instead, they've come up with apologia, and now, with over 2000 years of apologia to defend against, it's become an unwinnable fight.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzlcvy\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzikz2\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"ch0cko\",\n \"body\": \"No. I am a frequent debater on subs like r/DebateReligion and r/DebateAnAtheist and everything you've said here is just... no. The vast majority of arguments for theism or counterarguments against arguments against theism, generally lead to special pleading or other fallacies.\\n\\nHere's one post I recently made: [https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/15pjew5/extraordinary\\\\_claims\\\\_need\\\\_extraordinary\\\\_evidence/](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/15pjew5/extraordinary_claims_need_extraordinary_evidence/) which then links to another one of my posts that goes more in-depth: [https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/15ey939/if\\\\_religious\\\\_beliefs\\\\_were\\\\_subject\\\\_to\\\\_consistent/](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/15ey939/if_religious_beliefs_were_subject_to_consistent/)\\n\\nA lot of what Christianity said is very similar to other religions and old mythologies. It has a generic reward-punishment system/carrot and stick system, that is, a hell and heaven. On top of that, all of the claims in Christianity hold no good evidence with most being anecdotal. Most arguments for Christianity are not Christian-specific and more so just theism in general. Even then, those thesitic arguments lead to either, 1. fallacies, or 2. only making theism \\\"more likely,\\\" but even then, these arguments have counters.\\n\\nThey were not geniuses. A little clever, but they essentially copied other religions and mythologies and is a cookie-cutter religion. Christianity isn't wide spread just because of how \\\"logical\\\" and \\\"sound\\\" it is; indoctrination or generationally passing the idea down is a big part of it. There are also contradictions in the Bible which can be found at this website: [https://www.lyingforjesus.org/Bible-Contradictions/](https://www.lyingforjesus.org/Bible-Contradictions/)\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzirf5\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">They were not geniuses. A little clever, but they essentially copied other beliefs and mythologies and is a cookie-cutter religion. Christianity isn't widespread just because of how \\\"logical\\\" and \\\"sound\\\" it is; indoctrination or generationally passing the idea down is a big part of it. There are also contradictions in the Bible which can be found at this website: https://www.lyingforjesus.org/Bible-Contradictions/\\n\\nI wasn't implying that Christianity was \\\"logical\\\" and \\\"sound\\\". I was implying it was successful because it has so many tricks up its sleeve. It may be full of lies, but for every one I point out, I'll get one or more rebuttals thrown my way.\\n\\nThink of it as being like in the middle of a dense minefield. Whoever laid the minefield might not have a \\\"logical\\\" and \\\"sound\\\" reason for it, but any step you could take will blow up in your face.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzlzr1\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzirf5\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"xper0072\",\n \"body\": \"Just because someone has an answer for everything doesn't mean that the answer is a good answer. Your inability to properly debate the topic does not mean that the other side is correct in any way.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzj07m\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">Your inability to properly debate the topic does not mean that the other side is correct in any way.\\n\\nI wasn't saying the other side was correct. My point is that they are impossible to defeat and are good at ensnaring their critics.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzmc3l\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzj07m\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"razvanght\",\n \"body\": \"In my experience, Christian s believe that God is real because they feel He is real. Then you can ask them whether a person of a different religion can also use the same method (I feel Zeus is real because I feel Him) to conclude that a different god is real. Christians generally agree that that person used the same method (feeling based) to reach an opposite conclusion (Zeus, not God, is real). In my discussions at least, this argument works in that it gives people pause. Of course, it does not change their belief immediately because they have been holding it for some time but I feel like it adds a seed of doubt.\\n\\nDo you know the official Christian response against this line of argument?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzj0m8\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">In my experience, Christian s believe that God is real because they feel He is real. Then you can ask them whether a person of a different religion can also use the same method (I feel Zeus is real because I feel Him) to conclude that a different god is real. \\n\\nHow can I get them to accept the argument that \\\"oh I don't feel God is real, so don't force me to go to church\\\"? Because that argument always failed me in the past. Also, on a tangent, how are you able to \\\"feel\\\" Zeus?\\n\\n>adds a seed of doubt.\\n\\nPlanting seeds of doubt is a great political strategy. For example, in Australia, we have an upcoming referendum on constitutional indigenous recognition - and because the No side is so good at planting seeds of doubt, the Yes side is losing despite having academia and the arts sector on its side. \\n\\nBut back to the point, I tried planting seeds of doubt and failed miserably. The Christians I've had to defend my opinions from don't merely consider themselves as \\\"feelings based\\\", they consider their views as backed by literature (the Bible).\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzmy3i\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzj0m8\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Apprehensive_Box3199\",\n \"body\": \"I dropped my Catholicism at 21 after learning basic logic at University. In year 6 whilst at a Catholic school, we were given a Catholic Catechism - literally the manual for being a good Catholic. Most of the book is written in question-and-answer format. This is indoctrination 101. The first 3 questions are, and I quote:\\n\\n>1. Question: Who made the world? \\n Answer: God made the world. \\n> \\n>2. Q. Who is God? \\n> \\n> A. God is the Creator of heaven and earth and of all things and the Supreme Lord of all. \\n> \\n>3. Q. How do we know there is a God? \\n> \\n> A. We know that there is a God by the things that He made.\\n\\nRight there; in the first 3 question-and-answers is a Circular Argument. The entire basis of the Catechism is premised on a Circular Argument. If nothing else, the entire point of Catholicism is to justify the original statement that God exists.\\n\\nI looked through the whole of the Catechism highlighting anything I still believed. I highlighted a single sentence in the preface about doing unto others etc... NOTHING else.\\n\\nBefore you have a go at me for not knowing what a circular argument until I was 21 - I went to Catholic schools for all of high school and it is in their best interests NOT to teach that and it was the 80s. That's my excuse and I sticking to it.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzjc23\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">Right there; in the first 3 question-and-answers is a Circular Argument. The entire basis of the Catechism is premised on a Circular Argument. If nothing else, the entire point of Catholicism is to justify the original statement that God exists. \\n> \\n>I looked through the whole of the Catechism highlighting anything I still believed. I highlighted a single sentence in the preface about doing unto others etc... NOTHING else. \\n> \\n>Before you have a go at me for not knowing what a circular argument until I was 21 - I went to Catholic schools for all of high school and it is in their best interests NOT to teach that and it was the 80s. That's my excuse and I sticking to it.\\n\\nIn my experience, pointing out the circular argument leads to one of 2 outcomes:\\n\\n1. Getting more apologia that I am unable to defeat\\n2. The \\\"*Do you have a better explanation?*\\\" rebuttal\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvznrln\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzjc23\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Simbabz\",\n \"body\": \"The most important story of the bible is Jesus ressurecction, the gospels contradict each other in the telling of the story, hardly designed by geniuses.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzktxv\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">The most important story of the bible is Jesus ressurecction, the gospels contradict each other in the telling of the story, hardly designed by geniuses.\\n\\nNot sure what Protestants say, but Catholicism claims that slight differences with the same overall story prove it's written by real people observing the same things. We can accuse them of using a dodgy argument, but it still wouldn't undermine their side.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzp1ei\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzktxv\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"vote4bort\",\n \"body\": \"I think you're just trying way too hard in these debates and starting from the wrong point. You're coming at them like religion is something that can be proved through debate when it fundamentally can't. \\nThe religious rebuttal for every point will always be essentially the same. That is they'll say \\\"well I believe this I so\\\". And you can't argue with that because its not a statement that can be argued against.\\n\\nWhat can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzkuyc\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.\\n\\nThe problem is when they think they have evidence and you think they don't. [Here's an example with a Protestant](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jv9g3kt/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3), and we can't agree on anything.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzp2i6\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzkuyc\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"sapphireminds\",\n \"body\": \"You seem to be a poor debater. You are accepting a lot of arguments as true when they aren't. \\n\\nAll children are born atheists. Coincidentally, they just happen to usually believe in the god(s) their parents/community believes it. \\n\\nAnd personally, if there is a god with the power ascribed to it by the bible, I would refuse to worship it. \\n\\nYou also need to educate yourself about the null hypothesis.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzl8ri\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">You seem to be a poor debater. You are accepting a lot of arguments as true when they aren't.\\r\\n\\nI don't accept their arguments as true. I accept them as difficult to defeat.\\n\\n>And personally, if there is a god with the power ascribed to it by the bible, I would refuse to worship it.\\n\\nI wouldn't want to worship such a God either. [I've told a Protestant that if I were to accept that he indeed received a miracle, it would still prove that the Christian god is unjust](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvkkegk/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). But that argument still failed to sway him.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzqf91\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzl8ri\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"-paperbrain-\",\n \"body\": \"What you seem to be saying is just that you are not able, with the mere power of logic, to get Christians to abandon their belief.\\n\\nI hate to break it to you, but this is not a particular quality of Christianity. Anything people are dug in on will face this hill. Not only will you encounter it with every religion, but you won't argue many people out of their political doctrine, flat earth belief, or whether they side with Ross or Rachel on friends. People have rebuttals for everything about many totally conflicting positions. It's part of having strong beliefs and giving it some thought. And religions in particular have had a long time and tons of resources to give it thought.\\n\\nThat doesn't mean there's no room for criticism. Just that your expectation about change is ridiculously optimistic.\\n\\nHowever, regardless of how your personal debates are going, people are leaving Christianity in droves, partly because they don't find those rebuttals to critique to be logically, morally or emotionally satisfying. The fastest growing religious affiliation is \\\"none\\\".\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzlzcb\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">That doesn't mean there's no room for criticism. Just that your expectation about change is ridiculously optimistic.\\n\\nSometimes, I'm challenged to debate when I'm not looking for one (see my first link in the post details). I wasn't expecting to change anyone's views, just successfully defend my decision, and I failed even that.\\n\\n>However, regardless of how your personal debates are going, people are leaving Christianity in droves, partly because they don't find those rebuttals to critique to be logically, morally or emotionally satisfying. The fastest growing religious affiliation is \\\"none\\\".\\n\\n[Christianity is still growing overall](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_population_growth). Even if it's not growing in the Western World, this shrinkage is negated by growth outside the Western World.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzs5r5\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzlzcb\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"wrongfulness\",\n \"body\": \"What a waste of time\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzmu4k\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"The_White_Ram\",\n \"body\": \"This isn't hard. Christianity literally endorses slavery.\\n\\nIf you believe slavery is wrong then that's the only argument you need.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzniyg\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">This isn't hard. Christianity literally endorses slavery. \\n> \\n>If you believe slavery is wrong then that's the only argument you need.\\n\\nI tried using such an argument. [It backfired](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvztyn7\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzniyg\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"ElPwnero\",\n \"body\": \"I like the one Muslims use:\\\\\\nThe word of allah is perfect and if you find inconsistencies, then it’s your human brain that’s incapable of understanding the true meaning.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzoket\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">I like the one Muslims use:\\r \\n> \\n>The word of allah is perfect and if you find inconsistencies, then it’s your human brain that’s incapable of understanding the true meaning.\\n\\nI mean, they're basically insulting your intelligence. But isn't that a great bad faith tactic, dodging accountability by accusing your opponent of being too dumb to understand? I can't imagine myself faring any better debating a Muslim than debating a Christian.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzvglo\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzoket\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"indigoneutrino\",\n \"body\": \"The interesting thing is I've had the opposite experience. Plenty of experiences online and in person where they can barely rebut *anything* to the point that I've had a minister apologise she can't answer my questions satisfactorily. I've seen no-one rebut or even explain why the crucifixion makes sense without legitimising blood sacrifice. It just constantly defaults to \\\"Jesus paid for our sins,\\\" without explaining why the death of an innocent third party was accepted as a valid payment within a supposedly just system.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzppfh\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Pichkuchu\",\n \"body\": \">It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted\\n\\nJust because you got outwitted doesn't mean the other side was right, they were, in fact, blatantly wrong. Christianity is just as guilty of atrocities as any religion. Keep in mind that Christianity is 2000 years old and they enslaved people until 1860 and they had to be \\\"convinced\\\" by war to give it up. They genocided native populations in America and colonized Asia and Africa. There was inquisition. They burned people for heresy, including scientists. They weren't different from other big religions or even pagans. The modern view of the world and humanity encompasses non Christian populations too and one could argue that it's in fact the result of secularism.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzqu5n\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"StrangeAssonance\",\n \"body\": \"I’m curious why you think one has to prove God exists? \\n\\nAlso, when Jesus was on earth the Jews kept asking for a sign from Him. They were blind to what he was doing with His ministry. The world is blind, so when you try to have these arguments that you feel you can’t win, I think you aren’t ever going to win them. I can show you God through my words and deeds but if you are blind to that, you won’t see what’s there to see.\\n\\nJesus repeatedly talks about how blind and deaf people are to God and his word.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzr1ue\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">Also, when Jesus was on earth the Jews kept asking for a sign from Him. They were blind to what he was doing with His ministry. The world is blind, so when you try to have these arguments that you feel you can’t win, I think you aren’t ever going to win them. I can show you God through my words and deeds but if you are blind to that, you won’t see what’s there to see.\\n\\nThis is why I see my inability to believe as a disability comparable to being unable to read.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzzkhs\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzr1ue\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"mo_ff\",\n \"body\": \"You can have faith that your monthly bills will be paid whilst you have no money or means to do so OR you can actually have the money. One will work. The other will leave you with no utilities. Full stop.\\n\\nIn a debate with a Christian you would encounter, \\\"Oh, but have you no faith a brother in Christ would not help you?\\\" And then a large quantity of scriptural examples would be brought forth from whatever version of the bible they are most familiar with.\\n\\nAs others have stated, the deck is stacked. If you can approach the conversation with your family in a civil manor, stop going to church. Believe what makes you happy and mentally healthy so long as it doesn't hurt others.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzr2rx\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"HansPGruber\",\n \"body\": \"You need to read some Thomas Paine my friend. A renegade if the atomic age.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzrn0v\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Morasain\",\n \"body\": \"Couple things.\\n\\nThe first thing is that burden of proof is with the person making a claim - Christians in this case.\\n\\nThe second thing is - you don't need to refute the religion itself, because you can't.\\n\\nUsually, if you bring up things like pastors being molesters, or the crusades, or witch burnings, Christians will commit a No True Scotsman fallacy. \\\"These pastors aren't *real* Christians.\\\" You don't need to refute that argument because it is in itself wrong - but if you want, you can always go the path of saying that everyone in the church is, in the end, appointed by God.\\n\\nThe easiest way to reject Christianity is to instead reject God, though. You don't even need to prove that he's bad or anything - you need to use your own morality to reject the idea that a god like depicted in Christianity can be a god you want to believe in.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzrwx0\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"hdhddf\",\n \"body\": \"you don't need to convince them, they're arguing from a position of ignorance and indoctrination, you can't argue with that because their arguments aren't built on logic or sound reasoning.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzs63u\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Huffers1010\",\n \"body\": \"Let's do it by example. What did they have a rebuttal for that you couldn't respond to?\\n\\nMy suspicion is that they really didn't.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzt6nt\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"misersoze\",\n \"body\": \"Just say: “hey I also met a Muslim, a Mormon, a Jew and a Hindu. They all make the exact same arguments as you do about why their religion is the correct one and they all say they have the one true religion. So why should I join yours over their’s”.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvztpz1\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Potential_Cod_8473\",\n \"body\": \"They might win a debate but the world still is a shitty place full of diseases, suffering, birth defeacts. \\n\\nIt only prove how dishonest someone is to defend a claim it was created my omnipotent and omniscient being. \\n\\nChristianity was falsified many times\\nAdam and Eve? Fairytale\\nGreat Flood? Fairytale\\nBabel's tower? Fairytale\\nExocus? Fairytale \\nRessurection? Really improbable\\n\\nThe fact that the scripture has to be interpreted in the face of new evidence like why would omnipotent God need 4 bilions years to create highly imperfect and miserable beings or why universe is 93 bilion light years wide and we are limited by a speed of light is a powerful evidence against revelation.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvztt3e\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"the_internet_clown\",\n \"body\": \"Just because someone says something in response doesn’t make it a good rebuttal\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzugyn\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Relevant_Maybe6747\",\n \"body\": \"Christianity doesn’t have a rebuttal against Judaism - they’ve tried and tried to kill us and never succeeded\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzuj4l\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Is that really a good argument though? By that logic, Islam doesn't have a rebuttal against Christianity either (or vice versa).\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw075ml\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzuj4l\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Scott_The_Protogen\",\n \"body\": \"Why \\\"debate\\\" someone's faith anyways? Unless they're being a jerk about it like in the last part. I always just have that whole live and let live thing (Even if some fanatics might not be that way either). I know you say some of these people come to you with the debates, but I feel like just giving a solid \\\"I don't want to talk about it\\\" or \\\"My views aren't going to change\\\" might work, even if they do continue to badger you regarding it, It doesn't have to be a winning-losing game.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzullx\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">Why \\\"debate\\\" someone's faith anyways? \\n\\nIn the first link, I was challenged to a debate out of the blue when I requested not to go to church anymore. He wanted me to read his spiel and change my views, or give a counter-argument strong enough to defend my views.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw07dt4\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzullx\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Key-Extension1458\",\n \"body\": \"2000 years ago there was a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem that took animal sacrifice from the people. This was fulfilling the Mosaic Covenant, and sustained Israel called \\\"Judea\\\". Like Jesus said it would happen, the temple was thrown down to the last stone and the sacrificial rite was \\\"nailed to the cross\\\" in the words of Paul the Apostle. This leaves us without redemption under the law, and everyone is guilty of sin everywhere. \\n\\nHence the figure of Christ intervenes, and made the ultimate sacrifice, putting death and guilt and hell itself into the fire. Now we have grace and mercy, and redemption by faith. It seems to work, since 2000 years of Christian history represented the general improvement of life everywhere. At the same time, the movement was hijacked by earthly forces resulting in \\\"churchianty\\\" and roman catholicism. All \\\"debates\\\" are just scholastic noise from that time, arguing in circles about nothing relevant. It is what it is, the temple of jerusalem was destroyed 2000 years ago and the levitical rites were nailed to the Cross.\\n\\nNow everything is a free gift, the more we cast off the old man and put on the new. Strong enough faith loses fear of everything and moves mountains, it is divine power given to mankind. God loves the children of this world and Israel in dispersion, which means everyone.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzur3s\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Key-Extension1458\",\n \"body\": \"2000 years ago there was a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem that took animal sacrifice from the people. This was fulfilling the Mosaic Covenant, and sustained Israel called \\\"Judea\\\". Like Jesus said it would happen, the temple was thrown down to the last stone and the sacrificial rite was \\\"nailed to the cross\\\" in the words of Paul the Apostle. This leaves us without redemption under the law, and everyone is guilty of sin everywhere. \\n\\nHence the figure of Christ intervenes, and made the ultimate sacrifice, putting death and guilt and hell itself into the fire. Now we have grace and mercy, and redemption by faith. It seems to work, since 2000 years of Christian history represented the general improvement of life everywhere. At the same time, the movement was hijacked by earthly forces resulting in \\\"churchianty\\\" and roman catholicism. All \\\"debates\\\" are just scholastic noise from that time, arguing in circles about nothing relevant. It is what it is, the temple of jerusalem was destroyed 2000 years ago and the levitical rites were nailed to the Cross.\\n\\nNow everything is a free gift, the more we cast off the old man and put on the new. Strong enough faith loses fear of everything and moves mountains, it is divine power given to mankind. God loves the children of this world and Israel in dispersion, which means everyone.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzurg6\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">2000 years ago the Temple in Jerusalem took animal sacrifice from the people. It was fulfilling the Mosaic Covenant, and sustained Israel called \\\"Judea\\\" at the time. Like Jesus said it would happen, the temple was thrown down to the last stone and the sacrificial rite was \\\"nailed to the cross\\\" in the words of Paul the Apostle. This leaves us without redemption under the law, and everyone is guilty of sin everywhere. \\n> \\n>Hence the figure of Christ intervenes, and made the ultimate sacrifice, putting death and guilt and hell itself into the fire. Now we have grace and mercy, and redemption by faith. It seems to work, since 2000 years of Christian history represented the general improvement of life everywhere. At the same time, the movement was hijacked by earthly forces resulting in \\\"churchianty\\\" and roman catholicism. All \\\"debates\\\" are just scholastic noise from that time, arguing in circles about nothing relevant. It is what it is, the temple of jerusalem was destroyed 2000 years ago and the levitical rites were nailed to the Cross. \\n> \\n>Now everything is a free gift, the more we cast off the old man and put on the new. Strong enough faith loses fear of everything and moves mountains, it is divine power given to mankind. God loves the children of this world and Israel in dispersion, which means everyone.\\n\\nIs this supposed to be a promotion of Protestantism?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw07io1\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzurg6\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"danmilligan\",\n \"body\": \"One thing I'm sensing is that you're thinking of Christianity as a monolith, and while that was once true, it hasn't been for a long, long time. So many types of Christianity exist that there will be Christians on opposite sides of nearly any given issue. The true non-negotiables of the religion are extremely minimal, and highly interpretive. Because of this, you can't really say \\\"Christians are like this\\\" or \\\"Christians do that\\\", because this will apply to SOME Christians, but certainly not all. For a good example, the majority of American Christians are extremely unique from a global perspective, being far more individualistic, and reading the Bible in a slavishly literal fashion, among other things. So if you say \\\"Christians are anti-LGBTQ\\\", there are millions and millions of other Christians ready to counter that.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzusf6\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">One thing I'm sensing is that you're thinking of Christianity as a monolith, and while that was once true, it hasn't been for a long, long time. So many types of Christianity exist that there will be Christians on opposite sides of nearly any given issue. The true non-negotiables of the religion are extremely minimal, and highly interpretive.\\n\\nI'm well aware of the splits within Christianity. What I mention in my post detail is that I have tried and miserably failed to defend my lack of faith from both Catholics and Protestants. I understand that they'd have different ways of thinking regarding lack of faith, but at the end of the day, both defeated me.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw07u6h\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzusf6\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"GreasyPorkGoodness\",\n \"body\": \"You need to dismantle the church hierarchy and not the “existence of god”. \\n\\nIt’s not that you don’t believe in god, you don’t believe in Christianities following of god. Their church is corrupt, opulent, child molesters, hypocritical, child marriage, judgmental, in Christ like etcetera. \\n\\nGod very well might exist, if he does he certainly won’t approve of christianity.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzuv92\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CutiePopIceberg\",\n \"body\": \"Christianity is Middle Eastern mythology. Christians hate when you remind them of this.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzv7py\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"JustSomeDude0605\",\n \"body\": \"\\\"I don't believe in that bullshit\\\"\\n\\nDebate over.\\n\\nContrary to your brother's or pastor's wishes, you don't owe them any sort of debate or explanation. Live your life as you want to, not based on what they think you should do. If that means, no religion then stop going to church. \\n\\nFuck em.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzvaah\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CriticalThinkingAT\",\n \"body\": \"The thing is, there are a mountain of atheist rebuttals as well. Like literally there are so many atheist channels out there to rebutting every Christian argument that it's just a matter of searching and looking for them. Lol. You'll be fine.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzvipb\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">The thing is, there are a mountain of atheist rebuttals as well. Like literally there are so many atheist channels out there to rebutting every Christian argument that it's just a matter of searching and looking for them. Lol. You'll be fine.\\n\\nCounterpoint: Only a few of these are useful. Most channels appear to be useful only against Protestant pastors who rely on charisma. Catholicism is much harder to debate against as they have 2000 years of church tradition, intellectuals and apologia on their side.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw09z3v\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzvipb\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"OpenByTheCure\",\n \"body\": \"I don't want to be harsh, but I just think you're not very good at debating\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzvw3c\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"I am bad at debating (and most other things). Maybe that's why I always get challenged to debates, because I will lose.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0b11j\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzvw3c\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Dr_Keyser_Soze\",\n \"body\": \"You need to listen to David C. Smalley. Take in a few podcasts and you won’t be disappointed.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzvzk2\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Wintermute815\",\n \"body\": \"It’s really not. It depends on circular logic and faith, both of which are critical flaws.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzx8zv\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"j3rdog\",\n \"body\": \"Stop trying to debate facts by point counter point. Learn street epistemology. There’s good YouTube channels and subreddits on it.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzxa1z\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Unable-Food7531\",\n \"body\": \"You're:\\n\\n1. Bad at debating in general\\n\\n2. An unskilled rhetorician \\n\\n3. Uneducated on the topic you're debating.\\n\\nThose Three things together mean than any attempt to draw generally-appliable conclusions from your debating losses is doomed to produce bs.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzxmej\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"How can I get all 3 skills when I'm up against people who have so much more knowledge than me? I hate it when I give others a reason to criticise me.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw05k0t\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzxmej\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"DangForgotUserName\",\n \"body\": \"Christians don't have arguments, just elaborate evasions of criticism.\\n\\nIn order to be religious, or believe in a supernatural god, to some extent, one has to deny certain aspects of science, and also have to deny the foundations of reason and logic. \\n\\n\\nThere are major undemonstrated claims that come with theism:\\n\\n-a spiritual, divine, or otherwise supernatural realm exists \\n\\n-there are nonphysical spiritual forces and entities \\n -some kind of afterlife exists\\n\\n-at least humans have souls, which are the spiritual essence \\\"attached\\\" to a physical body\\n\\nEven if all these were demonstrated, we would still have no way of determining which deities were real. These claims are also far from being demonstrated, likely, or even possible. \\n\\nEven then, we have no way to link such deities to any religion that anyone worships.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzxv11\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Electrical-Rabbit157\",\n \"body\": \"It’s not well designed. It’s the worst designed religion in the world actually. The success of Christianity is based around keeping people from learning about other faiths. The moment that happens the VAST majority of them leave christianity for something else. Myself included. \\n\\nYou have to go at the fundamental hypocrisy of it. The average Christian rants and raves about the Ten Commandments and yet every single one of them break the first 2 commandments daily and most break 3 commandments every Sunday. The average priest breaks the first 4. Then there’s the fact that the Bible is a corrupt text and Christianity as a whole was founded by Paul, a man who is not a prophet, not a disciple, not an apostle, just a random guy who comes out of nowhere and starts preaching that Jesus is God.\\n\\nThey worship a trinity which is paganism. There is no excuse for it. It’s the same exact belief system as Hindus which are literally the original pagans that Abraham fought against. This trinity also includes a man. That man is considered a prophet but still. This breaks the first commandment. \\n\\nThey idolize said man and the cross he died on. They wear necklaces with it. They put big gold crosses at the front of their churches and big wooden ones on the outside of them. This breaks the second commandment \\n\\nThey go to church on Sunday and the vast majority of them believe this is the sabbath. Which directly breaks the fourth commandment.\\n\\nThe priesthood commits extortion and sometimes even rape in either the name of God or what they lead people to believe is a house of God. This breaks the third commandment \\n\\nThen you get to the Bible and it’s non existent integrity. There are about 5 major sects of Christianity. Each one has about 40 versions of the Bible. And the average Christian may think this is normal, it’s not. Jews have 1 version of the Torah. Muslims have 1 version of the Quran. Hell even the Hindus only have 1 version of most of their texts. The new testemant is more written by Paul, who is again, not a prophet, than any actual apostle. All of Paul’s letters are included in the vast majority of bibles yet the book of Enoch, book of Jesus Christ, and lost gospel to Peter are considered “uncanon” by the church and have been removed for centuries. That is not a holy text. It may have been a couple thousand years ago but out of 200+ in circulation today, I’d seriously doubt any can be considered uncorrupted.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzyqtq\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"malorane\",\n \"body\": \"Isn't this other person either straight up lying or totally misinformed about the Christianity/Catholicism? Like I could be misremembering but I'm pretty sure there are passages that literally give you guidelines about how to treat your slaves and this dude said both have always been against slavery?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzz7x7\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CantKeepMeOutYo\",\n \"body\": \"You will never win against someone with faith. They will always always always have some other bullshit excusw up their sleeves. That's what makes religion so fucking dangerous: it uses logic when it works and then completely disregards it when logic doesn't work. Don't bother debating christians, they've accepted a parasite into their body that will defend its ability to feed off the host, even if it means killing the host, or YOU.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzzg1h\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"wibbly-water\",\n \"body\": \">If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\r \\n\\r \\nIf you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\\n\\nIgnoring the second proposition for a second I want to propose 2 more reasonable secular arguments;\\n\\n1. This is true of all religions because their axioms and methods for diving truth are different. They believe, want to believe, will tie all phenomena in with their argument, will ignore Occam's Razor to do so. \\n2. If Christianity is better than (some) other religions at doing this it may be because it is a highly evolved system of memes. A meme is the idea equivalent to a gene. Religions are memetic in nature - they are ideologies, ideas about how the world works. Memes compete for space and survival much like genes do. And every time one of its memes is threatened it is forced to either drop that meme and adapt or bolster it to do the same. Look at the iterations of historical Christianity. Where are the puritans today? Even Protestantism evolved out of Catholicism - many will claim that they are barely the same religion.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzzk96\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"DangForgotUserName\",\n \"body\": \"The salvation of man is dependent on the suffering of Jesus Christ. His 'blood sacrifice magic' supposedly forgives original sin - doctrine that we know though biology is utterly wrong. (A couple of garden nudists were guilty of rebellious fruit munching, so everyone deserves death or eternal torment?) This makes the theological story around Jesus one where he is scapegoat of a nonexistent forebear. This should undermine the value of Jesus as well as the foundational basis for belief in God.\\n\\n \\n\\nFurther, the idea that the only way to forgive is through ritualized punishment? That is petty and immoral. No forgiveness without bloodshed or death. Horrible, ignorant and outdated ideas.\\n\\n\\nThe idea of a messiah, one who will deliver us from the tribulations of the present, is an ancient idea that distracts us from the hard work that must be done to build a better world.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzzkww\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Emotional_platypuss\",\n \"body\": \"The problem here is both sides trying to impose beliefs on others. What you believe or don't believe is your problem. You don't need to explain why you don't follow a religion, specially to religious people. Is like them telling you why their religion is so good. Break out of that circle and move on\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0052z\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"notjuan_f_m\",\n \"body\": \"This Is the problem with everything lately. \\\"I am right, you are wrong, and I will continue to tell you until you accept that i am right\\\"\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw00l9j\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jw0052z\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"JackedLilJill\",\n \"body\": \"If anything, just from your text and title, the fact that Christians explain themselves fully in the face of debate, should be the reason to change your view.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw00vuq\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"FerdinandTheGiant\",\n \"body\": \"For your first debate with your brother, he was just straight up wrong on so much. Christianity is not and does not serve as the basis for morality in the western world or the world as a whole. \\n\\nMost of the non-western world like in Asia is not heavily Christian and wasn’t for most of their history. They of course are doing just fine. Christian morals have not been consistent nor are they the basis for a basic society. \\n\\nAdditionally, you don’t need Christianity to explain altruism as it already has a natural explanation. It’s called kin selection and essentially means that it is beneficial to help out family since they carry your genes. This means more of your genes will get passed on. This is likely how it evolved in humans and then developed into what we consider today. Animals do this. Altruism isn’t human alone. \\n\\nThen you have slavery which the Bible openly says is fine. Leviticus 25:44-46\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw013nj\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"-Strawdog-\",\n \"body\": \"Taking a quick look at one or two of these examples, you have a very noticeable habit of accepting a lot of the other person's premises and arguments without pushing back on them at all. As an example, your brother mentions multiple times that altruistic behavior is the direct result of the Christian faith, an argument that is absolutely ridiculous for a bunch of reasons, not the least of which that our closest genetic relatives (chimpanzees and bonobos) exhibit all kinds of altruistic behaviors as part of their highly social lifestyles (and they also don't sacrifice eachother, something he seems weirdly hung up on).\\n\\nTo be honest, it doesn't look like the people you're debating have good arguments or are good at expressing them, it seems that you are just very new to debate, particularly on this topic. If debating religious folks is something you want to do (you are incredibly unlikely to change their minds even with very good arguments), you can find plenty of solid resources online that break down and refute just about any apologetics you are likely to encounter.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw01pm9\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"lamabaronvonawesome\",\n \"body\": \"I have found the opposite to be true. I would recommend reading some books on logic and debate. Having an answer doesn't make it a good answer. I had a debate teacher that used to day \\\"the definition of a reason is anything I put forth as a reason.\\\" This essentially means you SAY anything, that doesn't mean it will hold up under scrutiny. You mentioned miracles that a person had given you examples of in their own life. Debate in essence is about definitions, how we define things. Get them to give you the definition of a miracle. I personally would define that as any event that is ONLY explainable by divine intervention. See if their miracles hold up to that.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw02avd\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"kountze\",\n \"body\": \"The Church did have some good effects on political and cultural development in Europe - for example the separation of powers came from the Church being a strong counter force to the government for so long, church limited the government in ways that led to values of separation of powers and limited government, unlike China which was much more state dominated and still is today. Protestantism represented not only a change in religion but also a change in how humans think logically - so yeah a lot of good things can be tied to how Protestantism changed how people think. \\n\\nThat being said, the above certainly is a far cry from saying that Protestantism values will work in every situation or that it can address all of today’s modern problems. Protectionism ideally is something that should be open to interpretation, which modern Christianity has moved away from that. \\n\\nIn terms of science the Church does not have credible arguments - that’s the main problem. If you think they do, you really haven’t encountered anyone who actually knows the science and microbiology. \\n\\nAlso, do not confuse correlation and causation. Certain positive developments in society may correlate, but that correlation does not prove causation. \\n\\n\\nThe issue with\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw035en\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Jaderholt439\",\n \"body\": \"If I’m debating Christianity, I like to go straight to the main topic- the Resurrection.\\n\\nMost people I know and love are Christians; I don’t have a problem w/ their religion. I love these people. But what I don’t like are apologists. Every single one that I’ve ever seen is dishonest. Especially when it comes to the Resurrection.\\n\\nIt’s not hard to believe that a guy named Yeshua, who had a religious following, was crucified. I can even believe he was put in his own tomb, although most were put in a mass grave, it’s wasn’t unheard of. The stone being put to block the tomb and guards sound like they were plot holes being fixed in Matthew, but for arguments sake, I’ll agree to that too.\\n\\nJesus wasn’t in the tomb when they went to him 3 days later. What is the most likely explanation? Is it, “he must’ve overcome death and ascended, bc he’s God”? I think a Guy Ritchie style heist is way more plausible. ‘They forgot which cave’ is more plausible. Literally anything is more plausible. If they are being honest, they have to say, “I believe it on faith”. Yet, apologists will not say this, therefore they are dishonest, therefore they don’t have an answer for everything.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw03fxs\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Entropy_Drop\",\n \"body\": \"LOL on the first link. Christianity didn't opposed slavery, and doesn't have a monopoly on being a good person. It actually was the ideological fundation of american slavery.\\n\\nHypocrates wasn't christian, gandi neither, and personal freedom, democracy and equality of genders aren't christian values.\\n\\nThe golden rule (\\\"don't do to other what you dont want done to yourself\\\") and the silver rule (\\\"do to others what you want to recieve from them\\\" (bdsm, for example)) are not creation of christianity. \\n\\nSome christian are propagandiced all their life into the worldview of \\\"all good comes from christ\\\", which is clearly a big lie. Is kinda justified for them to sell that lie, tho.\\n\\nAlso, that motto has a counter-part: \\\"No bad comes from christ\\\" which is my only explanation to how incredible bigoted people justify their behavior without ever thinking \\\"are we the badies?\\\". Anita \\\"pie-face\\\" Bryant comes to mind, who, in her own words \\\"loved homosexuals\\\".\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw04f2l\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Jade_Skie\",\n \"body\": \"TJ Kirk (aka The Amazing Atheist) on YouTube once mentioned \\\"unfalsifiable hypothesis.\\\" In other words, Christians spout the argument that miracles, what is said in the Bible, Satan, and God all exist and are as the answer to everything because immediate evidence to the contrary can normally not be produced by their opponent, thus no argument against them can be made. So in their minds, they are right. That is, of course, not how the world/universe actually works.\\n\\nTo quote Carl Sagan: \\\"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.\\\"\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw04j73\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"JuliusErrrrrring\",\n \"body\": \"Remember the following truths: most people who claim they are Christians are good people; most people who are good people and claim they are Christian are good because of their ignorance of the Bible, not because of the Bible. The Bible is an awful immoral book and the religion is completely silly. It is pro slavery, pro genocide, pro forced abortion and pro incest. If you are debating anyone who isn't in favor of those things, they may be actually non believers too, they are just too ignorant of their religion to know any better.\\n\\n​\\n\\nIt is completely silly and does not hold up to debate. Just some quick obvious random thoughts off the top of my head: They suck at math - claim to have one god yet believe in a holy trinity as well as an evil god. Many Christians claim to be against abortion, yet the Bible actually gives an abortion recipe, god murdered pregnant women in his Noah's Arc genocide, and Jesus forced abortions on Jezebel. Many Christians are anti-trans and anti gay - yet Eve transitioned from a male rib and now they worship a dress wearing dude with two fathers who identifies as bread and wine. Cain and Abel were the original motherfuckers. The whole bible was written by people who never met Jesus and there is zero historical proof that there even was a man named Jesus pretending to be god. It's just a gigantic hoax that's been accepted due to peer pressure because life is easier and you can make more money and get laid easier if you simply play along with this silly marketing scheme.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw05bz4\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Loose-Technology7787\",\n \"body\": \"Christianity is designed that way. Christians are programmed in a way via church and such where they hold their belief to a much higher standard than any facts or logic despite a lack of evidence. On of christianity's main taglines is to just have faith in god even though hes done nothing to show you hes there.\\n\\nDebating a religious person on religion is an unwinnable debate. You cant argue against someones opinion when the only points they will accept are those that align with said opinion. For example, many christians say good and evil only exist because god decides whats good and bad. I might say that life is meaningless, therefore our thoughts and feelings are all that exist making them all that matters. Meaning we get to choose whats moral; however the christian would then just say life isnt meaningless because god gives meaning to life. This will go on for any length of time.\\n\\nThe only reason atheists win those official televised debates is because theres a mediator keeping nonsense out of it. They keep the religious side from using unreasonable and illogical arguments, which leads to them losing.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw05l8j\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"BuzzyShizzle\",\n \"body\": \"That's funny because, I have yet to hear them lose an argument/debate on the atheist experience yet. \\n\\nIf you haven't heard of it, there is a call-in radio show called \\\"the atheist experience\\\" and the entire show is welcoming any religious to call in and challenge them. If you want your view changed, that show will do a much better job than anything else.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw06l99\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Sad_Confidence8941\",\n \"body\": \"I agree, Christianity is very well designed. The smartest people alive for many centuries spent their lives defending Christianity (Thomas Aquinas, Saint Augustine, etc). They have been philosophically attacked for years and years and are still here\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw06orq\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"nomad5926\",\n \"body\": \"Homie out here saying the altruism isn't a natural thing without Christianity..... 🤣 Bro be saying Meerkats are all Christians? Or Naked Mole Rats?\\n\\nI will never understand why people have to force religion upon others. But essentially an easy way out is to ask them to provide solid proof that God existed. Logically you cannot not prove a belief. (Like others have said before me). Typically the ones making the claim \\\"god exists\\\" have the burden of proof. \\n\\nAlso in my experience you're not going to convince anyone to stop believing. It's the same reason kids believe in Santa it gives them something. For most people, religion is a source of comfort. It's why, from what I see, older folks are more religious. (Cause you know.... Closer to death... Heaven seems nicer).\\n\\nIf you just want them to stop harassing you, you can just say that your relationship with God is personal and need not be on disability for others. (You don't have to say the bit that the relationship is non-existent).\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0753r\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Moraulf232\",\n \"body\": \"Christianity has an answer for any criticism but the answers are silly and unconvincing just like the religion.\\n\\nJust ask yourself “has this answer explained why I should believe these assertions with no evidence or has it just made more assertions with no evidence?” and “could this answer be used to justify the existence of a Flying Spaghetti Monster or literally any other deity?” or “is there any evidence that the person I am talking to can imagine that would cause them to change their mind?” etc.\\n\\nThe philosophical arguments (apologetics) religions use are just fancy noise. There’s nothing there.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw07atx\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"lpuckeri\",\n \"body\": \"Theres many reasons why christianity is absolutely absurd, at a childlike and comical level imo. I have equal belief in it than i do Santa. The apologetics for christianity are just excuses for something as rediculous as believing in flying to heaven on a winged horse.\\n\\nLets remember, we are arguing about. A cosmic jewish god zombie who is his own father and was born a virgin birth to a women impregnated by a holy ghost. \\n\\nThere is zero evidence for this that is not heresay. Not a single item or record or peice of evidence contemporary to jesus exists. To confirm this laughably absurd story all we have is stories that contradict each other, written in the wrong language, written decades to centuries after the fact, much of which we know was straight up forged and copied from surrounding greek myths and people.\\n\\nGetting lost in abologetics is exacty meant to make you forget you are proving an absurd thing eith zero evidence, and get caught up in the weeds.\\n\\n\\nReasons. \\n\\n1. Supernatural events in the bible are empirically impossible to prove. Christians may use awful arguments like minimal facts etc, but these are all comically bad and fallacious. Abuductive reasoning is all we have access to, and that can never demonstrate supernatural events... This alone is enough, as it is logicalltly impossible to demonstrate christianity through our resources.\\n\\n2. The bible is self contradictory, the trinity and more is exceedingly illogical. By this i mean it literslly violates the laws of logic... and is isnanely stupid.\\n\\n3. The bible is obvious myth taken from surrounding cultures.\\n\\n4. There are no decent biblical scholars who think Moses wrote the old testament. Moses clearly never existed and exodus never happened. This is extremely confirmed... there is extreme evidence the base of both judeaism and christianity is 100% made up.\\n\\n5. People that claim supernatural events or whatever... 1. Does not prove god, or their god... it proves they had something special happen and nothing more. 2. These are nothing more than claims. 3. People claim this shit for every religion, thousands... if you apply this standard as evidence for one... you must for thousands of gods. 4. Once you understand psychology you realize how the brain works snd how easy it is for people to misnterpret things visually and auditory.\\n\\n6. Religions are not one off inventions. They are all representations and copyings of popular myths at the time. This can be seen in thousands of religions. Just as it is in christianity... the devil and hell doesnt become a thing until Greek influence, things like rising and dying saviours were popular greek myths too at the time of the bible etc. In fact the bible was wirtten in greek, not aramaic, the language Jesis and his follower would have spoken. You see babylonian myths copied into the parts of the bible, when they were written there...you see the bibles hell and devil and apocalyptic influences copying greek myth during the hellenistic period. Religions are copies of surrounding myth and cultures.\\n\\n7. Apologists often use arguments to prove god that are diestic. Things like the ontological srgument, teleological argument... aside from these being bad arguments, they only prove A God... not christianity. Even if the Kalam is true... the odds of christianity bring true is still zero... it gets you no closer.\\n\\n8. The bible wasnt written by geniuses. It was written by copying and adapting popular myths, cultures, and laws at the time. From copying ancient semetic religions and near eastern traditions 4000 tears ago, to adapting greek myths 2000 years ago. It also was written of centuries, adapted, edited, revised, forged, faked, reinterpreted thousands of times by hundeds of people. This idea some geniuses wrote this thing like you see it now is childishly ignorant of scholarship and history.\\n\\n9. There are actually about 94 gospels. 90 of which christians will admit are 100% bullshit mythological stories... yet they somehow think these are the special true 4, because the church leaders centuries ago simply decided so. \\n\\n10. These excuses and arguments for christianity are no better and no different than the ones Jews will use, or muslims, or Sikhs. You just live in a place around christians most likely. \\n\\nIts interesting because i have never heard a christian argument to me than is not childishly rediculous imo.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw07u2w\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Inevitable_Spare_777\",\n \"body\": \"You can’t have a factual, logical debate with a person who’s worldview doesn’t subscribe to facts and logic\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw08ays\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"drzowie\",\n \"body\": \"There is no direct way to argue a Christian out of Christianity, because it is a faith-based system of beliefs. But you *can* demand respect for your own beliefs.\\n\\nA couple of years ago, I wrote about just how incompatible Christian beliefs are with the scientific worldview. That line of argument is (like any other argument) unlikely to convince a fervent believer -- but may help you to understand that there are real weaknesses in the edifice of Christian thought. \\n\\nBelow is [copypasta from an early CMV post I made](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/7zy9wp/cmv_you_can_accept_todays_scientific_theory/durqqmi/):\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw08i8h\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"DouglerK\",\n \"body\": \"I mean if they didn't the religion would probably be dead by now.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw08xbe\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"joshp23\",\n \"body\": \"> If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniouses\\n\\nAll they have at their disposal are unfalsifiable claims. You can't prove that the invisible dragon in my garage doesn't exist either. The rest is a con act to attribute personal experience to the dragon. \\n\\nBut unfalsifiability and con tactics aside, wouldn't a genius be able to construct an effective argument *and* compile an internally consistent document at the same time? You have to do mental gymnastics to apologize for the ignorance and inconsistencies in the Bible.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw09c2d\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Crookwell\",\n \"body\": \"OR you just aren't a very good critic?\\nBecause I can rebuke shitty religious claims all day\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw09wvx\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"redstar15551\",\n \"body\": \"Maybe you should give up then? You're not gonna \\\"Gotcha\\\" Christianity so leave them alone. Your lack of faith and overabundance of cynicism does not bug anyone the slightest. Don't trap yourself because you view this as an unwinnable battle against some dogmatic close minded religion, when that in and of itself is close minded. There's a modern pushback against religion, Christianity specifically, that has been pushed hard; but Christianity has and will continue to endue.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0a4wk\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Various_Succotash_79\",\n \"body\": \"When my brothers were young, they played a game that was very much like Calvinball (if you've never read the comic Calvin and Hobbes, this is a game they made up on the fly). So it was all stuff like \\\"now the floor is lava so you burn up!\\\" \\\"Oh yeah? I throw 60 million tons of dry uce on it and that cools it off\\\", \\\"well that was too much and now you're frozen solid!\\\" Etc. \\n\\nThat's pretty much what religion is. Your mistake is in trying to make any sense of it.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0b260\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">When my brothers were young, they played a game that was very much like Calvinball (if you've never read the comic Calvin and Hobbes, this is a game they make up on the fly, so it never has the same rules). So it was all stuff like \\\"now the floor is lava so you burn up!\\\" \\\"Oh yeah? I throw 60 million tons of dry ice on it and that cools it off\\\", \\\"well that was too much and now you're frozen solid!\\\" Etc. \\n\\n!delta\\n\\nAs you show, you can't get anywhere trying to defend yourself from a religion which is designed to dodge accountability and make opponents lose. It's not designed for a debate, it's designed to be inescapable.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw25sdi\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jw0b260\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Collective82\",\n \"body\": \"If you are having such a hard time debating it, shouldn’t you consider it’s right and maybe you should look at converting?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0bbov\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"I have. The problem is no matter how hard I try, I have zero spirituality and a complete inability to be sincerely connected with any religion. I see this as a disability comparable to being unable to because it's such a drag on my life.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw263jo\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jw0bbov\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Fluffy_Candle6800\",\n \"body\": \"I'll give you a quote from a book I read - \\\"God is omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent. However, bad things still happen. This means God cannot stop the bad things - he is not omnipotent, God does not know the things are happening - he is not omniscient, or he allows the bad things to happen - he is not benevolent.\\\"\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0bhc0\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"I've accepted the last one. How can I possibly believe in a benevolent god, when he gives miracles to some and neglects genuine victims, or when the religion he designed has endless excuses and loopholes to dodge all accountability?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw26dbi\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jw0bhc0\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"ItsAll42\",\n \"body\": \"I do feel as though you too quickly concede many points that are not accurate or honest, but stated with such confidence they are difficult to rebutt just as confidently without sufficient background knowledge. In fact, some of these claims are just straight up racist, such as claiming altruism is not only a strictly christian virtue, but that many values such as caring for the sick and needy or having basic human decency are strictly Western practices and values.\\n\\n This is wildly inaccurate to claim, knowledge of history can easily debunk such ludicrous statments, especially considering much of the Western ideology is more focused on individualism where confucianism is more focused on the community as a whole. Buddhism stresses that all beings have inherent worth and challenges the strictly heiarchichal values of confucianism, yet still plenty of emphasis is placed on how to better the community as a whole and being kind for the sake of altruism and kindness without any expectation of personal rewards. You do not have to be a historian or theologian to debunk so much of what this person is claiming, especially in regard to other Abrahamic religions which are incredibly similar to the teachings of Christianity, you know, because they share a common historical and biblical root. While modern interpretations of Abrahamic faiths run the gamut, they are more alike than many of their subscribers would like to admit. \\n\\nIn fact, I'd argue that Christianity and most of its branches contain more self-serving motives than many religious beliefs, promising prosperity and wealth in heaven as a reward for good behavior. As an agnostic person I do not need a reward for my good behavior. \\n\\nAs you tried to point out, when this person claims pagans did not care for the sick or other absurd claims, the burden of proof is on them to substantiate such a ridiculous assumption. \\n\\nThis person comes across as making many intellectually dishonest arguments, and you more or less concede or gloss many of these points without pushback.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0cszb\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">This person comes across as making many intellectually dishonest arguments, and you more or less concede or gloss many of these points without pushback.\\n\\nThat's because I didn't study history at a tertiary level. See how I'm a frequent visitor to r/AskHistorians - because I'm not smart or knowledgeable about history. Are you suggesting that to defeat Christianity, I'll need a university degree in history?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw26yyz\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jw0cszb\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"FerdinandTheGiant\",\n \"body\": \"Most, if not all of the Western values people like to claim are “Judeo-Christian” in origin simply aren’t. For one “Judeo-Christian values” aren’t a thing as these groups have different values, however let’s consider a few things we value in the west. \\n\\n#Democracy\\n\\nIn the Bible, democracy is never extolled or even articulated. Instead, there are endless stories of theocratic, authoritarian rule and the divine right of kings. Power is always concentrated; it’s never distributed. In classical Greece, however, Athenians established what is generally recognized as the world’s first democracy around 500 BCE. This predates Christianity and arose with no Jewish influence.\\n\\n#Common Humanity/ Equality\\n\\nThis is simply not biblical. In the New Testament, women are forbidden from holding authority over a man, told to be silent in church, and instructed to be obedient and submissive to their husbands. The same word used for submissive in Colossians also is used to describe how slaves should be to their masters. Women can be killed if they’re suspected of having premarital sex; the tenth commandment forbids coveting property, which includes women in the same sentence as houses and oxen; if a woman was raped, she was forced to marry her rapist if the offender paid her father, and on and on it goes.\\n\\nNon-Israelites or gentiles were forced into slavery and treated as property. This is seen in Leviticus and all over the Hebrew Bible. Slavery was condoned and justified for thousands of years using the Bible. \\n\\n#10 Commandments\\n\\nA common argument is that these “laws” are where we derive most of our morals and values in the west. This is rather silly. \\n\\nFor starters, a lot of the commandments are about idolatry, however other Rules like “thou shall not kill” predate Christianity and Judaism by hundreds of years. Literally any and all functional societies require this rule to be in place. And all over the world you see non-Christian nations follow similar “laws”. This is because they are beneficial for building a society. \\n\\n#Other religions\\n\\nOther religions have much stronger moral codes that Christanity. Jainism believes so much in the value of life that they won’t even talk at night because they could accidentally harm an insect. Buddhists have a deep personal desire to self improve while also improving the lives of those around them. Same could be said for taoists.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0dbxm\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"That's the problem though. You assume that Christianity is pro-democracy and pro-equality when history has shown us that they'd gladly throw these concepts under the bus if it were in the way of their religion.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw27njn\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jw0dbxm\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Circular360Angles90\",\n \"body\": \"People often conflate these two completely separate ideas. God/Higher Power - whatever you want to call it, with - Religion. \\n\\nReligion, in its limited ability tries to use the concept of God in an attempt to sway your reasoning capabilities towards their doctrine. God, however is completely separate from Religion.\\n\\nReligion just seems to have a Monopoly on the word. People feel as though believing in a God or Gods means they should adhere to some way of “knowing” their God. - which is all that a religion really does. But rest assured that it is someone elses ideas you are digesting. Theres nothing wrong with consulting people whom you believe to be wise or have more experience, but if you start feeling like they have some sort of answer that you cant quite grasp, then your talking to the wrong people. \\n\\nThis is not something that anyone can “show” you or “debate” you about. \\n\\nGod isnt in a book. God isnt an idea you learn from the pulpit. God isnt reason nor logic. God isnt bad. God isnt good. \\n\\nYou are engaging in a debate where their is nothing to debate, thus you always be “outwitted.”\\n\\nThink for yourself, walk your own path. You’ll fall flat on your face initially, perhaps for many years and, if you can muster up strength to get up on your own and not ask anybody why you fell and why it hurts so bad - you’ll stop feeling “outwitted.”\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0f9fa\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">You are engaging in a debate where their is nothing to debate, thus you always be “outwitted.”\\n\\n>Think for yourself, walk your own path. You’ll fall flat on your face initially, perhaps for many years and, if you can muster up strength to get up on your own and not ask anybody why you fell and why it hurts so bad - you’ll stop feeling “outwitted.”\\n\\nIsn't this the problem though? Most people can earn external respect being just who they are. In contrast, I have to prove my respectability, and prove why I have valid views, and I always lose.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw2llv2\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jw0f9fa\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CIABrainBugs\",\n \"body\": \"If God was real, his actions would prevent me from giving him any respect. I don't care if he's real.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0fl5d\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Nghtmare-Moon\",\n \"body\": \"Read Carl Sagan’s demon haunted world. It’s the best essay to counter all religious arguments\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0g6mu\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"GainPornCity\",\n \"body\": \"It's not that there's a rebuttle for everything. There's just a different lens to look through. \\n\\nSay an atheist has blue shades on and sees everything as blue. Christian sees everything as red. However, the one commonality between the Athiest and the Christian is the human construct..thereby despite being in different mindsets, they both acknowledge phenomena as they unfold in the world\\n\\nNo matter how much blue you speak regarding world phenomena, the Christian will respond to *each* phenomenon with a red response. \\n\\n\\nThis phenomenon, you look at through a blue lens and say: \\\"The Christian has an excuse for everything, no matter how blue, there's always gonna be some red to speak on from their side.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0gw4r\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Realistic-Cat4116\",\n \"body\": \"The only rebuttal you need is: \\\"Prove it.\\\" Keep repeating that over and over again. They can't, you win, end of argument.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0h3pm\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Okami_The_Agressor_0\",\n \"body\": \"Debating things that are designed to explain all with a basis in non-falsifiable statements is impossible. Religions are all memetic viruses that are meant to superimpose a false sense of the world on their followers, there are other belief systems that do the same that don't involve god but a well designed memetic virus can't be successful with out being impervious to logic or ways to side step rational thinking. That being said many modern political beliefs are structured similarly and operate in a similar fashion to religions. \\n\\nReligion imparts a base line culture and morality to people that allows for a more respectful and peaceful society. Part of what make that possible is ideological sanitation of a populace. Diversity of ways of life sparks conflict and religion solves that a good portion of the time. You could potentially see how many recent events have been the result of diverse culture and belief systems, so any derivation of heterogenization of society would logically be rejected by such belief systems with understandable cause.\\n\\nI believe people should be able to do what ever they please but when there is no respect in society people seek control from government to maintain the peace. So the easiest way for a country to stay free is to remain an ethno/ideological-state, or very slow and controlled change. When accounting these things you must satisfy for the lowest common denominator which will inevitable reject things on the basis of tribal instinct.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0k3j1\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"ApeMummy\",\n \"body\": \"You’re outwitted because you lack wit not because christianity is special.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0k3sk\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"SeymoreButz38\",\n \"body\": \"1st is a citation needed. Second was a semantic argument. Third is a no true scotsman fallacy.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0kns0\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Ecoronel1989\",\n \"body\": \"I think the issue here is your brother does a few things to confuse you.\\n1. Switching between defending spirituality and Christianity.\\n2. Berating you with words so it's hard for you to rebuttal everything that is said (an overwhelming tactic).\\n3. Throws out unprovable claims that are opinions as facts.\\n\\nFor #1, there's a big difference between spirituality and Christianity. Christianity asserts it is the one true religion, all others are wrong and lead to a wrong lifestyle. Spirituality is a general idea about believing in something outside oneself. To Christians, spirituality is paganism (unless it's Christianity itself) and therefore wrong and cannot be accepted or celebrated. So your brother can't simply pick and choose to say spirituality is good for the health and then switch to say Islam is not a good religion as these are contradictory statements.\\n\\nBut this issue is linked to #2, he berates arguments with a ton of words and makes multiple \\\"points\\\" at once. This is a similar tactic to what Donald Trump has used during his time as a politician. Simply overload the other side with a word soup, throwing out multiple arguments that are each wrong, but takes effort to debate each of them. By the time you gather your thoughts about the first wrong statement, he's moved on to the next 3, it's overwhelming.\\n\\nWhich leads to the last point, that is throwing out unprovable claims in the midst of his word soup. Claims such as there would be no morality without religion are unprovable for modern science since we have had religion in all cultures for over 2000 years, so it's hard to test this \\\"fact\\\". Another one that comes to mind is saying there's objective morality in the Bible, which you argued is not because of the Bible. Another counterargument is that the interpretation to the Bibles teachings changes across generations (i.e. slavery allowed for priests) and is therefore not objective, but his claim is unprovable in general as you can only offer up counter examples he can claim we're people not following the \\\"truth\\\".\\n\\nOverall, I think you're doing better than you think at debating this issue. The larger issue is what others have pointed out, that you don't have to win this argument, simply live by what you believe is true like they do.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0m923\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"TimeFliesFaster\",\n \"body\": \"It doesn’t have a good rebuttal as to why Jesus is the prophesied messiah of a religion that believes in a single unitary god. Especially when Jesus didn’t have the right ancestors and failed to meet the applicable prophesies (ie dead all coming back to life, temple being restored for all time, diaspora returning, war coming to permanent end, and entire world embracing scripture in messiah’s lifetime)\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0sjyl\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"David_Warden\",\n \"body\": \"You are trying to prove a negative which is a waste of time.\\n\\nThey are the ones making the improbable claims so the burden of proof lies with them. \\n\\nIf they continue to pester you, ask them to prove it.\\n\\nI think you will find that it boils down to belief in the highly improbable that is not adequately supported by either evidence or reasoning.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw1cnr9\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"SaltiestRaccoon\",\n \"body\": \"Sure. They have rebuttals. They're just not as good as you think they are. And they tend to be the same rebuttals over and over.\\n\\nI mean just to refute the ones you were hit with... In the first example, he paints the 'pagan' world monolithically while citing the worst examples from many different cultures, while kind of also ignoring that many of those things also apply to Christian nations. Pretty sure the weak and poor weren't running Medieval England, for instance. Likewise slaves were absolutely still a thing among Christians... the slaves just couldn't also be Christian. There were Christian Germanic warriors pillaging right along with the rest of them. Finally virtually any civilization that has kept slaves does in fact have laws about how they can be treated. It can certainly even be argued that serfdom is still just slavery but called something else to make it acceptable, as people can still be bought and sold, they just count as part of the land instead and likewise must work for their lord or face abuse or death. Sounds a lot like slavery to me.\\n\\nAltruism is in fact a part of human nature. It evolved because we are a social species and we are inclined to act for the good of our group, as our group is beneficial to our survival. There's a [great example](https://www.upi.com/Archives/1987/11/04/Cavemen-took-care-of-physically-disabled/5137563000400/) of a cave man skeleton with some pretty crippling deformities, who could not have hunted for himself that lived to old age. That means his tribe or his family unit was caring for him despite the fact he was a burden. And this is humanity in the stone age, at our least civilized. The Gauls, as well routinely collected a portion of taxes to help pay for their disabled citizens (though in Rome, it was preached if not always practiced that disabled children should be put to death.)\\n\\nIn a lot of instances he just seems ignorant on history and expects you to go along with it. A lot of it is very gish-gallupy too. He says so many wrong things that there's no way to correct them all without getting so bogged down with corrections that you can never make a point of your own, or even refute all of his errors. Don't allow that. Insist on arguing one point at a time.\\n\\nReally I think it's gaps in your knowledge more than Christianity being particularly difficult to criticize. I find it quite easy.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-14\",\n \"id\": \"jw3kj7g\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ]\n]","isConversational":false},"2":{"kind":"string","value":"challenge"}}},{"rowIdx":56,"cells":{"0":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Happy-Viper","body":"**The Brother**\n\n>It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - see here\r\n\n... were you?\n\nLike, where's the outwitting? Where's the good design? The Bible does, quite literally, endorse slavery. Christianity was the main religion of many slave-owning countries. This is just a falsehood being claimed that you haven't challenged. \n\nThe idea that he can just reverse the burden of proof, and claim you have to prove Christianity DIDN'T invent altruism, which again, an absurd idea... it's just bad reasoning, and entirely untrue. We've studied altruism in rats, for god's sake, of course it's natural.\n\nWe have evidence of the sick being cared for, not just the sick but the permanently disabled, thousands of years ago.\n\nThis is just a dude making things up, and you not challenging any of it. The concepts of love, compassion, kindness, there's literally zero evidence any of that arose with Christianity. \n\nThese are fundamentally just terrible arguments. It's making things up, trying to reverse the burden of proof, and that's about it.\n\n​\n\n**The Priest**\n\n>Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - see here.\r \n\r\n\nSo already, the first argument isn't really anything. \"It's healthier to believe X\" isn't an argument for X. I presume my mental health would be better if I believed all sorts of things, and I'd live a healthier life. That doesn't make those things true.\n\nAnd in looking at the definition they use... religion doesn't even come into it:\n\n>spiritual health has\r been defined as a state of being where an individual is able\r to deal with day‑to‑day life issues in a manner that leads to\r the realization of one’s full potential, meaning and purpose\r of life and fulfilment from within. \n\nSo, no supernatural required. Just good mental health. \n\nBut, let's look to the priest.\n\n>It doesn't matter if you are going to church insincerely because you aren't able to believe in God, what matters is you go\r \n\r \nMother Teresa had a phase where she felt no connection to God, but she kept trying until she eventually found God\r \n\r \nYou will never be able to find God if you stop coming to church\r \n\r \nDeveloping resentment is not a reason not to go to church, because there is no good reason to stop going to church\n\nAgain... how do you think you were outwit?\n\nThe clam here is just \"You should find God and go to Church.\" It's all just claims, these aren't arguments. \n\n​\n\n**The LGBT**\n\n>Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account\" - and what do you know, I still lost because there are Christian rebuttals for that too.\r\r\n\nWhat rebuttals are here?\n\nThe only ones I can see are: \n\n1. God didn't make people lie, their hearts did! Their hearts... which were created by God, ultimately.\n2. This dude's faith means he won't ever criticize the Bible.\n\nNone of these are outwitting. None of it is a well-designed ideology.\n\nNone of these were good arguments, and many weren't even arguments. Just a dude telling you \"Nah, you should believe in God\" and you not responding, or just straight-up lies. None of these people outwitted you at any point.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvztgg4","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">This is just a dude making things up, and you not challenging any of it. The concepts of love, compassion, kindness, there's literally zero evidence any of that arose with Christianity.\n\nThat's because he challenged me to debate him out of the blue, while I was busy. I didn't have the time to read further, but even if I did, he'd ask me to prove that my examples aren't \"fringe\" (e.g. that charity before Christianity was common and not something that just existed on paper). Also, the article he cited was written by pro-Catholic historian Tom Holland, who unsurprisingly worded his article to be hard to debunk.\n\n>The clam here is just \"You should find God and go to Church.\" It's all just claims, these aren't arguments. \n> \n>This dude's faith means he won't ever criticize the Bible.\r \n\r\n\n!delta\n\nIn the first debate, any unbacked claims I made were immediately rejected. It's only fair that I get to do the same to others, right?","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw06oa7","parent_id":"jvztgg4","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"DeltaBot","body":"Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/Happy-Viper ([2∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/Happy-Viper)).\n\n^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw06rk5","parent_id":"jw06oa7","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],"string":"[\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Happy-Viper\",\n \"body\": \"**The Brother**\\n\\n>It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - see here\\r\\n\\n... were you?\\n\\nLike, where's the outwitting? Where's the good design? The Bible does, quite literally, endorse slavery. Christianity was the main religion of many slave-owning countries. This is just a falsehood being claimed that you haven't challenged. \\n\\nThe idea that he can just reverse the burden of proof, and claim you have to prove Christianity DIDN'T invent altruism, which again, an absurd idea... it's just bad reasoning, and entirely untrue. We've studied altruism in rats, for god's sake, of course it's natural.\\n\\nWe have evidence of the sick being cared for, not just the sick but the permanently disabled, thousands of years ago.\\n\\nThis is just a dude making things up, and you not challenging any of it. The concepts of love, compassion, kindness, there's literally zero evidence any of that arose with Christianity. \\n\\nThese are fundamentally just terrible arguments. It's making things up, trying to reverse the burden of proof, and that's about it.\\n\\n​\\n\\n**The Priest**\\n\\n>Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - see here.\\r \\n\\r\\n\\nSo already, the first argument isn't really anything. \\\"It's healthier to believe X\\\" isn't an argument for X. I presume my mental health would be better if I believed all sorts of things, and I'd live a healthier life. That doesn't make those things true.\\n\\nAnd in looking at the definition they use... religion doesn't even come into it:\\n\\n>spiritual health has\\r been defined as a state of being where an individual is able\\r to deal with day‑to‑day life issues in a manner that leads to\\r the realization of one’s full potential, meaning and purpose\\r of life and fulfilment from within. \\n\\nSo, no supernatural required. Just good mental health. \\n\\nBut, let's look to the priest.\\n\\n>It doesn't matter if you are going to church insincerely because you aren't able to believe in God, what matters is you go\\r \\n\\r \\nMother Teresa had a phase where she felt no connection to God, but she kept trying until she eventually found God\\r \\n\\r \\nYou will never be able to find God if you stop coming to church\\r \\n\\r \\nDeveloping resentment is not a reason not to go to church, because there is no good reason to stop going to church\\n\\nAgain... how do you think you were outwit?\\n\\nThe clam here is just \\\"You should find God and go to Church.\\\" It's all just claims, these aren't arguments. \\n\\n​\\n\\n**The LGBT**\\n\\n>Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because there are Christian rebuttals for that too.\\r\\r\\n\\nWhat rebuttals are here?\\n\\nThe only ones I can see are: \\n\\n1. God didn't make people lie, their hearts did! Their hearts... which were created by God, ultimately.\\n2. This dude's faith means he won't ever criticize the Bible.\\n\\nNone of these are outwitting. None of it is a well-designed ideology.\\n\\nNone of these were good arguments, and many weren't even arguments. Just a dude telling you \\\"Nah, you should believe in God\\\" and you not responding, or just straight-up lies. None of these people outwitted you at any point.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvztgg4\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">This is just a dude making things up, and you not challenging any of it. The concepts of love, compassion, kindness, there's literally zero evidence any of that arose with Christianity.\\n\\nThat's because he challenged me to debate him out of the blue, while I was busy. I didn't have the time to read further, but even if I did, he'd ask me to prove that my examples aren't \\\"fringe\\\" (e.g. that charity before Christianity was common and not something that just existed on paper). Also, the article he cited was written by pro-Catholic historian Tom Holland, who unsurprisingly worded his article to be hard to debunk.\\n\\n>The clam here is just \\\"You should find God and go to Church.\\\" It's all just claims, these aren't arguments. \\n> \\n>This dude's faith means he won't ever criticize the Bible.\\r \\n\\r\\n\\n!delta\\n\\nIn the first debate, any unbacked claims I made were immediately rejected. It's only fair that I get to do the same to others, right?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw06oa7\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvztgg4\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"DeltaBot\",\n \"body\": \"Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/Happy-Viper ([2∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/Happy-Viper)).\\n\\n^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw06rk5\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jw06oa7\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n]","isConversational":false},"1":{"kind":"list like","value":[[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"DeadCupcakes23","body":"Why does it matter if Christianity has a rebuttal for something? You can criticise the bible and Christianity based on what it says and the actions done in its name (context depending).\n\nPeople have moral values without Christianity and most things people appreciate nowadays are not inherent to Christianity, for example the bible allows slavery.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzggd4","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">Why does it matter if Christianity has a rebuttal for something? You can criticise the bible and Christianity based on what it says and the actions done in its name (context depending).\n\nBecause losing a debate due to their rebuttals makes me look stupid. Also, if you follow the links to their arguments, even the atrocities done in its name don't count because those fall under \"false prophets\". \n\nIt's like the Bible was written with this possibility in mind to entrap us.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzh2ui","parent_id":"jvzggd4","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"tipoima","body":"Christianity *was* fabricated, but not by geniuses. \nYou're fighting against over two thousand years worth of apologetics, where all the weakest arguments have been pruned away. \nHowever, as expected of something that isn't actually true, those arguments are often plainly wrong, be it due to logical fallacies, appeals to unknown, obtuse philosophy you probably don't know you don't subscribe to, no-true-scotsmanning, e.t.c.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzh8ep","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">However, as expected of something that isn't actually true, those arguments are often plainly wrong, be it due to logical fallacies, appeals to unknown, obtuse philosophy you probably don't know you don't subscribe to, no-true-scotsmanning, e.t.c.\n\nThis is exactly what they do. The problem is that \"I don't know\" is not an acceptable answer to them ([see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvhr81y/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)), whereas they already have something up their sleeve to entrap me. \n\nAs you mentioned, with 2000 years of experience creating answers, I even if I am able to point out something wrong or intellectually dishonest, they'll still have an answer for that, forcing me to spend yet more time and effort to come up with an answer. And I am not intelligent enough to create an answer for everything they throw at me, so I'm trapped.\n\nIt's an uphill battle, and one that can easily be lost. Until we can come up with a rebuttal they can't defeat, there will always be a risk that secular society and LGBT rights might be defeated.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzhurp","parent_id":"jvzh8ep","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Watchyobackistan","body":"Not really, most of their \"rebuttals\" are stuff like \"god doesn't give us all the answers\" and \"Don't worry jesus loves you\" Non-answers.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzhdab","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"MercurianAspirations","body":"But why should you give a shit? If you have conviction in your own beliefs, it shouldn't matter whether or not you can convince others using your super debater skillz or not. After all, if somebody were sufficiently dumb or insane, it would be impossible to convince them of the truth, no matter how clear and apparent the truth were; therefore, whether or not a thing is widely believed and people are readily convinced of its truth is not a guide to truth. When there was only one person on the earth who believed in heliocentrism they were still right, and the geocentrists were still wrong. The geocentrists had answers for every single objection, and they won every single debate, yet, they were still wrong. \n\nMoreover, it isn't that Christianity is super well designed or anything. It's just that people who have strongly held convictions are not available to be convinced by facts and logic. That's just how people are: they do not actually change their minds that much.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzhezx","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">But why should you give a shit?\n\nBecause I don't want my stances to look stupid. I was once likened to an anti-vaxxer for not being able to provide evidence to back my lack of faith.\n\n> If you have conviction in your own beliefs, it shouldn't matter whether or not you can convince others using your super debater skillz or not. \n\nConviction in your own beliefs doesn't make one right. Besides, their side also has a firm conviction in their beliefs.\n\n>When there was only one person on the earth who believed in heliocentrism they were still right, and the geocentrists were still wrong. The geocentrists had answers for every single objection, and they won every single debate, yet, they were still wrong.\n\nScience doesn't care about number of believers, what matters is the evidence. And in the case of heliocentrism, it was proven right by overwhelming evidence. I wish I had overwhelming evidence to back my lack of faith.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzih4p","parent_id":"jvzhezx","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Mr-Bitter","body":"Send your brother my way. I know of a way to convince him that it was Satan that wrote the Bible and can kill every single one of his arguments. I would thoroughly enjoy a civilized religious debate.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzhg91","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"ApocalypseYay","body":">CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\n\nThis makes zero sense. Rebuttals require logic and facts, and there are only apologia and special pleasing fallacy described herein. \n\nLet's start from the basic - where is the evidence for chris, the alleged son of god, and somehow also god, that killed himself to please himself? There is zero historical evidence for this event, before we even get to the easily debunked claims of miracles, or the plainly immoral laws being promulgated as divine commandments.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzhig9","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">where is the evidence for chris,\n\n[Most historians accept that Jesus Christ existed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus). The rest of the biblical story isn't accepted by historians.\n\n>before we even get to the easily debunked claims of miracles,\n\n[I miserably failed at convincing someone that I don't believe in miracles](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvai6qm/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). How would you convince him?\n\n> or the plainly immoral laws being promulgated as divine commandments.\n\nHow would you convince them that their side is immoral? They have methods up their sleeve to dismiss the malice conducted in the name of Christianity, and justify the anti-LGBT commandments.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzj8qx","parent_id":"jvzhig9","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"physioworld","body":"The most important concept you have to remember is the burden of proof. It’s not up to you to prove the Christianity ISNT TRUE, it’s up to them to prove that it IS TRUE. So if they can’t prove their own religion you need to accept it, you don’t have to worry about disproving their beliefs. \n\nA good way to illustrate this, is whether they would accept comparable claims with comparable evidence from other religions. So if they claim that Christianity is true because it says so in the bible, ask whether you should also accept Islam because it says so in the Quran.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzhlry","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">The most important concept you have to remember is the burden of proof. It’s not up to you to prove the Christianity ISNT TRUE, it’s up to them to prove that it IS TRUE. So if they can’t prove their own religion you need to accept it, you don’t have to worry about disproving their beliefs.\n\nBut that's the problem - they consider themselves as proving it is true. For example, one guy who told me of miracles he received - [and I lacked a sufficient rebuttal to convince him he's wrong](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvai6qm/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzjexi","parent_id":"jvzhlry","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Adam__B","body":"You don’t have to defend not believing in something that is invisible, utterly silent, immeasurable, illogical, unscientific, undetectable and untestable. The burden is on them to prove a positive, not you a negative.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzi1gp","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"OrangeBlancmange","body":"Why do you think you are losing? They obviously haven’t convinced you in these arguments and just falling back to faith (which is all they really have) doesn’t ‘win’ anything in any meaningful way. You won’t be able to argue them out of their faith so you can’t ‘win’ either. Ultimately it’s not an argument in the philosophical sense - they aren’t engaging in good faith and simply will not change their minds regardless of what you say.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzi24f","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"> they aren’t engaging in good faith and simply will not change their minds regardless of what you say.\n\nBad faith arguments are like doping in sports - they make it easier for them to win. You just need to be a good enough debater to win despite the disadvantage.\n\n>Why do you think you are losing? \n\nBecause I failed to be that \"good enough debater\". Any argument I can throw at them is utterly crushed and thrown back at me.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzk4ge","parent_id":"jvzi24f","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Cayowin","body":"How did you lose that debate?\n\nSlavery - Christians used the bible to promote the slave trade\n\n[https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/01/a-harvard-exhibit-on-slavery-and-christianity/#:\\~:text=In%20the%20modern%20era%2C%20Christianity,often%20used%20to%20justify%20slavery](https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/01/a-harvard-exhibit-on-slavery-and-christianity/#:~:text=In%20the%20modern%20era%2C%20Christianity,often%20used%20to%20justify%20slavery).\n\nYes there were abolitionists, but if the same text can be used to both justify and condemn an action how is that text a good moral guide?\n\nThe bible explicitly allows the owning of humans as property. So either god is not unchanging or he changed his mind. \n\n1 Peter 2:18, Saint Peter writes \"Slaves, be subject to your masters with all reverence, not only to those who are good and equitable but also to those who are perverse.\"\n\nYes they have prepared apologetics, it just means you need to do more research. Remember they have no evidence for their claims beyond personal gut feelings and a collection of contradictory, fictional and historic works.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzi8a8","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">Slavery - Christians used the bible to promote the slave trade\n\nI've miserably failed when using the \"what about slavery argument\" - it's in the link following \"It all started 3 years ago\". Sure, I could point out the pro-slavery parts, but they'll have a reason why that bit is irrelevant or misinterpreted. It's exhausting, finding every argument to throw at them, and having each one of those utterly crushed with more rebuttals thrown your way.\n\n>Yes they have prepared apologetics, it just means you need to do more research. Remember they have no evidence for their claims beyond personal gut feelings and a collection of contradictory, fictional and historic works.\r \n\r\n\nI tried pointing out to someone that I don't believe in his \"miracle\". [My attempt failed miserably](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvai6qm/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzkhnt","parent_id":"jvzi8a8","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Augnelli","body":"What is the rebuttal for the Ark? What did the carnivores eat? How did the Kangaroos and Koalas make it up from Australia? What about fresh water fish? How much space was designated for JUST the elephants food?\n\nYou don't need to debate every detail, just enough to invalidate the core; the truth on which they base their faith.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzikz2","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">What is the rebuttal for the Ark? What did the carnivores eat? How did the Kangaroos and Koalas make it up from Australia? What about fresh water fish? How much space was designated for JUST the elephants food?\n\nThat's the problem - even since the medieval era, most Christians disavowed biblical literalism, because biblical literalism is easier to poke holes into. Instead, they've come up with apologia, and now, with over 2000 years of apologia to defend against, it's become an unwinnable fight.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzlcvy","parent_id":"jvzikz2","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"ch0cko","body":"No. I am a frequent debater on subs like r/DebateReligion and r/DebateAnAtheist and everything you've said here is just... no. The vast majority of arguments for theism or counterarguments against arguments against theism, generally lead to special pleading or other fallacies.\n\nHere's one post I recently made: [https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/15pjew5/extraordinary\\_claims\\_need\\_extraordinary\\_evidence/](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/15pjew5/extraordinary_claims_need_extraordinary_evidence/) which then links to another one of my posts that goes more in-depth: [https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/15ey939/if\\_religious\\_beliefs\\_were\\_subject\\_to\\_consistent/](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/15ey939/if_religious_beliefs_were_subject_to_consistent/)\n\nA lot of what Christianity said is very similar to other religions and old mythologies. It has a generic reward-punishment system/carrot and stick system, that is, a hell and heaven. On top of that, all of the claims in Christianity hold no good evidence with most being anecdotal. Most arguments for Christianity are not Christian-specific and more so just theism in general. Even then, those thesitic arguments lead to either, 1. fallacies, or 2. only making theism \"more likely,\" but even then, these arguments have counters.\n\nThey were not geniuses. A little clever, but they essentially copied other religions and mythologies and is a cookie-cutter religion. Christianity isn't wide spread just because of how \"logical\" and \"sound\" it is; indoctrination or generationally passing the idea down is a big part of it. There are also contradictions in the Bible which can be found at this website: [https://www.lyingforjesus.org/Bible-Contradictions/](https://www.lyingforjesus.org/Bible-Contradictions/)","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzirf5","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">They were not geniuses. A little clever, but they essentially copied other beliefs and mythologies and is a cookie-cutter religion. Christianity isn't widespread just because of how \"logical\" and \"sound\" it is; indoctrination or generationally passing the idea down is a big part of it. There are also contradictions in the Bible which can be found at this website: https://www.lyingforjesus.org/Bible-Contradictions/\n\nI wasn't implying that Christianity was \"logical\" and \"sound\". I was implying it was successful because it has so many tricks up its sleeve. It may be full of lies, but for every one I point out, I'll get one or more rebuttals thrown my way.\n\nThink of it as being like in the middle of a dense minefield. Whoever laid the minefield might not have a \"logical\" and \"sound\" reason for it, but any step you could take will blow up in your face.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzlzr1","parent_id":"jvzirf5","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"xper0072","body":"Just because someone has an answer for everything doesn't mean that the answer is a good answer. Your inability to properly debate the topic does not mean that the other side is correct in any way.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzj07m","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">Your inability to properly debate the topic does not mean that the other side is correct in any way.\n\nI wasn't saying the other side was correct. My point is that they are impossible to defeat and are good at ensnaring their critics.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzmc3l","parent_id":"jvzj07m","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"razvanght","body":"In my experience, Christian s believe that God is real because they feel He is real. Then you can ask them whether a person of a different religion can also use the same method (I feel Zeus is real because I feel Him) to conclude that a different god is real. Christians generally agree that that person used the same method (feeling based) to reach an opposite conclusion (Zeus, not God, is real). In my discussions at least, this argument works in that it gives people pause. Of course, it does not change their belief immediately because they have been holding it for some time but I feel like it adds a seed of doubt.\n\nDo you know the official Christian response against this line of argument?","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzj0m8","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">In my experience, Christian s believe that God is real because they feel He is real. Then you can ask them whether a person of a different religion can also use the same method (I feel Zeus is real because I feel Him) to conclude that a different god is real. \n\nHow can I get them to accept the argument that \"oh I don't feel God is real, so don't force me to go to church\"? Because that argument always failed me in the past. Also, on a tangent, how are you able to \"feel\" Zeus?\n\n>adds a seed of doubt.\n\nPlanting seeds of doubt is a great political strategy. For example, in Australia, we have an upcoming referendum on constitutional indigenous recognition - and because the No side is so good at planting seeds of doubt, the Yes side is losing despite having academia and the arts sector on its side. \n\nBut back to the point, I tried planting seeds of doubt and failed miserably. The Christians I've had to defend my opinions from don't merely consider themselves as \"feelings based\", they consider their views as backed by literature (the Bible).","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzmy3i","parent_id":"jvzj0m8","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Apprehensive_Box3199","body":"I dropped my Catholicism at 21 after learning basic logic at University. In year 6 whilst at a Catholic school, we were given a Catholic Catechism - literally the manual for being a good Catholic. Most of the book is written in question-and-answer format. This is indoctrination 101. The first 3 questions are, and I quote:\n\n>1. Question: Who made the world? \n Answer: God made the world. \n> \n>2. Q. Who is God? \n> \n> A. God is the Creator of heaven and earth and of all things and the Supreme Lord of all. \n> \n>3. Q. How do we know there is a God? \n> \n> A. We know that there is a God by the things that He made.\n\nRight there; in the first 3 question-and-answers is a Circular Argument. The entire basis of the Catechism is premised on a Circular Argument. If nothing else, the entire point of Catholicism is to justify the original statement that God exists.\n\nI looked through the whole of the Catechism highlighting anything I still believed. I highlighted a single sentence in the preface about doing unto others etc... NOTHING else.\n\nBefore you have a go at me for not knowing what a circular argument until I was 21 - I went to Catholic schools for all of high school and it is in their best interests NOT to teach that and it was the 80s. That's my excuse and I sticking to it.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzjc23","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">Right there; in the first 3 question-and-answers is a Circular Argument. The entire basis of the Catechism is premised on a Circular Argument. If nothing else, the entire point of Catholicism is to justify the original statement that God exists. \n> \n>I looked through the whole of the Catechism highlighting anything I still believed. I highlighted a single sentence in the preface about doing unto others etc... NOTHING else. \n> \n>Before you have a go at me for not knowing what a circular argument until I was 21 - I went to Catholic schools for all of high school and it is in their best interests NOT to teach that and it was the 80s. That's my excuse and I sticking to it.\n\nIn my experience, pointing out the circular argument leads to one of 2 outcomes:\n\n1. Getting more apologia that I am unable to defeat\n2. The \"*Do you have a better explanation?*\" rebuttal","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvznrln","parent_id":"jvzjc23","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Simbabz","body":"The most important story of the bible is Jesus ressurecction, the gospels contradict each other in the telling of the story, hardly designed by geniuses.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzktxv","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">The most important story of the bible is Jesus ressurecction, the gospels contradict each other in the telling of the story, hardly designed by geniuses.\n\nNot sure what Protestants say, but Catholicism claims that slight differences with the same overall story prove it's written by real people observing the same things. We can accuse them of using a dodgy argument, but it still wouldn't undermine their side.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzp1ei","parent_id":"jvzktxv","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"vote4bort","body":"I think you're just trying way too hard in these debates and starting from the wrong point. You're coming at them like religion is something that can be proved through debate when it fundamentally can't. \nThe religious rebuttal for every point will always be essentially the same. That is they'll say \"well I believe this I so\". And you can't argue with that because its not a statement that can be argued against.\n\nWhat can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzkuyc","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.\n\nThe problem is when they think they have evidence and you think they don't. [Here's an example with a Protestant](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jv9g3kt/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3), and we can't agree on anything.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzp2i6","parent_id":"jvzkuyc","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"sapphireminds","body":"You seem to be a poor debater. You are accepting a lot of arguments as true when they aren't. \n\nAll children are born atheists. Coincidentally, they just happen to usually believe in the god(s) their parents/community believes it. \n\nAnd personally, if there is a god with the power ascribed to it by the bible, I would refuse to worship it. \n\nYou also need to educate yourself about the null hypothesis.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzl8ri","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">You seem to be a poor debater. You are accepting a lot of arguments as true when they aren't.\r\n\nI don't accept their arguments as true. I accept them as difficult to defeat.\n\n>And personally, if there is a god with the power ascribed to it by the bible, I would refuse to worship it.\n\nI wouldn't want to worship such a God either. [I've told a Protestant that if I were to accept that he indeed received a miracle, it would still prove that the Christian god is unjust](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvkkegk/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). But that argument still failed to sway him.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzqf91","parent_id":"jvzl8ri","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"-paperbrain-","body":"What you seem to be saying is just that you are not able, with the mere power of logic, to get Christians to abandon their belief.\n\nI hate to break it to you, but this is not a particular quality of Christianity. Anything people are dug in on will face this hill. Not only will you encounter it with every religion, but you won't argue many people out of their political doctrine, flat earth belief, or whether they side with Ross or Rachel on friends. People have rebuttals for everything about many totally conflicting positions. It's part of having strong beliefs and giving it some thought. And religions in particular have had a long time and tons of resources to give it thought.\n\nThat doesn't mean there's no room for criticism. Just that your expectation about change is ridiculously optimistic.\n\nHowever, regardless of how your personal debates are going, people are leaving Christianity in droves, partly because they don't find those rebuttals to critique to be logically, morally or emotionally satisfying. The fastest growing religious affiliation is \"none\".","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzlzcb","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">That doesn't mean there's no room for criticism. Just that your expectation about change is ridiculously optimistic.\n\nSometimes, I'm challenged to debate when I'm not looking for one (see my first link in the post details). I wasn't expecting to change anyone's views, just successfully defend my decision, and I failed even that.\n\n>However, regardless of how your personal debates are going, people are leaving Christianity in droves, partly because they don't find those rebuttals to critique to be logically, morally or emotionally satisfying. The fastest growing religious affiliation is \"none\".\n\n[Christianity is still growing overall](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_population_growth). Even if it's not growing in the Western World, this shrinkage is negated by growth outside the Western World.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzs5r5","parent_id":"jvzlzcb","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"wrongfulness","body":"What a waste of time","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzmu4k","parent_id":"15purrs","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"The_White_Ram","body":"This isn't hard. Christianity literally endorses slavery.\n\nIf you believe slavery is wrong then that's the only argument you need.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzniyg","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">This isn't hard. Christianity literally endorses slavery. \n> \n>If you believe slavery is wrong then that's the only argument you need.\n\nI tried using such an argument. [It backfired](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvztyn7","parent_id":"jvzniyg","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"ElPwnero","body":"I like the one Muslims use:\\\nThe word of allah is perfect and if you find inconsistencies, then it’s your human brain that’s incapable of understanding the true meaning.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzoket","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">I like the one Muslims use:\r \n> \n>The word of allah is perfect and if you find inconsistencies, then it’s your human brain that’s incapable of understanding the true meaning.\n\nI mean, they're basically insulting your intelligence. But isn't that a great bad faith tactic, dodging accountability by accusing your opponent of being too dumb to understand? I can't imagine myself faring any better debating a Muslim than debating a Christian.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzvglo","parent_id":"jvzoket","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"indigoneutrino","body":"The interesting thing is I've had the opposite experience. Plenty of experiences online and in person where they can barely rebut *anything* to the point that I've had a minister apologise she can't answer my questions satisfactorily. I've seen no-one rebut or even explain why the crucifixion makes sense without legitimising blood sacrifice. It just constantly defaults to \"Jesus paid for our sins,\" without explaining why the death of an innocent third party was accepted as a valid payment within a supposedly just system.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzppfh","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Pichkuchu","body":">It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted\n\nJust because you got outwitted doesn't mean the other side was right, they were, in fact, blatantly wrong. Christianity is just as guilty of atrocities as any religion. Keep in mind that Christianity is 2000 years old and they enslaved people until 1860 and they had to be \"convinced\" by war to give it up. They genocided native populations in America and colonized Asia and Africa. There was inquisition. They burned people for heresy, including scientists. They weren't different from other big religions or even pagans. The modern view of the world and humanity encompasses non Christian populations too and one could argue that it's in fact the result of secularism.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzqu5n","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"StrangeAssonance","body":"I’m curious why you think one has to prove God exists? \n\nAlso, when Jesus was on earth the Jews kept asking for a sign from Him. They were blind to what he was doing with His ministry. The world is blind, so when you try to have these arguments that you feel you can’t win, I think you aren’t ever going to win them. I can show you God through my words and deeds but if you are blind to that, you won’t see what’s there to see.\n\nJesus repeatedly talks about how blind and deaf people are to God and his word.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzr1ue","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">Also, when Jesus was on earth the Jews kept asking for a sign from Him. They were blind to what he was doing with His ministry. The world is blind, so when you try to have these arguments that you feel you can’t win, I think you aren’t ever going to win them. I can show you God through my words and deeds but if you are blind to that, you won’t see what’s there to see.\n\nThis is why I see my inability to believe as a disability comparable to being unable to read.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzzkhs","parent_id":"jvzr1ue","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"mo_ff","body":"You can have faith that your monthly bills will be paid whilst you have no money or means to do so OR you can actually have the money. One will work. The other will leave you with no utilities. Full stop.\n\nIn a debate with a Christian you would encounter, \"Oh, but have you no faith a brother in Christ would not help you?\" And then a large quantity of scriptural examples would be brought forth from whatever version of the bible they are most familiar with.\n\nAs others have stated, the deck is stacked. If you can approach the conversation with your family in a civil manor, stop going to church. Believe what makes you happy and mentally healthy so long as it doesn't hurt others.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzr2rx","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"HansPGruber","body":"You need to read some Thomas Paine my friend. A renegade if the atomic age.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzrn0v","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Morasain","body":"Couple things.\n\nThe first thing is that burden of proof is with the person making a claim - Christians in this case.\n\nThe second thing is - you don't need to refute the religion itself, because you can't.\n\nUsually, if you bring up things like pastors being molesters, or the crusades, or witch burnings, Christians will commit a No True Scotsman fallacy. \"These pastors aren't *real* Christians.\" You don't need to refute that argument because it is in itself wrong - but if you want, you can always go the path of saying that everyone in the church is, in the end, appointed by God.\n\nThe easiest way to reject Christianity is to instead reject God, though. You don't even need to prove that he's bad or anything - you need to use your own morality to reject the idea that a god like depicted in Christianity can be a god you want to believe in.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzrwx0","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"hdhddf","body":"you don't need to convince them, they're arguing from a position of ignorance and indoctrination, you can't argue with that because their arguments aren't built on logic or sound reasoning.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzs63u","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Huffers1010","body":"Let's do it by example. What did they have a rebuttal for that you couldn't respond to?\n\nMy suspicion is that they really didn't.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzt6nt","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"misersoze","body":"Just say: “hey I also met a Muslim, a Mormon, a Jew and a Hindu. They all make the exact same arguments as you do about why their religion is the correct one and they all say they have the one true religion. So why should I join yours over their’s”.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvztpz1","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Potential_Cod_8473","body":"They might win a debate but the world still is a shitty place full of diseases, suffering, birth defeacts. \n\nIt only prove how dishonest someone is to defend a claim it was created my omnipotent and omniscient being. \n\nChristianity was falsified many times\nAdam and Eve? Fairytale\nGreat Flood? Fairytale\nBabel's tower? Fairytale\nExocus? Fairytale \nRessurection? Really improbable\n\nThe fact that the scripture has to be interpreted in the face of new evidence like why would omnipotent God need 4 bilions years to create highly imperfect and miserable beings or why universe is 93 bilion light years wide and we are limited by a speed of light is a powerful evidence against revelation.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvztt3e","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"the_internet_clown","body":"Just because someone says something in response doesn’t make it a good rebuttal","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzugyn","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Relevant_Maybe6747","body":"Christianity doesn’t have a rebuttal against Judaism - they’ve tried and tried to kill us and never succeeded","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzuj4l","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Is that really a good argument though? By that logic, Islam doesn't have a rebuttal against Christianity either (or vice versa).","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw075ml","parent_id":"jvzuj4l","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Scott_The_Protogen","body":"Why \"debate\" someone's faith anyways? Unless they're being a jerk about it like in the last part. I always just have that whole live and let live thing (Even if some fanatics might not be that way either). I know you say some of these people come to you with the debates, but I feel like just giving a solid \"I don't want to talk about it\" or \"My views aren't going to change\" might work, even if they do continue to badger you regarding it, It doesn't have to be a winning-losing game.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzullx","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">Why \"debate\" someone's faith anyways? \n\nIn the first link, I was challenged to a debate out of the blue when I requested not to go to church anymore. He wanted me to read his spiel and change my views, or give a counter-argument strong enough to defend my views.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw07dt4","parent_id":"jvzullx","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Key-Extension1458","body":"2000 years ago there was a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem that took animal sacrifice from the people. This was fulfilling the Mosaic Covenant, and sustained Israel called \"Judea\". Like Jesus said it would happen, the temple was thrown down to the last stone and the sacrificial rite was \"nailed to the cross\" in the words of Paul the Apostle. This leaves us without redemption under the law, and everyone is guilty of sin everywhere. \n\nHence the figure of Christ intervenes, and made the ultimate sacrifice, putting death and guilt and hell itself into the fire. Now we have grace and mercy, and redemption by faith. It seems to work, since 2000 years of Christian history represented the general improvement of life everywhere. At the same time, the movement was hijacked by earthly forces resulting in \"churchianty\" and roman catholicism. All \"debates\" are just scholastic noise from that time, arguing in circles about nothing relevant. It is what it is, the temple of jerusalem was destroyed 2000 years ago and the levitical rites were nailed to the Cross.\n\nNow everything is a free gift, the more we cast off the old man and put on the new. Strong enough faith loses fear of everything and moves mountains, it is divine power given to mankind. God loves the children of this world and Israel in dispersion, which means everyone.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzur3s","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Key-Extension1458","body":"2000 years ago there was a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem that took animal sacrifice from the people. This was fulfilling the Mosaic Covenant, and sustained Israel called \"Judea\". Like Jesus said it would happen, the temple was thrown down to the last stone and the sacrificial rite was \"nailed to the cross\" in the words of Paul the Apostle. This leaves us without redemption under the law, and everyone is guilty of sin everywhere. \n\nHence the figure of Christ intervenes, and made the ultimate sacrifice, putting death and guilt and hell itself into the fire. Now we have grace and mercy, and redemption by faith. It seems to work, since 2000 years of Christian history represented the general improvement of life everywhere. At the same time, the movement was hijacked by earthly forces resulting in \"churchianty\" and roman catholicism. All \"debates\" are just scholastic noise from that time, arguing in circles about nothing relevant. It is what it is, the temple of jerusalem was destroyed 2000 years ago and the levitical rites were nailed to the Cross.\n\nNow everything is a free gift, the more we cast off the old man and put on the new. Strong enough faith loses fear of everything and moves mountains, it is divine power given to mankind. God loves the children of this world and Israel in dispersion, which means everyone.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzurg6","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">2000 years ago the Temple in Jerusalem took animal sacrifice from the people. It was fulfilling the Mosaic Covenant, and sustained Israel called \"Judea\" at the time. Like Jesus said it would happen, the temple was thrown down to the last stone and the sacrificial rite was \"nailed to the cross\" in the words of Paul the Apostle. This leaves us without redemption under the law, and everyone is guilty of sin everywhere. \n> \n>Hence the figure of Christ intervenes, and made the ultimate sacrifice, putting death and guilt and hell itself into the fire. Now we have grace and mercy, and redemption by faith. It seems to work, since 2000 years of Christian history represented the general improvement of life everywhere. At the same time, the movement was hijacked by earthly forces resulting in \"churchianty\" and roman catholicism. All \"debates\" are just scholastic noise from that time, arguing in circles about nothing relevant. It is what it is, the temple of jerusalem was destroyed 2000 years ago and the levitical rites were nailed to the Cross. \n> \n>Now everything is a free gift, the more we cast off the old man and put on the new. Strong enough faith loses fear of everything and moves mountains, it is divine power given to mankind. God loves the children of this world and Israel in dispersion, which means everyone.\n\nIs this supposed to be a promotion of Protestantism?","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw07io1","parent_id":"jvzurg6","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"danmilligan","body":"One thing I'm sensing is that you're thinking of Christianity as a monolith, and while that was once true, it hasn't been for a long, long time. So many types of Christianity exist that there will be Christians on opposite sides of nearly any given issue. The true non-negotiables of the religion are extremely minimal, and highly interpretive. Because of this, you can't really say \"Christians are like this\" or \"Christians do that\", because this will apply to SOME Christians, but certainly not all. For a good example, the majority of American Christians are extremely unique from a global perspective, being far more individualistic, and reading the Bible in a slavishly literal fashion, among other things. So if you say \"Christians are anti-LGBTQ\", there are millions and millions of other Christians ready to counter that.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzusf6","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">One thing I'm sensing is that you're thinking of Christianity as a monolith, and while that was once true, it hasn't been for a long, long time. So many types of Christianity exist that there will be Christians on opposite sides of nearly any given issue. The true non-negotiables of the religion are extremely minimal, and highly interpretive.\n\nI'm well aware of the splits within Christianity. What I mention in my post detail is that I have tried and miserably failed to defend my lack of faith from both Catholics and Protestants. I understand that they'd have different ways of thinking regarding lack of faith, but at the end of the day, both defeated me.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw07u6h","parent_id":"jvzusf6","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"GreasyPorkGoodness","body":"You need to dismantle the church hierarchy and not the “existence of god”. \n\nIt’s not that you don’t believe in god, you don’t believe in Christianities following of god. Their church is corrupt, opulent, child molesters, hypocritical, child marriage, judgmental, in Christ like etcetera. \n\nGod very well might exist, if he does he certainly won’t approve of christianity.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzuv92","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"CutiePopIceberg","body":"Christianity is Middle Eastern mythology. Christians hate when you remind them of this.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzv7py","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"JustSomeDude0605","body":"\"I don't believe in that bullshit\"\n\nDebate over.\n\nContrary to your brother's or pastor's wishes, you don't owe them any sort of debate or explanation. Live your life as you want to, not based on what they think you should do. If that means, no religion then stop going to church. \n\nFuck em.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzvaah","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"CriticalThinkingAT","body":"The thing is, there are a mountain of atheist rebuttals as well. Like literally there are so many atheist channels out there to rebutting every Christian argument that it's just a matter of searching and looking for them. Lol. You'll be fine.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzvipb","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">The thing is, there are a mountain of atheist rebuttals as well. Like literally there are so many atheist channels out there to rebutting every Christian argument that it's just a matter of searching and looking for them. Lol. You'll be fine.\n\nCounterpoint: Only a few of these are useful. Most channels appear to be useful only against Protestant pastors who rely on charisma. Catholicism is much harder to debate against as they have 2000 years of church tradition, intellectuals and apologia on their side.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw09z3v","parent_id":"jvzvipb","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"OpenByTheCure","body":"I don't want to be harsh, but I just think you're not very good at debating","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzvw3c","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"I am bad at debating (and most other things). Maybe that's why I always get challenged to debates, because I will lose.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0b11j","parent_id":"jvzvw3c","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Dr_Keyser_Soze","body":"You need to listen to David C. Smalley. Take in a few podcasts and you won’t be disappointed.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzvzk2","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Wintermute815","body":"It’s really not. It depends on circular logic and faith, both of which are critical flaws.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzx8zv","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"j3rdog","body":"Stop trying to debate facts by point counter point. Learn street epistemology. There’s good YouTube channels and subreddits on it.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzxa1z","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Unable-Food7531","body":"You're:\n\n1. Bad at debating in general\n\n2. An unskilled rhetorician \n\n3. Uneducated on the topic you're debating.\n\nThose Three things together mean than any attempt to draw generally-appliable conclusions from your debating losses is doomed to produce bs.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzxmej","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"How can I get all 3 skills when I'm up against people who have so much more knowledge than me? I hate it when I give others a reason to criticise me.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw05k0t","parent_id":"jvzxmej","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"DangForgotUserName","body":"Christians don't have arguments, just elaborate evasions of criticism.\n\nIn order to be religious, or believe in a supernatural god, to some extent, one has to deny certain aspects of science, and also have to deny the foundations of reason and logic. \n\n\nThere are major undemonstrated claims that come with theism:\n\n-a spiritual, divine, or otherwise supernatural realm exists \n\n-there are nonphysical spiritual forces and entities \n -some kind of afterlife exists\n\n-at least humans have souls, which are the spiritual essence \"attached\" to a physical body\n\nEven if all these were demonstrated, we would still have no way of determining which deities were real. These claims are also far from being demonstrated, likely, or even possible. \n\nEven then, we have no way to link such deities to any religion that anyone worships.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzxv11","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Electrical-Rabbit157","body":"It’s not well designed. It’s the worst designed religion in the world actually. The success of Christianity is based around keeping people from learning about other faiths. The moment that happens the VAST majority of them leave christianity for something else. Myself included. \n\nYou have to go at the fundamental hypocrisy of it. The average Christian rants and raves about the Ten Commandments and yet every single one of them break the first 2 commandments daily and most break 3 commandments every Sunday. The average priest breaks the first 4. Then there’s the fact that the Bible is a corrupt text and Christianity as a whole was founded by Paul, a man who is not a prophet, not a disciple, not an apostle, just a random guy who comes out of nowhere and starts preaching that Jesus is God.\n\nThey worship a trinity which is paganism. There is no excuse for it. It’s the same exact belief system as Hindus which are literally the original pagans that Abraham fought against. This trinity also includes a man. That man is considered a prophet but still. This breaks the first commandment. \n\nThey idolize said man and the cross he died on. They wear necklaces with it. They put big gold crosses at the front of their churches and big wooden ones on the outside of them. This breaks the second commandment \n\nThey go to church on Sunday and the vast majority of them believe this is the sabbath. Which directly breaks the fourth commandment.\n\nThe priesthood commits extortion and sometimes even rape in either the name of God or what they lead people to believe is a house of God. This breaks the third commandment \n\nThen you get to the Bible and it’s non existent integrity. There are about 5 major sects of Christianity. Each one has about 40 versions of the Bible. And the average Christian may think this is normal, it’s not. Jews have 1 version of the Torah. Muslims have 1 version of the Quran. Hell even the Hindus only have 1 version of most of their texts. The new testemant is more written by Paul, who is again, not a prophet, than any actual apostle. All of Paul’s letters are included in the vast majority of bibles yet the book of Enoch, book of Jesus Christ, and lost gospel to Peter are considered “uncanon” by the church and have been removed for centuries. That is not a holy text. It may have been a couple thousand years ago but out of 200+ in circulation today, I’d seriously doubt any can be considered uncorrupted.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzyqtq","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"malorane","body":"Isn't this other person either straight up lying or totally misinformed about the Christianity/Catholicism? Like I could be misremembering but I'm pretty sure there are passages that literally give you guidelines about how to treat your slaves and this dude said both have always been against slavery?","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzz7x7","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"CantKeepMeOutYo","body":"You will never win against someone with faith. They will always always always have some other bullshit excusw up their sleeves. That's what makes religion so fucking dangerous: it uses logic when it works and then completely disregards it when logic doesn't work. Don't bother debating christians, they've accepted a parasite into their body that will defend its ability to feed off the host, even if it means killing the host, or YOU.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzzg1h","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"wibbly-water","body":">If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\r \n\r \nIf you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\n\nIgnoring the second proposition for a second I want to propose 2 more reasonable secular arguments;\n\n1. This is true of all religions because their axioms and methods for diving truth are different. They believe, want to believe, will tie all phenomena in with their argument, will ignore Occam's Razor to do so. \n2. If Christianity is better than (some) other religions at doing this it may be because it is a highly evolved system of memes. A meme is the idea equivalent to a gene. Religions are memetic in nature - they are ideologies, ideas about how the world works. Memes compete for space and survival much like genes do. And every time one of its memes is threatened it is forced to either drop that meme and adapt or bolster it to do the same. Look at the iterations of historical Christianity. Where are the puritans today? Even Protestantism evolved out of Catholicism - many will claim that they are barely the same religion.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzzk96","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"DangForgotUserName","body":"The salvation of man is dependent on the suffering of Jesus Christ. His 'blood sacrifice magic' supposedly forgives original sin - doctrine that we know though biology is utterly wrong. (A couple of garden nudists were guilty of rebellious fruit munching, so everyone deserves death or eternal torment?) This makes the theological story around Jesus one where he is scapegoat of a nonexistent forebear. This should undermine the value of Jesus as well as the foundational basis for belief in God.\n\n \n\nFurther, the idea that the only way to forgive is through ritualized punishment? That is petty and immoral. No forgiveness without bloodshed or death. Horrible, ignorant and outdated ideas.\n\n\nThe idea of a messiah, one who will deliver us from the tribulations of the present, is an ancient idea that distracts us from the hard work that must be done to build a better world.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzzkww","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Emotional_platypuss","body":"The problem here is both sides trying to impose beliefs on others. What you believe or don't believe is your problem. You don't need to explain why you don't follow a religion, specially to religious people. Is like them telling you why their religion is so good. Break out of that circle and move on","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0052z","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"notjuan_f_m","body":"This Is the problem with everything lately. \"I am right, you are wrong, and I will continue to tell you until you accept that i am right\"","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw00l9j","parent_id":"jw0052z","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"JackedLilJill","body":"If anything, just from your text and title, the fact that Christians explain themselves fully in the face of debate, should be the reason to change your view.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw00vuq","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"FerdinandTheGiant","body":"For your first debate with your brother, he was just straight up wrong on so much. Christianity is not and does not serve as the basis for morality in the western world or the world as a whole. \n\nMost of the non-western world like in Asia is not heavily Christian and wasn’t for most of their history. They of course are doing just fine. Christian morals have not been consistent nor are they the basis for a basic society. \n\nAdditionally, you don’t need Christianity to explain altruism as it already has a natural explanation. It’s called kin selection and essentially means that it is beneficial to help out family since they carry your genes. This means more of your genes will get passed on. This is likely how it evolved in humans and then developed into what we consider today. Animals do this. Altruism isn’t human alone. \n\nThen you have slavery which the Bible openly says is fine. Leviticus 25:44-46","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw013nj","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"-Strawdog-","body":"Taking a quick look at one or two of these examples, you have a very noticeable habit of accepting a lot of the other person's premises and arguments without pushing back on them at all. As an example, your brother mentions multiple times that altruistic behavior is the direct result of the Christian faith, an argument that is absolutely ridiculous for a bunch of reasons, not the least of which that our closest genetic relatives (chimpanzees and bonobos) exhibit all kinds of altruistic behaviors as part of their highly social lifestyles (and they also don't sacrifice eachother, something he seems weirdly hung up on).\n\nTo be honest, it doesn't look like the people you're debating have good arguments or are good at expressing them, it seems that you are just very new to debate, particularly on this topic. If debating religious folks is something you want to do (you are incredibly unlikely to change their minds even with very good arguments), you can find plenty of solid resources online that break down and refute just about any apologetics you are likely to encounter.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw01pm9","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"lamabaronvonawesome","body":"I have found the opposite to be true. I would recommend reading some books on logic and debate. Having an answer doesn't make it a good answer. I had a debate teacher that used to day \"the definition of a reason is anything I put forth as a reason.\" This essentially means you SAY anything, that doesn't mean it will hold up under scrutiny. You mentioned miracles that a person had given you examples of in their own life. Debate in essence is about definitions, how we define things. Get them to give you the definition of a miracle. I personally would define that as any event that is ONLY explainable by divine intervention. See if their miracles hold up to that.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw02avd","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"kountze","body":"The Church did have some good effects on political and cultural development in Europe - for example the separation of powers came from the Church being a strong counter force to the government for so long, church limited the government in ways that led to values of separation of powers and limited government, unlike China which was much more state dominated and still is today. Protestantism represented not only a change in religion but also a change in how humans think logically - so yeah a lot of good things can be tied to how Protestantism changed how people think. \n\nThat being said, the above certainly is a far cry from saying that Protestantism values will work in every situation or that it can address all of today’s modern problems. Protectionism ideally is something that should be open to interpretation, which modern Christianity has moved away from that. \n\nIn terms of science the Church does not have credible arguments - that’s the main problem. If you think they do, you really haven’t encountered anyone who actually knows the science and microbiology. \n\nAlso, do not confuse correlation and causation. Certain positive developments in society may correlate, but that correlation does not prove causation. \n\n\nThe issue with","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw035en","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Jaderholt439","body":"If I’m debating Christianity, I like to go straight to the main topic- the Resurrection.\n\nMost people I know and love are Christians; I don’t have a problem w/ their religion. I love these people. But what I don’t like are apologists. Every single one that I’ve ever seen is dishonest. Especially when it comes to the Resurrection.\n\nIt’s not hard to believe that a guy named Yeshua, who had a religious following, was crucified. I can even believe he was put in his own tomb, although most were put in a mass grave, it’s wasn’t unheard of. The stone being put to block the tomb and guards sound like they were plot holes being fixed in Matthew, but for arguments sake, I’ll agree to that too.\n\nJesus wasn’t in the tomb when they went to him 3 days later. What is the most likely explanation? Is it, “he must’ve overcome death and ascended, bc he’s God”? I think a Guy Ritchie style heist is way more plausible. ‘They forgot which cave’ is more plausible. Literally anything is more plausible. If they are being honest, they have to say, “I believe it on faith”. Yet, apologists will not say this, therefore they are dishonest, therefore they don’t have an answer for everything.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw03fxs","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Entropy_Drop","body":"LOL on the first link. Christianity didn't opposed slavery, and doesn't have a monopoly on being a good person. It actually was the ideological fundation of american slavery.\n\nHypocrates wasn't christian, gandi neither, and personal freedom, democracy and equality of genders aren't christian values.\n\nThe golden rule (\"don't do to other what you dont want done to yourself\") and the silver rule (\"do to others what you want to recieve from them\" (bdsm, for example)) are not creation of christianity. \n\nSome christian are propagandiced all their life into the worldview of \"all good comes from christ\", which is clearly a big lie. Is kinda justified for them to sell that lie, tho.\n\nAlso, that motto has a counter-part: \"No bad comes from christ\" which is my only explanation to how incredible bigoted people justify their behavior without ever thinking \"are we the badies?\". Anita \"pie-face\" Bryant comes to mind, who, in her own words \"loved homosexuals\".","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw04f2l","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Jade_Skie","body":"TJ Kirk (aka The Amazing Atheist) on YouTube once mentioned \"unfalsifiable hypothesis.\" In other words, Christians spout the argument that miracles, what is said in the Bible, Satan, and God all exist and are as the answer to everything because immediate evidence to the contrary can normally not be produced by their opponent, thus no argument against them can be made. So in their minds, they are right. That is, of course, not how the world/universe actually works.\n\nTo quote Carl Sagan: \"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.\"","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw04j73","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"JuliusErrrrrring","body":"Remember the following truths: most people who claim they are Christians are good people; most people who are good people and claim they are Christian are good because of their ignorance of the Bible, not because of the Bible. The Bible is an awful immoral book and the religion is completely silly. It is pro slavery, pro genocide, pro forced abortion and pro incest. If you are debating anyone who isn't in favor of those things, they may be actually non believers too, they are just too ignorant of their religion to know any better.\n\n​\n\nIt is completely silly and does not hold up to debate. Just some quick obvious random thoughts off the top of my head: They suck at math - claim to have one god yet believe in a holy trinity as well as an evil god. Many Christians claim to be against abortion, yet the Bible actually gives an abortion recipe, god murdered pregnant women in his Noah's Arc genocide, and Jesus forced abortions on Jezebel. Many Christians are anti-trans and anti gay - yet Eve transitioned from a male rib and now they worship a dress wearing dude with two fathers who identifies as bread and wine. Cain and Abel were the original motherfuckers. The whole bible was written by people who never met Jesus and there is zero historical proof that there even was a man named Jesus pretending to be god. It's just a gigantic hoax that's been accepted due to peer pressure because life is easier and you can make more money and get laid easier if you simply play along with this silly marketing scheme.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw05bz4","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Loose-Technology7787","body":"Christianity is designed that way. Christians are programmed in a way via church and such where they hold their belief to a much higher standard than any facts or logic despite a lack of evidence. On of christianity's main taglines is to just have faith in god even though hes done nothing to show you hes there.\n\nDebating a religious person on religion is an unwinnable debate. You cant argue against someones opinion when the only points they will accept are those that align with said opinion. For example, many christians say good and evil only exist because god decides whats good and bad. I might say that life is meaningless, therefore our thoughts and feelings are all that exist making them all that matters. Meaning we get to choose whats moral; however the christian would then just say life isnt meaningless because god gives meaning to life. This will go on for any length of time.\n\nThe only reason atheists win those official televised debates is because theres a mediator keeping nonsense out of it. They keep the religious side from using unreasonable and illogical arguments, which leads to them losing.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw05l8j","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"BuzzyShizzle","body":"That's funny because, I have yet to hear them lose an argument/debate on the atheist experience yet. \n\nIf you haven't heard of it, there is a call-in radio show called \"the atheist experience\" and the entire show is welcoming any religious to call in and challenge them. If you want your view changed, that show will do a much better job than anything else.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw06l99","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Sad_Confidence8941","body":"I agree, Christianity is very well designed. The smartest people alive for many centuries spent their lives defending Christianity (Thomas Aquinas, Saint Augustine, etc). They have been philosophically attacked for years and years and are still here","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw06orq","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"nomad5926","body":"Homie out here saying the altruism isn't a natural thing without Christianity..... 🤣 Bro be saying Meerkats are all Christians? Or Naked Mole Rats?\n\nI will never understand why people have to force religion upon others. But essentially an easy way out is to ask them to provide solid proof that God existed. Logically you cannot not prove a belief. (Like others have said before me). Typically the ones making the claim \"god exists\" have the burden of proof. \n\nAlso in my experience you're not going to convince anyone to stop believing. It's the same reason kids believe in Santa it gives them something. For most people, religion is a source of comfort. It's why, from what I see, older folks are more religious. (Cause you know.... Closer to death... Heaven seems nicer).\n\nIf you just want them to stop harassing you, you can just say that your relationship with God is personal and need not be on disability for others. (You don't have to say the bit that the relationship is non-existent).","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0753r","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Moraulf232","body":"Christianity has an answer for any criticism but the answers are silly and unconvincing just like the religion.\n\nJust ask yourself “has this answer explained why I should believe these assertions with no evidence or has it just made more assertions with no evidence?” and “could this answer be used to justify the existence of a Flying Spaghetti Monster or literally any other deity?” or “is there any evidence that the person I am talking to can imagine that would cause them to change their mind?” etc.\n\nThe philosophical arguments (apologetics) religions use are just fancy noise. There’s nothing there.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw07atx","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"lpuckeri","body":"Theres many reasons why christianity is absolutely absurd, at a childlike and comical level imo. I have equal belief in it than i do Santa. The apologetics for christianity are just excuses for something as rediculous as believing in flying to heaven on a winged horse.\n\nLets remember, we are arguing about. A cosmic jewish god zombie who is his own father and was born a virgin birth to a women impregnated by a holy ghost. \n\nThere is zero evidence for this that is not heresay. Not a single item or record or peice of evidence contemporary to jesus exists. To confirm this laughably absurd story all we have is stories that contradict each other, written in the wrong language, written decades to centuries after the fact, much of which we know was straight up forged and copied from surrounding greek myths and people.\n\nGetting lost in abologetics is exacty meant to make you forget you are proving an absurd thing eith zero evidence, and get caught up in the weeds.\n\n\nReasons. \n\n1. Supernatural events in the bible are empirically impossible to prove. Christians may use awful arguments like minimal facts etc, but these are all comically bad and fallacious. Abuductive reasoning is all we have access to, and that can never demonstrate supernatural events... This alone is enough, as it is logicalltly impossible to demonstrate christianity through our resources.\n\n2. The bible is self contradictory, the trinity and more is exceedingly illogical. By this i mean it literslly violates the laws of logic... and is isnanely stupid.\n\n3. The bible is obvious myth taken from surrounding cultures.\n\n4. There are no decent biblical scholars who think Moses wrote the old testament. Moses clearly never existed and exodus never happened. This is extremely confirmed... there is extreme evidence the base of both judeaism and christianity is 100% made up.\n\n5. People that claim supernatural events or whatever... 1. Does not prove god, or their god... it proves they had something special happen and nothing more. 2. These are nothing more than claims. 3. People claim this shit for every religion, thousands... if you apply this standard as evidence for one... you must for thousands of gods. 4. Once you understand psychology you realize how the brain works snd how easy it is for people to misnterpret things visually and auditory.\n\n6. Religions are not one off inventions. They are all representations and copyings of popular myths at the time. This can be seen in thousands of religions. Just as it is in christianity... the devil and hell doesnt become a thing until Greek influence, things like rising and dying saviours were popular greek myths too at the time of the bible etc. In fact the bible was wirtten in greek, not aramaic, the language Jesis and his follower would have spoken. You see babylonian myths copied into the parts of the bible, when they were written there...you see the bibles hell and devil and apocalyptic influences copying greek myth during the hellenistic period. Religions are copies of surrounding myth and cultures.\n\n7. Apologists often use arguments to prove god that are diestic. Things like the ontological srgument, teleological argument... aside from these being bad arguments, they only prove A God... not christianity. Even if the Kalam is true... the odds of christianity bring true is still zero... it gets you no closer.\n\n8. The bible wasnt written by geniuses. It was written by copying and adapting popular myths, cultures, and laws at the time. From copying ancient semetic religions and near eastern traditions 4000 tears ago, to adapting greek myths 2000 years ago. It also was written of centuries, adapted, edited, revised, forged, faked, reinterpreted thousands of times by hundeds of people. This idea some geniuses wrote this thing like you see it now is childishly ignorant of scholarship and history.\n\n9. There are actually about 94 gospels. 90 of which christians will admit are 100% bullshit mythological stories... yet they somehow think these are the special true 4, because the church leaders centuries ago simply decided so. \n\n10. These excuses and arguments for christianity are no better and no different than the ones Jews will use, or muslims, or Sikhs. You just live in a place around christians most likely. \n\nIts interesting because i have never heard a christian argument to me than is not childishly rediculous imo.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw07u2w","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Inevitable_Spare_777","body":"You can’t have a factual, logical debate with a person who’s worldview doesn’t subscribe to facts and logic","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw08ays","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"drzowie","body":"There is no direct way to argue a Christian out of Christianity, because it is a faith-based system of beliefs. But you *can* demand respect for your own beliefs.\n\nA couple of years ago, I wrote about just how incompatible Christian beliefs are with the scientific worldview. That line of argument is (like any other argument) unlikely to convince a fervent believer -- but may help you to understand that there are real weaknesses in the edifice of Christian thought. \n\nBelow is [copypasta from an early CMV post I made](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/7zy9wp/cmv_you_can_accept_todays_scientific_theory/durqqmi/):","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw08i8h","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"DouglerK","body":"I mean if they didn't the religion would probably be dead by now.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw08xbe","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"joshp23","body":"> If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniouses\n\nAll they have at their disposal are unfalsifiable claims. You can't prove that the invisible dragon in my garage doesn't exist either. The rest is a con act to attribute personal experience to the dragon. \n\nBut unfalsifiability and con tactics aside, wouldn't a genius be able to construct an effective argument *and* compile an internally consistent document at the same time? You have to do mental gymnastics to apologize for the ignorance and inconsistencies in the Bible.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw09c2d","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Crookwell","body":"OR you just aren't a very good critic?\nBecause I can rebuke shitty religious claims all day","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw09wvx","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"redstar15551","body":"Maybe you should give up then? You're not gonna \"Gotcha\" Christianity so leave them alone. Your lack of faith and overabundance of cynicism does not bug anyone the slightest. Don't trap yourself because you view this as an unwinnable battle against some dogmatic close minded religion, when that in and of itself is close minded. There's a modern pushback against religion, Christianity specifically, that has been pushed hard; but Christianity has and will continue to endue.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0a4wk","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Various_Succotash_79","body":"When my brothers were young, they played a game that was very much like Calvinball (if you've never read the comic Calvin and Hobbes, this is a game they made up on the fly). So it was all stuff like \"now the floor is lava so you burn up!\" \"Oh yeah? I throw 60 million tons of dry uce on it and that cools it off\", \"well that was too much and now you're frozen solid!\" Etc. \n\nThat's pretty much what religion is. Your mistake is in trying to make any sense of it.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0b260","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">When my brothers were young, they played a game that was very much like Calvinball (if you've never read the comic Calvin and Hobbes, this is a game they make up on the fly, so it never has the same rules). So it was all stuff like \"now the floor is lava so you burn up!\" \"Oh yeah? I throw 60 million tons of dry ice on it and that cools it off\", \"well that was too much and now you're frozen solid!\" Etc. \n\n!delta\n\nAs you show, you can't get anywhere trying to defend yourself from a religion which is designed to dodge accountability and make opponents lose. It's not designed for a debate, it's designed to be inescapable.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw25sdi","parent_id":"jw0b260","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Collective82","body":"If you are having such a hard time debating it, shouldn’t you consider it’s right and maybe you should look at converting?","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0bbov","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"I have. The problem is no matter how hard I try, I have zero spirituality and a complete inability to be sincerely connected with any religion. I see this as a disability comparable to being unable to because it's such a drag on my life.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw263jo","parent_id":"jw0bbov","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Fluffy_Candle6800","body":"I'll give you a quote from a book I read - \"God is omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent. However, bad things still happen. This means God cannot stop the bad things - he is not omnipotent, God does not know the things are happening - he is not omniscient, or he allows the bad things to happen - he is not benevolent.\"","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0bhc0","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"I've accepted the last one. How can I possibly believe in a benevolent god, when he gives miracles to some and neglects genuine victims, or when the religion he designed has endless excuses and loopholes to dodge all accountability?","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw26dbi","parent_id":"jw0bhc0","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"ItsAll42","body":"I do feel as though you too quickly concede many points that are not accurate or honest, but stated with such confidence they are difficult to rebutt just as confidently without sufficient background knowledge. In fact, some of these claims are just straight up racist, such as claiming altruism is not only a strictly christian virtue, but that many values such as caring for the sick and needy or having basic human decency are strictly Western practices and values.\n\n This is wildly inaccurate to claim, knowledge of history can easily debunk such ludicrous statments, especially considering much of the Western ideology is more focused on individualism where confucianism is more focused on the community as a whole. Buddhism stresses that all beings have inherent worth and challenges the strictly heiarchichal values of confucianism, yet still plenty of emphasis is placed on how to better the community as a whole and being kind for the sake of altruism and kindness without any expectation of personal rewards. You do not have to be a historian or theologian to debunk so much of what this person is claiming, especially in regard to other Abrahamic religions which are incredibly similar to the teachings of Christianity, you know, because they share a common historical and biblical root. While modern interpretations of Abrahamic faiths run the gamut, they are more alike than many of their subscribers would like to admit. \n\nIn fact, I'd argue that Christianity and most of its branches contain more self-serving motives than many religious beliefs, promising prosperity and wealth in heaven as a reward for good behavior. As an agnostic person I do not need a reward for my good behavior. \n\nAs you tried to point out, when this person claims pagans did not care for the sick or other absurd claims, the burden of proof is on them to substantiate such a ridiculous assumption. \n\nThis person comes across as making many intellectually dishonest arguments, and you more or less concede or gloss many of these points without pushback.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0cszb","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">This person comes across as making many intellectually dishonest arguments, and you more or less concede or gloss many of these points without pushback.\n\nThat's because I didn't study history at a tertiary level. See how I'm a frequent visitor to r/AskHistorians - because I'm not smart or knowledgeable about history. Are you suggesting that to defeat Christianity, I'll need a university degree in history?","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw26yyz","parent_id":"jw0cszb","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"FerdinandTheGiant","body":"Most, if not all of the Western values people like to claim are “Judeo-Christian” in origin simply aren’t. For one “Judeo-Christian values” aren’t a thing as these groups have different values, however let’s consider a few things we value in the west. \n\n#Democracy\n\nIn the Bible, democracy is never extolled or even articulated. Instead, there are endless stories of theocratic, authoritarian rule and the divine right of kings. Power is always concentrated; it’s never distributed. In classical Greece, however, Athenians established what is generally recognized as the world’s first democracy around 500 BCE. This predates Christianity and arose with no Jewish influence.\n\n#Common Humanity/ Equality\n\nThis is simply not biblical. In the New Testament, women are forbidden from holding authority over a man, told to be silent in church, and instructed to be obedient and submissive to their husbands. The same word used for submissive in Colossians also is used to describe how slaves should be to their masters. Women can be killed if they’re suspected of having premarital sex; the tenth commandment forbids coveting property, which includes women in the same sentence as houses and oxen; if a woman was raped, she was forced to marry her rapist if the offender paid her father, and on and on it goes.\n\nNon-Israelites or gentiles were forced into slavery and treated as property. This is seen in Leviticus and all over the Hebrew Bible. Slavery was condoned and justified for thousands of years using the Bible. \n\n#10 Commandments\n\nA common argument is that these “laws” are where we derive most of our morals and values in the west. This is rather silly. \n\nFor starters, a lot of the commandments are about idolatry, however other Rules like “thou shall not kill” predate Christianity and Judaism by hundreds of years. Literally any and all functional societies require this rule to be in place. And all over the world you see non-Christian nations follow similar “laws”. This is because they are beneficial for building a society. \n\n#Other religions\n\nOther religions have much stronger moral codes that Christanity. Jainism believes so much in the value of life that they won’t even talk at night because they could accidentally harm an insect. Buddhists have a deep personal desire to self improve while also improving the lives of those around them. Same could be said for taoists.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0dbxm","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"That's the problem though. You assume that Christianity is pro-democracy and pro-equality when history has shown us that they'd gladly throw these concepts under the bus if it were in the way of their religion.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw27njn","parent_id":"jw0dbxm","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Circular360Angles90","body":"People often conflate these two completely separate ideas. God/Higher Power - whatever you want to call it, with - Religion. \n\nReligion, in its limited ability tries to use the concept of God in an attempt to sway your reasoning capabilities towards their doctrine. God, however is completely separate from Religion.\n\nReligion just seems to have a Monopoly on the word. People feel as though believing in a God or Gods means they should adhere to some way of “knowing” their God. - which is all that a religion really does. But rest assured that it is someone elses ideas you are digesting. Theres nothing wrong with consulting people whom you believe to be wise or have more experience, but if you start feeling like they have some sort of answer that you cant quite grasp, then your talking to the wrong people. \n\nThis is not something that anyone can “show” you or “debate” you about. \n\nGod isnt in a book. God isnt an idea you learn from the pulpit. God isnt reason nor logic. God isnt bad. God isnt good. \n\nYou are engaging in a debate where their is nothing to debate, thus you always be “outwitted.”\n\nThink for yourself, walk your own path. You’ll fall flat on your face initially, perhaps for many years and, if you can muster up strength to get up on your own and not ask anybody why you fell and why it hurts so bad - you’ll stop feeling “outwitted.”","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0f9fa","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">You are engaging in a debate where their is nothing to debate, thus you always be “outwitted.”\n\n>Think for yourself, walk your own path. You’ll fall flat on your face initially, perhaps for many years and, if you can muster up strength to get up on your own and not ask anybody why you fell and why it hurts so bad - you’ll stop feeling “outwitted.”\n\nIsn't this the problem though? Most people can earn external respect being just who they are. In contrast, I have to prove my respectability, and prove why I have valid views, and I always lose.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw2llv2","parent_id":"jw0f9fa","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"CIABrainBugs","body":"If God was real, his actions would prevent me from giving him any respect. I don't care if he's real.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0fl5d","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Nghtmare-Moon","body":"Read Carl Sagan’s demon haunted world. It’s the best essay to counter all religious arguments","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0g6mu","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"GainPornCity","body":"It's not that there's a rebuttle for everything. There's just a different lens to look through. \n\nSay an atheist has blue shades on and sees everything as blue. Christian sees everything as red. However, the one commonality between the Athiest and the Christian is the human construct..thereby despite being in different mindsets, they both acknowledge phenomena as they unfold in the world\n\nNo matter how much blue you speak regarding world phenomena, the Christian will respond to *each* phenomenon with a red response. \n\n\nThis phenomenon, you look at through a blue lens and say: \"The Christian has an excuse for everything, no matter how blue, there's always gonna be some red to speak on from their side.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0gw4r","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Realistic-Cat4116","body":"The only rebuttal you need is: \"Prove it.\" Keep repeating that over and over again. They can't, you win, end of argument.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0h3pm","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Okami_The_Agressor_0","body":"Debating things that are designed to explain all with a basis in non-falsifiable statements is impossible. Religions are all memetic viruses that are meant to superimpose a false sense of the world on their followers, there are other belief systems that do the same that don't involve god but a well designed memetic virus can't be successful with out being impervious to logic or ways to side step rational thinking. That being said many modern political beliefs are structured similarly and operate in a similar fashion to religions. \n\nReligion imparts a base line culture and morality to people that allows for a more respectful and peaceful society. Part of what make that possible is ideological sanitation of a populace. Diversity of ways of life sparks conflict and religion solves that a good portion of the time. You could potentially see how many recent events have been the result of diverse culture and belief systems, so any derivation of heterogenization of society would logically be rejected by such belief systems with understandable cause.\n\nI believe people should be able to do what ever they please but when there is no respect in society people seek control from government to maintain the peace. So the easiest way for a country to stay free is to remain an ethno/ideological-state, or very slow and controlled change. When accounting these things you must satisfy for the lowest common denominator which will inevitable reject things on the basis of tribal instinct.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0k3j1","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"ApeMummy","body":"You’re outwitted because you lack wit not because christianity is special.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0k3sk","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"SeymoreButz38","body":"1st is a citation needed. Second was a semantic argument. Third is a no true scotsman fallacy.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0kns0","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Ecoronel1989","body":"I think the issue here is your brother does a few things to confuse you.\n1. Switching between defending spirituality and Christianity.\n2. Berating you with words so it's hard for you to rebuttal everything that is said (an overwhelming tactic).\n3. Throws out unprovable claims that are opinions as facts.\n\nFor #1, there's a big difference between spirituality and Christianity. Christianity asserts it is the one true religion, all others are wrong and lead to a wrong lifestyle. Spirituality is a general idea about believing in something outside oneself. To Christians, spirituality is paganism (unless it's Christianity itself) and therefore wrong and cannot be accepted or celebrated. So your brother can't simply pick and choose to say spirituality is good for the health and then switch to say Islam is not a good religion as these are contradictory statements.\n\nBut this issue is linked to #2, he berates arguments with a ton of words and makes multiple \"points\" at once. This is a similar tactic to what Donald Trump has used during his time as a politician. Simply overload the other side with a word soup, throwing out multiple arguments that are each wrong, but takes effort to debate each of them. By the time you gather your thoughts about the first wrong statement, he's moved on to the next 3, it's overwhelming.\n\nWhich leads to the last point, that is throwing out unprovable claims in the midst of his word soup. Claims such as there would be no morality without religion are unprovable for modern science since we have had religion in all cultures for over 2000 years, so it's hard to test this \"fact\". Another one that comes to mind is saying there's objective morality in the Bible, which you argued is not because of the Bible. Another counterargument is that the interpretation to the Bibles teachings changes across generations (i.e. slavery allowed for priests) and is therefore not objective, but his claim is unprovable in general as you can only offer up counter examples he can claim we're people not following the \"truth\".\n\nOverall, I think you're doing better than you think at debating this issue. The larger issue is what others have pointed out, that you don't have to win this argument, simply live by what you believe is true like they do.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0m923","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"TimeFliesFaster","body":"It doesn’t have a good rebuttal as to why Jesus is the prophesied messiah of a religion that believes in a single unitary god. Especially when Jesus didn’t have the right ancestors and failed to meet the applicable prophesies (ie dead all coming back to life, temple being restored for all time, diaspora returning, war coming to permanent end, and entire world embracing scripture in messiah’s lifetime)","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0sjyl","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"David_Warden","body":"You are trying to prove a negative which is a waste of time.\n\nThey are the ones making the improbable claims so the burden of proof lies with them. \n\nIf they continue to pester you, ask them to prove it.\n\nI think you will find that it boils down to belief in the highly improbable that is not adequately supported by either evidence or reasoning.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw1cnr9","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"SaltiestRaccoon","body":"Sure. They have rebuttals. They're just not as good as you think they are. And they tend to be the same rebuttals over and over.\n\nI mean just to refute the ones you were hit with... In the first example, he paints the 'pagan' world monolithically while citing the worst examples from many different cultures, while kind of also ignoring that many of those things also apply to Christian nations. Pretty sure the weak and poor weren't running Medieval England, for instance. Likewise slaves were absolutely still a thing among Christians... the slaves just couldn't also be Christian. There were Christian Germanic warriors pillaging right along with the rest of them. Finally virtually any civilization that has kept slaves does in fact have laws about how they can be treated. It can certainly even be argued that serfdom is still just slavery but called something else to make it acceptable, as people can still be bought and sold, they just count as part of the land instead and likewise must work for their lord or face abuse or death. Sounds a lot like slavery to me.\n\nAltruism is in fact a part of human nature. It evolved because we are a social species and we are inclined to act for the good of our group, as our group is beneficial to our survival. There's a [great example](https://www.upi.com/Archives/1987/11/04/Cavemen-took-care-of-physically-disabled/5137563000400/) of a cave man skeleton with some pretty crippling deformities, who could not have hunted for himself that lived to old age. That means his tribe or his family unit was caring for him despite the fact he was a burden. And this is humanity in the stone age, at our least civilized. The Gauls, as well routinely collected a portion of taxes to help pay for their disabled citizens (though in Rome, it was preached if not always practiced that disabled children should be put to death.)\n\nIn a lot of instances he just seems ignorant on history and expects you to go along with it. A lot of it is very gish-gallupy too. He says so many wrong things that there's no way to correct them all without getting so bogged down with corrections that you can never make a point of your own, or even refute all of his errors. Don't allow that. Insist on arguing one point at a time.\n\nReally I think it's gaps in your knowledge more than Christianity being particularly difficult to criticize. I find it quite easy.","date":"2023-08-14","id":"jw3kj7g","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}]],"string":"[\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"DeadCupcakes23\",\n \"body\": \"Why does it matter if Christianity has a rebuttal for something? You can criticise the bible and Christianity based on what it says and the actions done in its name (context depending).\\n\\nPeople have moral values without Christianity and most things people appreciate nowadays are not inherent to Christianity, for example the bible allows slavery.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzggd4\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">Why does it matter if Christianity has a rebuttal for something? You can criticise the bible and Christianity based on what it says and the actions done in its name (context depending).\\n\\nBecause losing a debate due to their rebuttals makes me look stupid. Also, if you follow the links to their arguments, even the atrocities done in its name don't count because those fall under \\\"false prophets\\\". \\n\\nIt's like the Bible was written with this possibility in mind to entrap us.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzh2ui\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzggd4\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"tipoima\",\n \"body\": \"Christianity *was* fabricated, but not by geniuses. \\nYou're fighting against over two thousand years worth of apologetics, where all the weakest arguments have been pruned away. \\nHowever, as expected of something that isn't actually true, those arguments are often plainly wrong, be it due to logical fallacies, appeals to unknown, obtuse philosophy you probably don't know you don't subscribe to, no-true-scotsmanning, e.t.c.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzh8ep\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">However, as expected of something that isn't actually true, those arguments are often plainly wrong, be it due to logical fallacies, appeals to unknown, obtuse philosophy you probably don't know you don't subscribe to, no-true-scotsmanning, e.t.c.\\n\\nThis is exactly what they do. The problem is that \\\"I don't know\\\" is not an acceptable answer to them ([see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvhr81y/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)), whereas they already have something up their sleeve to entrap me. \\n\\nAs you mentioned, with 2000 years of experience creating answers, I even if I am able to point out something wrong or intellectually dishonest, they'll still have an answer for that, forcing me to spend yet more time and effort to come up with an answer. And I am not intelligent enough to create an answer for everything they throw at me, so I'm trapped.\\n\\nIt's an uphill battle, and one that can easily be lost. Until we can come up with a rebuttal they can't defeat, there will always be a risk that secular society and LGBT rights might be defeated.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzhurp\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzh8ep\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Watchyobackistan\",\n \"body\": \"Not really, most of their \\\"rebuttals\\\" are stuff like \\\"god doesn't give us all the answers\\\" and \\\"Don't worry jesus loves you\\\" Non-answers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzhdab\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"MercurianAspirations\",\n \"body\": \"But why should you give a shit? If you have conviction in your own beliefs, it shouldn't matter whether or not you can convince others using your super debater skillz or not. After all, if somebody were sufficiently dumb or insane, it would be impossible to convince them of the truth, no matter how clear and apparent the truth were; therefore, whether or not a thing is widely believed and people are readily convinced of its truth is not a guide to truth. When there was only one person on the earth who believed in heliocentrism they were still right, and the geocentrists were still wrong. The geocentrists had answers for every single objection, and they won every single debate, yet, they were still wrong. \\n\\nMoreover, it isn't that Christianity is super well designed or anything. It's just that people who have strongly held convictions are not available to be convinced by facts and logic. That's just how people are: they do not actually change their minds that much.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzhezx\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">But why should you give a shit?\\n\\nBecause I don't want my stances to look stupid. I was once likened to an anti-vaxxer for not being able to provide evidence to back my lack of faith.\\n\\n> If you have conviction in your own beliefs, it shouldn't matter whether or not you can convince others using your super debater skillz or not. \\n\\nConviction in your own beliefs doesn't make one right. Besides, their side also has a firm conviction in their beliefs.\\n\\n>When there was only one person on the earth who believed in heliocentrism they were still right, and the geocentrists were still wrong. The geocentrists had answers for every single objection, and they won every single debate, yet, they were still wrong.\\n\\nScience doesn't care about number of believers, what matters is the evidence. And in the case of heliocentrism, it was proven right by overwhelming evidence. I wish I had overwhelming evidence to back my lack of faith.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzih4p\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzhezx\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Mr-Bitter\",\n \"body\": \"Send your brother my way. I know of a way to convince him that it was Satan that wrote the Bible and can kill every single one of his arguments. I would thoroughly enjoy a civilized religious debate.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzhg91\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"ApocalypseYay\",\n \"body\": \">CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\\n\\nThis makes zero sense. Rebuttals require logic and facts, and there are only apologia and special pleasing fallacy described herein. \\n\\nLet's start from the basic - where is the evidence for chris, the alleged son of god, and somehow also god, that killed himself to please himself? There is zero historical evidence for this event, before we even get to the easily debunked claims of miracles, or the plainly immoral laws being promulgated as divine commandments.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzhig9\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">where is the evidence for chris,\\n\\n[Most historians accept that Jesus Christ existed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus). The rest of the biblical story isn't accepted by historians.\\n\\n>before we even get to the easily debunked claims of miracles,\\n\\n[I miserably failed at convincing someone that I don't believe in miracles](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvai6qm/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). How would you convince him?\\n\\n> or the plainly immoral laws being promulgated as divine commandments.\\n\\nHow would you convince them that their side is immoral? They have methods up their sleeve to dismiss the malice conducted in the name of Christianity, and justify the anti-LGBT commandments.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzj8qx\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzhig9\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"physioworld\",\n \"body\": \"The most important concept you have to remember is the burden of proof. It’s not up to you to prove the Christianity ISNT TRUE, it’s up to them to prove that it IS TRUE. So if they can’t prove their own religion you need to accept it, you don’t have to worry about disproving their beliefs. \\n\\nA good way to illustrate this, is whether they would accept comparable claims with comparable evidence from other religions. So if they claim that Christianity is true because it says so in the bible, ask whether you should also accept Islam because it says so in the Quran.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzhlry\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">The most important concept you have to remember is the burden of proof. It’s not up to you to prove the Christianity ISNT TRUE, it’s up to them to prove that it IS TRUE. So if they can’t prove their own religion you need to accept it, you don’t have to worry about disproving their beliefs.\\n\\nBut that's the problem - they consider themselves as proving it is true. For example, one guy who told me of miracles he received - [and I lacked a sufficient rebuttal to convince him he's wrong](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvai6qm/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzjexi\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzhlry\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Adam__B\",\n \"body\": \"You don’t have to defend not believing in something that is invisible, utterly silent, immeasurable, illogical, unscientific, undetectable and untestable. The burden is on them to prove a positive, not you a negative.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzi1gp\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"OrangeBlancmange\",\n \"body\": \"Why do you think you are losing? They obviously haven’t convinced you in these arguments and just falling back to faith (which is all they really have) doesn’t ‘win’ anything in any meaningful way. You won’t be able to argue them out of their faith so you can’t ‘win’ either. Ultimately it’s not an argument in the philosophical sense - they aren’t engaging in good faith and simply will not change their minds regardless of what you say.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzi24f\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"> they aren’t engaging in good faith and simply will not change their minds regardless of what you say.\\n\\nBad faith arguments are like doping in sports - they make it easier for them to win. You just need to be a good enough debater to win despite the disadvantage.\\n\\n>Why do you think you are losing? \\n\\nBecause I failed to be that \\\"good enough debater\\\". Any argument I can throw at them is utterly crushed and thrown back at me.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzk4ge\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzi24f\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Cayowin\",\n \"body\": \"How did you lose that debate?\\n\\nSlavery - Christians used the bible to promote the slave trade\\n\\n[https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/01/a-harvard-exhibit-on-slavery-and-christianity/#:\\\\~:text=In%20the%20modern%20era%2C%20Christianity,often%20used%20to%20justify%20slavery](https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/01/a-harvard-exhibit-on-slavery-and-christianity/#:~:text=In%20the%20modern%20era%2C%20Christianity,often%20used%20to%20justify%20slavery).\\n\\nYes there were abolitionists, but if the same text can be used to both justify and condemn an action how is that text a good moral guide?\\n\\nThe bible explicitly allows the owning of humans as property. So either god is not unchanging or he changed his mind. \\n\\n1 Peter 2:18, Saint Peter writes \\\"Slaves, be subject to your masters with all reverence, not only to those who are good and equitable but also to those who are perverse.\\\"\\n\\nYes they have prepared apologetics, it just means you need to do more research. Remember they have no evidence for their claims beyond personal gut feelings and a collection of contradictory, fictional and historic works.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzi8a8\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">Slavery - Christians used the bible to promote the slave trade\\n\\nI've miserably failed when using the \\\"what about slavery argument\\\" - it's in the link following \\\"It all started 3 years ago\\\". Sure, I could point out the pro-slavery parts, but they'll have a reason why that bit is irrelevant or misinterpreted. It's exhausting, finding every argument to throw at them, and having each one of those utterly crushed with more rebuttals thrown your way.\\n\\n>Yes they have prepared apologetics, it just means you need to do more research. Remember they have no evidence for their claims beyond personal gut feelings and a collection of contradictory, fictional and historic works.\\r \\n\\r\\n\\nI tried pointing out to someone that I don't believe in his \\\"miracle\\\". [My attempt failed miserably](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvai6qm/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzkhnt\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzi8a8\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Augnelli\",\n \"body\": \"What is the rebuttal for the Ark? What did the carnivores eat? How did the Kangaroos and Koalas make it up from Australia? What about fresh water fish? How much space was designated for JUST the elephants food?\\n\\nYou don't need to debate every detail, just enough to invalidate the core; the truth on which they base their faith.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzikz2\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">What is the rebuttal for the Ark? What did the carnivores eat? How did the Kangaroos and Koalas make it up from Australia? What about fresh water fish? How much space was designated for JUST the elephants food?\\n\\nThat's the problem - even since the medieval era, most Christians disavowed biblical literalism, because biblical literalism is easier to poke holes into. Instead, they've come up with apologia, and now, with over 2000 years of apologia to defend against, it's become an unwinnable fight.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzlcvy\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzikz2\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"ch0cko\",\n \"body\": \"No. I am a frequent debater on subs like r/DebateReligion and r/DebateAnAtheist and everything you've said here is just... no. The vast majority of arguments for theism or counterarguments against arguments against theism, generally lead to special pleading or other fallacies.\\n\\nHere's one post I recently made: [https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/15pjew5/extraordinary\\\\_claims\\\\_need\\\\_extraordinary\\\\_evidence/](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/15pjew5/extraordinary_claims_need_extraordinary_evidence/) which then links to another one of my posts that goes more in-depth: [https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/15ey939/if\\\\_religious\\\\_beliefs\\\\_were\\\\_subject\\\\_to\\\\_consistent/](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/15ey939/if_religious_beliefs_were_subject_to_consistent/)\\n\\nA lot of what Christianity said is very similar to other religions and old mythologies. It has a generic reward-punishment system/carrot and stick system, that is, a hell and heaven. On top of that, all of the claims in Christianity hold no good evidence with most being anecdotal. Most arguments for Christianity are not Christian-specific and more so just theism in general. Even then, those thesitic arguments lead to either, 1. fallacies, or 2. only making theism \\\"more likely,\\\" but even then, these arguments have counters.\\n\\nThey were not geniuses. A little clever, but they essentially copied other religions and mythologies and is a cookie-cutter religion. Christianity isn't wide spread just because of how \\\"logical\\\" and \\\"sound\\\" it is; indoctrination or generationally passing the idea down is a big part of it. There are also contradictions in the Bible which can be found at this website: [https://www.lyingforjesus.org/Bible-Contradictions/](https://www.lyingforjesus.org/Bible-Contradictions/)\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzirf5\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">They were not geniuses. A little clever, but they essentially copied other beliefs and mythologies and is a cookie-cutter religion. Christianity isn't widespread just because of how \\\"logical\\\" and \\\"sound\\\" it is; indoctrination or generationally passing the idea down is a big part of it. There are also contradictions in the Bible which can be found at this website: https://www.lyingforjesus.org/Bible-Contradictions/\\n\\nI wasn't implying that Christianity was \\\"logical\\\" and \\\"sound\\\". I was implying it was successful because it has so many tricks up its sleeve. It may be full of lies, but for every one I point out, I'll get one or more rebuttals thrown my way.\\n\\nThink of it as being like in the middle of a dense minefield. Whoever laid the minefield might not have a \\\"logical\\\" and \\\"sound\\\" reason for it, but any step you could take will blow up in your face.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzlzr1\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzirf5\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"xper0072\",\n \"body\": \"Just because someone has an answer for everything doesn't mean that the answer is a good answer. Your inability to properly debate the topic does not mean that the other side is correct in any way.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzj07m\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">Your inability to properly debate the topic does not mean that the other side is correct in any way.\\n\\nI wasn't saying the other side was correct. My point is that they are impossible to defeat and are good at ensnaring their critics.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzmc3l\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzj07m\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"razvanght\",\n \"body\": \"In my experience, Christian s believe that God is real because they feel He is real. Then you can ask them whether a person of a different religion can also use the same method (I feel Zeus is real because I feel Him) to conclude that a different god is real. Christians generally agree that that person used the same method (feeling based) to reach an opposite conclusion (Zeus, not God, is real). In my discussions at least, this argument works in that it gives people pause. Of course, it does not change their belief immediately because they have been holding it for some time but I feel like it adds a seed of doubt.\\n\\nDo you know the official Christian response against this line of argument?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzj0m8\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">In my experience, Christian s believe that God is real because they feel He is real. Then you can ask them whether a person of a different religion can also use the same method (I feel Zeus is real because I feel Him) to conclude that a different god is real. \\n\\nHow can I get them to accept the argument that \\\"oh I don't feel God is real, so don't force me to go to church\\\"? Because that argument always failed me in the past. Also, on a tangent, how are you able to \\\"feel\\\" Zeus?\\n\\n>adds a seed of doubt.\\n\\nPlanting seeds of doubt is a great political strategy. For example, in Australia, we have an upcoming referendum on constitutional indigenous recognition - and because the No side is so good at planting seeds of doubt, the Yes side is losing despite having academia and the arts sector on its side. \\n\\nBut back to the point, I tried planting seeds of doubt and failed miserably. The Christians I've had to defend my opinions from don't merely consider themselves as \\\"feelings based\\\", they consider their views as backed by literature (the Bible).\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzmy3i\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzj0m8\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Apprehensive_Box3199\",\n \"body\": \"I dropped my Catholicism at 21 after learning basic logic at University. In year 6 whilst at a Catholic school, we were given a Catholic Catechism - literally the manual for being a good Catholic. Most of the book is written in question-and-answer format. This is indoctrination 101. The first 3 questions are, and I quote:\\n\\n>1. Question: Who made the world? \\n Answer: God made the world. \\n> \\n>2. Q. Who is God? \\n> \\n> A. God is the Creator of heaven and earth and of all things and the Supreme Lord of all. \\n> \\n>3. Q. How do we know there is a God? \\n> \\n> A. We know that there is a God by the things that He made.\\n\\nRight there; in the first 3 question-and-answers is a Circular Argument. The entire basis of the Catechism is premised on a Circular Argument. If nothing else, the entire point of Catholicism is to justify the original statement that God exists.\\n\\nI looked through the whole of the Catechism highlighting anything I still believed. I highlighted a single sentence in the preface about doing unto others etc... NOTHING else.\\n\\nBefore you have a go at me for not knowing what a circular argument until I was 21 - I went to Catholic schools for all of high school and it is in their best interests NOT to teach that and it was the 80s. That's my excuse and I sticking to it.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzjc23\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">Right there; in the first 3 question-and-answers is a Circular Argument. The entire basis of the Catechism is premised on a Circular Argument. If nothing else, the entire point of Catholicism is to justify the original statement that God exists. \\n> \\n>I looked through the whole of the Catechism highlighting anything I still believed. I highlighted a single sentence in the preface about doing unto others etc... NOTHING else. \\n> \\n>Before you have a go at me for not knowing what a circular argument until I was 21 - I went to Catholic schools for all of high school and it is in their best interests NOT to teach that and it was the 80s. That's my excuse and I sticking to it.\\n\\nIn my experience, pointing out the circular argument leads to one of 2 outcomes:\\n\\n1. Getting more apologia that I am unable to defeat\\n2. The \\\"*Do you have a better explanation?*\\\" rebuttal\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvznrln\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzjc23\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Simbabz\",\n \"body\": \"The most important story of the bible is Jesus ressurecction, the gospels contradict each other in the telling of the story, hardly designed by geniuses.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzktxv\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">The most important story of the bible is Jesus ressurecction, the gospels contradict each other in the telling of the story, hardly designed by geniuses.\\n\\nNot sure what Protestants say, but Catholicism claims that slight differences with the same overall story prove it's written by real people observing the same things. We can accuse them of using a dodgy argument, but it still wouldn't undermine their side.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzp1ei\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzktxv\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"vote4bort\",\n \"body\": \"I think you're just trying way too hard in these debates and starting from the wrong point. You're coming at them like religion is something that can be proved through debate when it fundamentally can't. \\nThe religious rebuttal for every point will always be essentially the same. That is they'll say \\\"well I believe this I so\\\". And you can't argue with that because its not a statement that can be argued against.\\n\\nWhat can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzkuyc\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.\\n\\nThe problem is when they think they have evidence and you think they don't. [Here's an example with a Protestant](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jv9g3kt/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3), and we can't agree on anything.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzp2i6\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzkuyc\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"sapphireminds\",\n \"body\": \"You seem to be a poor debater. You are accepting a lot of arguments as true when they aren't. \\n\\nAll children are born atheists. Coincidentally, they just happen to usually believe in the god(s) their parents/community believes it. \\n\\nAnd personally, if there is a god with the power ascribed to it by the bible, I would refuse to worship it. \\n\\nYou also need to educate yourself about the null hypothesis.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzl8ri\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">You seem to be a poor debater. You are accepting a lot of arguments as true when they aren't.\\r\\n\\nI don't accept their arguments as true. I accept them as difficult to defeat.\\n\\n>And personally, if there is a god with the power ascribed to it by the bible, I would refuse to worship it.\\n\\nI wouldn't want to worship such a God either. [I've told a Protestant that if I were to accept that he indeed received a miracle, it would still prove that the Christian god is unjust](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvkkegk/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). But that argument still failed to sway him.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzqf91\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzl8ri\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"-paperbrain-\",\n \"body\": \"What you seem to be saying is just that you are not able, with the mere power of logic, to get Christians to abandon their belief.\\n\\nI hate to break it to you, but this is not a particular quality of Christianity. Anything people are dug in on will face this hill. Not only will you encounter it with every religion, but you won't argue many people out of their political doctrine, flat earth belief, or whether they side with Ross or Rachel on friends. People have rebuttals for everything about many totally conflicting positions. It's part of having strong beliefs and giving it some thought. And religions in particular have had a long time and tons of resources to give it thought.\\n\\nThat doesn't mean there's no room for criticism. Just that your expectation about change is ridiculously optimistic.\\n\\nHowever, regardless of how your personal debates are going, people are leaving Christianity in droves, partly because they don't find those rebuttals to critique to be logically, morally or emotionally satisfying. The fastest growing religious affiliation is \\\"none\\\".\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzlzcb\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">That doesn't mean there's no room for criticism. Just that your expectation about change is ridiculously optimistic.\\n\\nSometimes, I'm challenged to debate when I'm not looking for one (see my first link in the post details). I wasn't expecting to change anyone's views, just successfully defend my decision, and I failed even that.\\n\\n>However, regardless of how your personal debates are going, people are leaving Christianity in droves, partly because they don't find those rebuttals to critique to be logically, morally or emotionally satisfying. The fastest growing religious affiliation is \\\"none\\\".\\n\\n[Christianity is still growing overall](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_population_growth). Even if it's not growing in the Western World, this shrinkage is negated by growth outside the Western World.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzs5r5\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzlzcb\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"wrongfulness\",\n \"body\": \"What a waste of time\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzmu4k\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"The_White_Ram\",\n \"body\": \"This isn't hard. Christianity literally endorses slavery.\\n\\nIf you believe slavery is wrong then that's the only argument you need.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzniyg\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">This isn't hard. Christianity literally endorses slavery. \\n> \\n>If you believe slavery is wrong then that's the only argument you need.\\n\\nI tried using such an argument. [It backfired](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvztyn7\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzniyg\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"ElPwnero\",\n \"body\": \"I like the one Muslims use:\\\\\\nThe word of allah is perfect and if you find inconsistencies, then it’s your human brain that’s incapable of understanding the true meaning.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzoket\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">I like the one Muslims use:\\r \\n> \\n>The word of allah is perfect and if you find inconsistencies, then it’s your human brain that’s incapable of understanding the true meaning.\\n\\nI mean, they're basically insulting your intelligence. But isn't that a great bad faith tactic, dodging accountability by accusing your opponent of being too dumb to understand? I can't imagine myself faring any better debating a Muslim than debating a Christian.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzvglo\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzoket\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"indigoneutrino\",\n \"body\": \"The interesting thing is I've had the opposite experience. Plenty of experiences online and in person where they can barely rebut *anything* to the point that I've had a minister apologise she can't answer my questions satisfactorily. I've seen no-one rebut or even explain why the crucifixion makes sense without legitimising blood sacrifice. It just constantly defaults to \\\"Jesus paid for our sins,\\\" without explaining why the death of an innocent third party was accepted as a valid payment within a supposedly just system.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzppfh\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Pichkuchu\",\n \"body\": \">It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted\\n\\nJust because you got outwitted doesn't mean the other side was right, they were, in fact, blatantly wrong. Christianity is just as guilty of atrocities as any religion. Keep in mind that Christianity is 2000 years old and they enslaved people until 1860 and they had to be \\\"convinced\\\" by war to give it up. They genocided native populations in America and colonized Asia and Africa. There was inquisition. They burned people for heresy, including scientists. They weren't different from other big religions or even pagans. The modern view of the world and humanity encompasses non Christian populations too and one could argue that it's in fact the result of secularism.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzqu5n\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"StrangeAssonance\",\n \"body\": \"I’m curious why you think one has to prove God exists? \\n\\nAlso, when Jesus was on earth the Jews kept asking for a sign from Him. They were blind to what he was doing with His ministry. The world is blind, so when you try to have these arguments that you feel you can’t win, I think you aren’t ever going to win them. I can show you God through my words and deeds but if you are blind to that, you won’t see what’s there to see.\\n\\nJesus repeatedly talks about how blind and deaf people are to God and his word.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzr1ue\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">Also, when Jesus was on earth the Jews kept asking for a sign from Him. They were blind to what he was doing with His ministry. The world is blind, so when you try to have these arguments that you feel you can’t win, I think you aren’t ever going to win them. I can show you God through my words and deeds but if you are blind to that, you won’t see what’s there to see.\\n\\nThis is why I see my inability to believe as a disability comparable to being unable to read.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzzkhs\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzr1ue\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"mo_ff\",\n \"body\": \"You can have faith that your monthly bills will be paid whilst you have no money or means to do so OR you can actually have the money. One will work. The other will leave you with no utilities. Full stop.\\n\\nIn a debate with a Christian you would encounter, \\\"Oh, but have you no faith a brother in Christ would not help you?\\\" And then a large quantity of scriptural examples would be brought forth from whatever version of the bible they are most familiar with.\\n\\nAs others have stated, the deck is stacked. If you can approach the conversation with your family in a civil manor, stop going to church. Believe what makes you happy and mentally healthy so long as it doesn't hurt others.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzr2rx\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"HansPGruber\",\n \"body\": \"You need to read some Thomas Paine my friend. A renegade if the atomic age.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzrn0v\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Morasain\",\n \"body\": \"Couple things.\\n\\nThe first thing is that burden of proof is with the person making a claim - Christians in this case.\\n\\nThe second thing is - you don't need to refute the religion itself, because you can't.\\n\\nUsually, if you bring up things like pastors being molesters, or the crusades, or witch burnings, Christians will commit a No True Scotsman fallacy. \\\"These pastors aren't *real* Christians.\\\" You don't need to refute that argument because it is in itself wrong - but if you want, you can always go the path of saying that everyone in the church is, in the end, appointed by God.\\n\\nThe easiest way to reject Christianity is to instead reject God, though. You don't even need to prove that he's bad or anything - you need to use your own morality to reject the idea that a god like depicted in Christianity can be a god you want to believe in.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzrwx0\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"hdhddf\",\n \"body\": \"you don't need to convince them, they're arguing from a position of ignorance and indoctrination, you can't argue with that because their arguments aren't built on logic or sound reasoning.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzs63u\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Huffers1010\",\n \"body\": \"Let's do it by example. What did they have a rebuttal for that you couldn't respond to?\\n\\nMy suspicion is that they really didn't.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzt6nt\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"misersoze\",\n \"body\": \"Just say: “hey I also met a Muslim, a Mormon, a Jew and a Hindu. They all make the exact same arguments as you do about why their religion is the correct one and they all say they have the one true religion. So why should I join yours over their’s”.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvztpz1\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Potential_Cod_8473\",\n \"body\": \"They might win a debate but the world still is a shitty place full of diseases, suffering, birth defeacts. \\n\\nIt only prove how dishonest someone is to defend a claim it was created my omnipotent and omniscient being. \\n\\nChristianity was falsified many times\\nAdam and Eve? Fairytale\\nGreat Flood? Fairytale\\nBabel's tower? Fairytale\\nExocus? Fairytale \\nRessurection? Really improbable\\n\\nThe fact that the scripture has to be interpreted in the face of new evidence like why would omnipotent God need 4 bilions years to create highly imperfect and miserable beings or why universe is 93 bilion light years wide and we are limited by a speed of light is a powerful evidence against revelation.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvztt3e\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"the_internet_clown\",\n \"body\": \"Just because someone says something in response doesn’t make it a good rebuttal\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzugyn\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Relevant_Maybe6747\",\n \"body\": \"Christianity doesn’t have a rebuttal against Judaism - they’ve tried and tried to kill us and never succeeded\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzuj4l\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Is that really a good argument though? By that logic, Islam doesn't have a rebuttal against Christianity either (or vice versa).\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw075ml\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzuj4l\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Scott_The_Protogen\",\n \"body\": \"Why \\\"debate\\\" someone's faith anyways? Unless they're being a jerk about it like in the last part. I always just have that whole live and let live thing (Even if some fanatics might not be that way either). I know you say some of these people come to you with the debates, but I feel like just giving a solid \\\"I don't want to talk about it\\\" or \\\"My views aren't going to change\\\" might work, even if they do continue to badger you regarding it, It doesn't have to be a winning-losing game.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzullx\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">Why \\\"debate\\\" someone's faith anyways? \\n\\nIn the first link, I was challenged to a debate out of the blue when I requested not to go to church anymore. He wanted me to read his spiel and change my views, or give a counter-argument strong enough to defend my views.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw07dt4\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzullx\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Key-Extension1458\",\n \"body\": \"2000 years ago there was a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem that took animal sacrifice from the people. This was fulfilling the Mosaic Covenant, and sustained Israel called \\\"Judea\\\". Like Jesus said it would happen, the temple was thrown down to the last stone and the sacrificial rite was \\\"nailed to the cross\\\" in the words of Paul the Apostle. This leaves us without redemption under the law, and everyone is guilty of sin everywhere. \\n\\nHence the figure of Christ intervenes, and made the ultimate sacrifice, putting death and guilt and hell itself into the fire. Now we have grace and mercy, and redemption by faith. It seems to work, since 2000 years of Christian history represented the general improvement of life everywhere. At the same time, the movement was hijacked by earthly forces resulting in \\\"churchianty\\\" and roman catholicism. All \\\"debates\\\" are just scholastic noise from that time, arguing in circles about nothing relevant. It is what it is, the temple of jerusalem was destroyed 2000 years ago and the levitical rites were nailed to the Cross.\\n\\nNow everything is a free gift, the more we cast off the old man and put on the new. Strong enough faith loses fear of everything and moves mountains, it is divine power given to mankind. God loves the children of this world and Israel in dispersion, which means everyone.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzur3s\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Key-Extension1458\",\n \"body\": \"2000 years ago there was a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem that took animal sacrifice from the people. This was fulfilling the Mosaic Covenant, and sustained Israel called \\\"Judea\\\". Like Jesus said it would happen, the temple was thrown down to the last stone and the sacrificial rite was \\\"nailed to the cross\\\" in the words of Paul the Apostle. This leaves us without redemption under the law, and everyone is guilty of sin everywhere. \\n\\nHence the figure of Christ intervenes, and made the ultimate sacrifice, putting death and guilt and hell itself into the fire. Now we have grace and mercy, and redemption by faith. It seems to work, since 2000 years of Christian history represented the general improvement of life everywhere. At the same time, the movement was hijacked by earthly forces resulting in \\\"churchianty\\\" and roman catholicism. All \\\"debates\\\" are just scholastic noise from that time, arguing in circles about nothing relevant. It is what it is, the temple of jerusalem was destroyed 2000 years ago and the levitical rites were nailed to the Cross.\\n\\nNow everything is a free gift, the more we cast off the old man and put on the new. Strong enough faith loses fear of everything and moves mountains, it is divine power given to mankind. God loves the children of this world and Israel in dispersion, which means everyone.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzurg6\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">2000 years ago the Temple in Jerusalem took animal sacrifice from the people. It was fulfilling the Mosaic Covenant, and sustained Israel called \\\"Judea\\\" at the time. Like Jesus said it would happen, the temple was thrown down to the last stone and the sacrificial rite was \\\"nailed to the cross\\\" in the words of Paul the Apostle. This leaves us without redemption under the law, and everyone is guilty of sin everywhere. \\n> \\n>Hence the figure of Christ intervenes, and made the ultimate sacrifice, putting death and guilt and hell itself into the fire. Now we have grace and mercy, and redemption by faith. It seems to work, since 2000 years of Christian history represented the general improvement of life everywhere. At the same time, the movement was hijacked by earthly forces resulting in \\\"churchianty\\\" and roman catholicism. All \\\"debates\\\" are just scholastic noise from that time, arguing in circles about nothing relevant. It is what it is, the temple of jerusalem was destroyed 2000 years ago and the levitical rites were nailed to the Cross. \\n> \\n>Now everything is a free gift, the more we cast off the old man and put on the new. Strong enough faith loses fear of everything and moves mountains, it is divine power given to mankind. God loves the children of this world and Israel in dispersion, which means everyone.\\n\\nIs this supposed to be a promotion of Protestantism?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw07io1\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzurg6\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"danmilligan\",\n \"body\": \"One thing I'm sensing is that you're thinking of Christianity as a monolith, and while that was once true, it hasn't been for a long, long time. So many types of Christianity exist that there will be Christians on opposite sides of nearly any given issue. The true non-negotiables of the religion are extremely minimal, and highly interpretive. Because of this, you can't really say \\\"Christians are like this\\\" or \\\"Christians do that\\\", because this will apply to SOME Christians, but certainly not all. For a good example, the majority of American Christians are extremely unique from a global perspective, being far more individualistic, and reading the Bible in a slavishly literal fashion, among other things. So if you say \\\"Christians are anti-LGBTQ\\\", there are millions and millions of other Christians ready to counter that.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzusf6\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">One thing I'm sensing is that you're thinking of Christianity as a monolith, and while that was once true, it hasn't been for a long, long time. So many types of Christianity exist that there will be Christians on opposite sides of nearly any given issue. The true non-negotiables of the religion are extremely minimal, and highly interpretive.\\n\\nI'm well aware of the splits within Christianity. What I mention in my post detail is that I have tried and miserably failed to defend my lack of faith from both Catholics and Protestants. I understand that they'd have different ways of thinking regarding lack of faith, but at the end of the day, both defeated me.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw07u6h\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzusf6\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"GreasyPorkGoodness\",\n \"body\": \"You need to dismantle the church hierarchy and not the “existence of god”. \\n\\nIt’s not that you don’t believe in god, you don’t believe in Christianities following of god. Their church is corrupt, opulent, child molesters, hypocritical, child marriage, judgmental, in Christ like etcetera. \\n\\nGod very well might exist, if he does he certainly won’t approve of christianity.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzuv92\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CutiePopIceberg\",\n \"body\": \"Christianity is Middle Eastern mythology. Christians hate when you remind them of this.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzv7py\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"JustSomeDude0605\",\n \"body\": \"\\\"I don't believe in that bullshit\\\"\\n\\nDebate over.\\n\\nContrary to your brother's or pastor's wishes, you don't owe them any sort of debate or explanation. Live your life as you want to, not based on what they think you should do. If that means, no religion then stop going to church. \\n\\nFuck em.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzvaah\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CriticalThinkingAT\",\n \"body\": \"The thing is, there are a mountain of atheist rebuttals as well. Like literally there are so many atheist channels out there to rebutting every Christian argument that it's just a matter of searching and looking for them. Lol. You'll be fine.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzvipb\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">The thing is, there are a mountain of atheist rebuttals as well. Like literally there are so many atheist channels out there to rebutting every Christian argument that it's just a matter of searching and looking for them. Lol. You'll be fine.\\n\\nCounterpoint: Only a few of these are useful. Most channels appear to be useful only against Protestant pastors who rely on charisma. Catholicism is much harder to debate against as they have 2000 years of church tradition, intellectuals and apologia on their side.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw09z3v\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzvipb\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"OpenByTheCure\",\n \"body\": \"I don't want to be harsh, but I just think you're not very good at debating\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzvw3c\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"I am bad at debating (and most other things). Maybe that's why I always get challenged to debates, because I will lose.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0b11j\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzvw3c\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Dr_Keyser_Soze\",\n \"body\": \"You need to listen to David C. Smalley. Take in a few podcasts and you won’t be disappointed.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzvzk2\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Wintermute815\",\n \"body\": \"It’s really not. It depends on circular logic and faith, both of which are critical flaws.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzx8zv\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"j3rdog\",\n \"body\": \"Stop trying to debate facts by point counter point. Learn street epistemology. There’s good YouTube channels and subreddits on it.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzxa1z\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Unable-Food7531\",\n \"body\": \"You're:\\n\\n1. Bad at debating in general\\n\\n2. An unskilled rhetorician \\n\\n3. Uneducated on the topic you're debating.\\n\\nThose Three things together mean than any attempt to draw generally-appliable conclusions from your debating losses is doomed to produce bs.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzxmej\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"How can I get all 3 skills when I'm up against people who have so much more knowledge than me? I hate it when I give others a reason to criticise me.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw05k0t\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzxmej\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"DangForgotUserName\",\n \"body\": \"Christians don't have arguments, just elaborate evasions of criticism.\\n\\nIn order to be religious, or believe in a supernatural god, to some extent, one has to deny certain aspects of science, and also have to deny the foundations of reason and logic. \\n\\n\\nThere are major undemonstrated claims that come with theism:\\n\\n-a spiritual, divine, or otherwise supernatural realm exists \\n\\n-there are nonphysical spiritual forces and entities \\n -some kind of afterlife exists\\n\\n-at least humans have souls, which are the spiritual essence \\\"attached\\\" to a physical body\\n\\nEven if all these were demonstrated, we would still have no way of determining which deities were real. These claims are also far from being demonstrated, likely, or even possible. \\n\\nEven then, we have no way to link such deities to any religion that anyone worships.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzxv11\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Electrical-Rabbit157\",\n \"body\": \"It’s not well designed. It’s the worst designed religion in the world actually. The success of Christianity is based around keeping people from learning about other faiths. The moment that happens the VAST majority of them leave christianity for something else. Myself included. \\n\\nYou have to go at the fundamental hypocrisy of it. The average Christian rants and raves about the Ten Commandments and yet every single one of them break the first 2 commandments daily and most break 3 commandments every Sunday. The average priest breaks the first 4. Then there’s the fact that the Bible is a corrupt text and Christianity as a whole was founded by Paul, a man who is not a prophet, not a disciple, not an apostle, just a random guy who comes out of nowhere and starts preaching that Jesus is God.\\n\\nThey worship a trinity which is paganism. There is no excuse for it. It’s the same exact belief system as Hindus which are literally the original pagans that Abraham fought against. This trinity also includes a man. That man is considered a prophet but still. This breaks the first commandment. \\n\\nThey idolize said man and the cross he died on. They wear necklaces with it. They put big gold crosses at the front of their churches and big wooden ones on the outside of them. This breaks the second commandment \\n\\nThey go to church on Sunday and the vast majority of them believe this is the sabbath. Which directly breaks the fourth commandment.\\n\\nThe priesthood commits extortion and sometimes even rape in either the name of God or what they lead people to believe is a house of God. This breaks the third commandment \\n\\nThen you get to the Bible and it’s non existent integrity. There are about 5 major sects of Christianity. Each one has about 40 versions of the Bible. And the average Christian may think this is normal, it’s not. Jews have 1 version of the Torah. Muslims have 1 version of the Quran. Hell even the Hindus only have 1 version of most of their texts. The new testemant is more written by Paul, who is again, not a prophet, than any actual apostle. All of Paul’s letters are included in the vast majority of bibles yet the book of Enoch, book of Jesus Christ, and lost gospel to Peter are considered “uncanon” by the church and have been removed for centuries. That is not a holy text. It may have been a couple thousand years ago but out of 200+ in circulation today, I’d seriously doubt any can be considered uncorrupted.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzyqtq\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"malorane\",\n \"body\": \"Isn't this other person either straight up lying or totally misinformed about the Christianity/Catholicism? Like I could be misremembering but I'm pretty sure there are passages that literally give you guidelines about how to treat your slaves and this dude said both have always been against slavery?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzz7x7\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CantKeepMeOutYo\",\n \"body\": \"You will never win against someone with faith. They will always always always have some other bullshit excusw up their sleeves. That's what makes religion so fucking dangerous: it uses logic when it works and then completely disregards it when logic doesn't work. Don't bother debating christians, they've accepted a parasite into their body that will defend its ability to feed off the host, even if it means killing the host, or YOU.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzzg1h\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"wibbly-water\",\n \"body\": \">If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\r \\n\\r \\nIf you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\\n\\nIgnoring the second proposition for a second I want to propose 2 more reasonable secular arguments;\\n\\n1. This is true of all religions because their axioms and methods for diving truth are different. They believe, want to believe, will tie all phenomena in with their argument, will ignore Occam's Razor to do so. \\n2. If Christianity is better than (some) other religions at doing this it may be because it is a highly evolved system of memes. A meme is the idea equivalent to a gene. Religions are memetic in nature - they are ideologies, ideas about how the world works. Memes compete for space and survival much like genes do. And every time one of its memes is threatened it is forced to either drop that meme and adapt or bolster it to do the same. Look at the iterations of historical Christianity. Where are the puritans today? Even Protestantism evolved out of Catholicism - many will claim that they are barely the same religion.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzzk96\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"DangForgotUserName\",\n \"body\": \"The salvation of man is dependent on the suffering of Jesus Christ. His 'blood sacrifice magic' supposedly forgives original sin - doctrine that we know though biology is utterly wrong. (A couple of garden nudists were guilty of rebellious fruit munching, so everyone deserves death or eternal torment?) This makes the theological story around Jesus one where he is scapegoat of a nonexistent forebear. This should undermine the value of Jesus as well as the foundational basis for belief in God.\\n\\n \\n\\nFurther, the idea that the only way to forgive is through ritualized punishment? That is petty and immoral. No forgiveness without bloodshed or death. Horrible, ignorant and outdated ideas.\\n\\n\\nThe idea of a messiah, one who will deliver us from the tribulations of the present, is an ancient idea that distracts us from the hard work that must be done to build a better world.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzzkww\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Emotional_platypuss\",\n \"body\": \"The problem here is both sides trying to impose beliefs on others. What you believe or don't believe is your problem. You don't need to explain why you don't follow a religion, specially to religious people. Is like them telling you why their religion is so good. Break out of that circle and move on\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0052z\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"notjuan_f_m\",\n \"body\": \"This Is the problem with everything lately. \\\"I am right, you are wrong, and I will continue to tell you until you accept that i am right\\\"\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw00l9j\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jw0052z\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"JackedLilJill\",\n \"body\": \"If anything, just from your text and title, the fact that Christians explain themselves fully in the face of debate, should be the reason to change your view.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw00vuq\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"FerdinandTheGiant\",\n \"body\": \"For your first debate with your brother, he was just straight up wrong on so much. Christianity is not and does not serve as the basis for morality in the western world or the world as a whole. \\n\\nMost of the non-western world like in Asia is not heavily Christian and wasn’t for most of their history. They of course are doing just fine. Christian morals have not been consistent nor are they the basis for a basic society. \\n\\nAdditionally, you don’t need Christianity to explain altruism as it already has a natural explanation. It’s called kin selection and essentially means that it is beneficial to help out family since they carry your genes. This means more of your genes will get passed on. This is likely how it evolved in humans and then developed into what we consider today. Animals do this. Altruism isn’t human alone. \\n\\nThen you have slavery which the Bible openly says is fine. Leviticus 25:44-46\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw013nj\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"-Strawdog-\",\n \"body\": \"Taking a quick look at one or two of these examples, you have a very noticeable habit of accepting a lot of the other person's premises and arguments without pushing back on them at all. As an example, your brother mentions multiple times that altruistic behavior is the direct result of the Christian faith, an argument that is absolutely ridiculous for a bunch of reasons, not the least of which that our closest genetic relatives (chimpanzees and bonobos) exhibit all kinds of altruistic behaviors as part of their highly social lifestyles (and they also don't sacrifice eachother, something he seems weirdly hung up on).\\n\\nTo be honest, it doesn't look like the people you're debating have good arguments or are good at expressing them, it seems that you are just very new to debate, particularly on this topic. If debating religious folks is something you want to do (you are incredibly unlikely to change their minds even with very good arguments), you can find plenty of solid resources online that break down and refute just about any apologetics you are likely to encounter.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw01pm9\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"lamabaronvonawesome\",\n \"body\": \"I have found the opposite to be true. I would recommend reading some books on logic and debate. Having an answer doesn't make it a good answer. I had a debate teacher that used to day \\\"the definition of a reason is anything I put forth as a reason.\\\" This essentially means you SAY anything, that doesn't mean it will hold up under scrutiny. You mentioned miracles that a person had given you examples of in their own life. Debate in essence is about definitions, how we define things. Get them to give you the definition of a miracle. I personally would define that as any event that is ONLY explainable by divine intervention. See if their miracles hold up to that.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw02avd\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"kountze\",\n \"body\": \"The Church did have some good effects on political and cultural development in Europe - for example the separation of powers came from the Church being a strong counter force to the government for so long, church limited the government in ways that led to values of separation of powers and limited government, unlike China which was much more state dominated and still is today. Protestantism represented not only a change in religion but also a change in how humans think logically - so yeah a lot of good things can be tied to how Protestantism changed how people think. \\n\\nThat being said, the above certainly is a far cry from saying that Protestantism values will work in every situation or that it can address all of today’s modern problems. Protectionism ideally is something that should be open to interpretation, which modern Christianity has moved away from that. \\n\\nIn terms of science the Church does not have credible arguments - that’s the main problem. If you think they do, you really haven’t encountered anyone who actually knows the science and microbiology. \\n\\nAlso, do not confuse correlation and causation. Certain positive developments in society may correlate, but that correlation does not prove causation. \\n\\n\\nThe issue with\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw035en\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Jaderholt439\",\n \"body\": \"If I’m debating Christianity, I like to go straight to the main topic- the Resurrection.\\n\\nMost people I know and love are Christians; I don’t have a problem w/ their religion. I love these people. But what I don’t like are apologists. Every single one that I’ve ever seen is dishonest. Especially when it comes to the Resurrection.\\n\\nIt’s not hard to believe that a guy named Yeshua, who had a religious following, was crucified. I can even believe he was put in his own tomb, although most were put in a mass grave, it’s wasn’t unheard of. The stone being put to block the tomb and guards sound like they were plot holes being fixed in Matthew, but for arguments sake, I’ll agree to that too.\\n\\nJesus wasn’t in the tomb when they went to him 3 days later. What is the most likely explanation? Is it, “he must’ve overcome death and ascended, bc he’s God”? I think a Guy Ritchie style heist is way more plausible. ‘They forgot which cave’ is more plausible. Literally anything is more plausible. If they are being honest, they have to say, “I believe it on faith”. Yet, apologists will not say this, therefore they are dishonest, therefore they don’t have an answer for everything.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw03fxs\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Entropy_Drop\",\n \"body\": \"LOL on the first link. Christianity didn't opposed slavery, and doesn't have a monopoly on being a good person. It actually was the ideological fundation of american slavery.\\n\\nHypocrates wasn't christian, gandi neither, and personal freedom, democracy and equality of genders aren't christian values.\\n\\nThe golden rule (\\\"don't do to other what you dont want done to yourself\\\") and the silver rule (\\\"do to others what you want to recieve from them\\\" (bdsm, for example)) are not creation of christianity. \\n\\nSome christian are propagandiced all their life into the worldview of \\\"all good comes from christ\\\", which is clearly a big lie. Is kinda justified for them to sell that lie, tho.\\n\\nAlso, that motto has a counter-part: \\\"No bad comes from christ\\\" which is my only explanation to how incredible bigoted people justify their behavior without ever thinking \\\"are we the badies?\\\". Anita \\\"pie-face\\\" Bryant comes to mind, who, in her own words \\\"loved homosexuals\\\".\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw04f2l\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Jade_Skie\",\n \"body\": \"TJ Kirk (aka The Amazing Atheist) on YouTube once mentioned \\\"unfalsifiable hypothesis.\\\" In other words, Christians spout the argument that miracles, what is said in the Bible, Satan, and God all exist and are as the answer to everything because immediate evidence to the contrary can normally not be produced by their opponent, thus no argument against them can be made. So in their minds, they are right. That is, of course, not how the world/universe actually works.\\n\\nTo quote Carl Sagan: \\\"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.\\\"\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw04j73\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"JuliusErrrrrring\",\n \"body\": \"Remember the following truths: most people who claim they are Christians are good people; most people who are good people and claim they are Christian are good because of their ignorance of the Bible, not because of the Bible. The Bible is an awful immoral book and the religion is completely silly. It is pro slavery, pro genocide, pro forced abortion and pro incest. If you are debating anyone who isn't in favor of those things, they may be actually non believers too, they are just too ignorant of their religion to know any better.\\n\\n​\\n\\nIt is completely silly and does not hold up to debate. Just some quick obvious random thoughts off the top of my head: They suck at math - claim to have one god yet believe in a holy trinity as well as an evil god. Many Christians claim to be against abortion, yet the Bible actually gives an abortion recipe, god murdered pregnant women in his Noah's Arc genocide, and Jesus forced abortions on Jezebel. Many Christians are anti-trans and anti gay - yet Eve transitioned from a male rib and now they worship a dress wearing dude with two fathers who identifies as bread and wine. Cain and Abel were the original motherfuckers. The whole bible was written by people who never met Jesus and there is zero historical proof that there even was a man named Jesus pretending to be god. It's just a gigantic hoax that's been accepted due to peer pressure because life is easier and you can make more money and get laid easier if you simply play along with this silly marketing scheme.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw05bz4\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Loose-Technology7787\",\n \"body\": \"Christianity is designed that way. Christians are programmed in a way via church and such where they hold their belief to a much higher standard than any facts or logic despite a lack of evidence. On of christianity's main taglines is to just have faith in god even though hes done nothing to show you hes there.\\n\\nDebating a religious person on religion is an unwinnable debate. You cant argue against someones opinion when the only points they will accept are those that align with said opinion. For example, many christians say good and evil only exist because god decides whats good and bad. I might say that life is meaningless, therefore our thoughts and feelings are all that exist making them all that matters. Meaning we get to choose whats moral; however the christian would then just say life isnt meaningless because god gives meaning to life. This will go on for any length of time.\\n\\nThe only reason atheists win those official televised debates is because theres a mediator keeping nonsense out of it. They keep the religious side from using unreasonable and illogical arguments, which leads to them losing.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw05l8j\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"BuzzyShizzle\",\n \"body\": \"That's funny because, I have yet to hear them lose an argument/debate on the atheist experience yet. \\n\\nIf you haven't heard of it, there is a call-in radio show called \\\"the atheist experience\\\" and the entire show is welcoming any religious to call in and challenge them. If you want your view changed, that show will do a much better job than anything else.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw06l99\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Sad_Confidence8941\",\n \"body\": \"I agree, Christianity is very well designed. The smartest people alive for many centuries spent their lives defending Christianity (Thomas Aquinas, Saint Augustine, etc). They have been philosophically attacked for years and years and are still here\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw06orq\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"nomad5926\",\n \"body\": \"Homie out here saying the altruism isn't a natural thing without Christianity..... 🤣 Bro be saying Meerkats are all Christians? Or Naked Mole Rats?\\n\\nI will never understand why people have to force religion upon others. But essentially an easy way out is to ask them to provide solid proof that God existed. Logically you cannot not prove a belief. (Like others have said before me). Typically the ones making the claim \\\"god exists\\\" have the burden of proof. \\n\\nAlso in my experience you're not going to convince anyone to stop believing. It's the same reason kids believe in Santa it gives them something. For most people, religion is a source of comfort. It's why, from what I see, older folks are more religious. (Cause you know.... Closer to death... Heaven seems nicer).\\n\\nIf you just want them to stop harassing you, you can just say that your relationship with God is personal and need not be on disability for others. (You don't have to say the bit that the relationship is non-existent).\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0753r\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Moraulf232\",\n \"body\": \"Christianity has an answer for any criticism but the answers are silly and unconvincing just like the religion.\\n\\nJust ask yourself “has this answer explained why I should believe these assertions with no evidence or has it just made more assertions with no evidence?” and “could this answer be used to justify the existence of a Flying Spaghetti Monster or literally any other deity?” or “is there any evidence that the person I am talking to can imagine that would cause them to change their mind?” etc.\\n\\nThe philosophical arguments (apologetics) religions use are just fancy noise. There’s nothing there.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw07atx\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"lpuckeri\",\n \"body\": \"Theres many reasons why christianity is absolutely absurd, at a childlike and comical level imo. I have equal belief in it than i do Santa. The apologetics for christianity are just excuses for something as rediculous as believing in flying to heaven on a winged horse.\\n\\nLets remember, we are arguing about. A cosmic jewish god zombie who is his own father and was born a virgin birth to a women impregnated by a holy ghost. \\n\\nThere is zero evidence for this that is not heresay. Not a single item or record or peice of evidence contemporary to jesus exists. To confirm this laughably absurd story all we have is stories that contradict each other, written in the wrong language, written decades to centuries after the fact, much of which we know was straight up forged and copied from surrounding greek myths and people.\\n\\nGetting lost in abologetics is exacty meant to make you forget you are proving an absurd thing eith zero evidence, and get caught up in the weeds.\\n\\n\\nReasons. \\n\\n1. Supernatural events in the bible are empirically impossible to prove. Christians may use awful arguments like minimal facts etc, but these are all comically bad and fallacious. Abuductive reasoning is all we have access to, and that can never demonstrate supernatural events... This alone is enough, as it is logicalltly impossible to demonstrate christianity through our resources.\\n\\n2. The bible is self contradictory, the trinity and more is exceedingly illogical. By this i mean it literslly violates the laws of logic... and is isnanely stupid.\\n\\n3. The bible is obvious myth taken from surrounding cultures.\\n\\n4. There are no decent biblical scholars who think Moses wrote the old testament. Moses clearly never existed and exodus never happened. This is extremely confirmed... there is extreme evidence the base of both judeaism and christianity is 100% made up.\\n\\n5. People that claim supernatural events or whatever... 1. Does not prove god, or their god... it proves they had something special happen and nothing more. 2. These are nothing more than claims. 3. People claim this shit for every religion, thousands... if you apply this standard as evidence for one... you must for thousands of gods. 4. Once you understand psychology you realize how the brain works snd how easy it is for people to misnterpret things visually and auditory.\\n\\n6. Religions are not one off inventions. They are all representations and copyings of popular myths at the time. This can be seen in thousands of religions. Just as it is in christianity... the devil and hell doesnt become a thing until Greek influence, things like rising and dying saviours were popular greek myths too at the time of the bible etc. In fact the bible was wirtten in greek, not aramaic, the language Jesis and his follower would have spoken. You see babylonian myths copied into the parts of the bible, when they were written there...you see the bibles hell and devil and apocalyptic influences copying greek myth during the hellenistic period. Religions are copies of surrounding myth and cultures.\\n\\n7. Apologists often use arguments to prove god that are diestic. Things like the ontological srgument, teleological argument... aside from these being bad arguments, they only prove A God... not christianity. Even if the Kalam is true... the odds of christianity bring true is still zero... it gets you no closer.\\n\\n8. The bible wasnt written by geniuses. It was written by copying and adapting popular myths, cultures, and laws at the time. From copying ancient semetic religions and near eastern traditions 4000 tears ago, to adapting greek myths 2000 years ago. It also was written of centuries, adapted, edited, revised, forged, faked, reinterpreted thousands of times by hundeds of people. This idea some geniuses wrote this thing like you see it now is childishly ignorant of scholarship and history.\\n\\n9. There are actually about 94 gospels. 90 of which christians will admit are 100% bullshit mythological stories... yet they somehow think these are the special true 4, because the church leaders centuries ago simply decided so. \\n\\n10. These excuses and arguments for christianity are no better and no different than the ones Jews will use, or muslims, or Sikhs. You just live in a place around christians most likely. \\n\\nIts interesting because i have never heard a christian argument to me than is not childishly rediculous imo.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw07u2w\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Inevitable_Spare_777\",\n \"body\": \"You can’t have a factual, logical debate with a person who’s worldview doesn’t subscribe to facts and logic\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw08ays\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"drzowie\",\n \"body\": \"There is no direct way to argue a Christian out of Christianity, because it is a faith-based system of beliefs. But you *can* demand respect for your own beliefs.\\n\\nA couple of years ago, I wrote about just how incompatible Christian beliefs are with the scientific worldview. That line of argument is (like any other argument) unlikely to convince a fervent believer -- but may help you to understand that there are real weaknesses in the edifice of Christian thought. \\n\\nBelow is [copypasta from an early CMV post I made](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/7zy9wp/cmv_you_can_accept_todays_scientific_theory/durqqmi/):\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw08i8h\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"DouglerK\",\n \"body\": \"I mean if they didn't the religion would probably be dead by now.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw08xbe\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"joshp23\",\n \"body\": \"> If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniouses\\n\\nAll they have at their disposal are unfalsifiable claims. You can't prove that the invisible dragon in my garage doesn't exist either. The rest is a con act to attribute personal experience to the dragon. \\n\\nBut unfalsifiability and con tactics aside, wouldn't a genius be able to construct an effective argument *and* compile an internally consistent document at the same time? You have to do mental gymnastics to apologize for the ignorance and inconsistencies in the Bible.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw09c2d\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Crookwell\",\n \"body\": \"OR you just aren't a very good critic?\\nBecause I can rebuke shitty religious claims all day\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw09wvx\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"redstar15551\",\n \"body\": \"Maybe you should give up then? You're not gonna \\\"Gotcha\\\" Christianity so leave them alone. Your lack of faith and overabundance of cynicism does not bug anyone the slightest. Don't trap yourself because you view this as an unwinnable battle against some dogmatic close minded religion, when that in and of itself is close minded. There's a modern pushback against religion, Christianity specifically, that has been pushed hard; but Christianity has and will continue to endue.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0a4wk\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Various_Succotash_79\",\n \"body\": \"When my brothers were young, they played a game that was very much like Calvinball (if you've never read the comic Calvin and Hobbes, this is a game they made up on the fly). So it was all stuff like \\\"now the floor is lava so you burn up!\\\" \\\"Oh yeah? I throw 60 million tons of dry uce on it and that cools it off\\\", \\\"well that was too much and now you're frozen solid!\\\" Etc. \\n\\nThat's pretty much what religion is. Your mistake is in trying to make any sense of it.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0b260\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">When my brothers were young, they played a game that was very much like Calvinball (if you've never read the comic Calvin and Hobbes, this is a game they make up on the fly, so it never has the same rules). So it was all stuff like \\\"now the floor is lava so you burn up!\\\" \\\"Oh yeah? I throw 60 million tons of dry ice on it and that cools it off\\\", \\\"well that was too much and now you're frozen solid!\\\" Etc. \\n\\n!delta\\n\\nAs you show, you can't get anywhere trying to defend yourself from a religion which is designed to dodge accountability and make opponents lose. It's not designed for a debate, it's designed to be inescapable.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw25sdi\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jw0b260\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Collective82\",\n \"body\": \"If you are having such a hard time debating it, shouldn’t you consider it’s right and maybe you should look at converting?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0bbov\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"I have. The problem is no matter how hard I try, I have zero spirituality and a complete inability to be sincerely connected with any religion. I see this as a disability comparable to being unable to because it's such a drag on my life.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw263jo\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jw0bbov\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Fluffy_Candle6800\",\n \"body\": \"I'll give you a quote from a book I read - \\\"God is omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent. However, bad things still happen. This means God cannot stop the bad things - he is not omnipotent, God does not know the things are happening - he is not omniscient, or he allows the bad things to happen - he is not benevolent.\\\"\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0bhc0\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"I've accepted the last one. How can I possibly believe in a benevolent god, when he gives miracles to some and neglects genuine victims, or when the religion he designed has endless excuses and loopholes to dodge all accountability?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw26dbi\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jw0bhc0\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"ItsAll42\",\n \"body\": \"I do feel as though you too quickly concede many points that are not accurate or honest, but stated with such confidence they are difficult to rebutt just as confidently without sufficient background knowledge. In fact, some of these claims are just straight up racist, such as claiming altruism is not only a strictly christian virtue, but that many values such as caring for the sick and needy or having basic human decency are strictly Western practices and values.\\n\\n This is wildly inaccurate to claim, knowledge of history can easily debunk such ludicrous statments, especially considering much of the Western ideology is more focused on individualism where confucianism is more focused on the community as a whole. Buddhism stresses that all beings have inherent worth and challenges the strictly heiarchichal values of confucianism, yet still plenty of emphasis is placed on how to better the community as a whole and being kind for the sake of altruism and kindness without any expectation of personal rewards. You do not have to be a historian or theologian to debunk so much of what this person is claiming, especially in regard to other Abrahamic religions which are incredibly similar to the teachings of Christianity, you know, because they share a common historical and biblical root. While modern interpretations of Abrahamic faiths run the gamut, they are more alike than many of their subscribers would like to admit. \\n\\nIn fact, I'd argue that Christianity and most of its branches contain more self-serving motives than many religious beliefs, promising prosperity and wealth in heaven as a reward for good behavior. As an agnostic person I do not need a reward for my good behavior. \\n\\nAs you tried to point out, when this person claims pagans did not care for the sick or other absurd claims, the burden of proof is on them to substantiate such a ridiculous assumption. \\n\\nThis person comes across as making many intellectually dishonest arguments, and you more or less concede or gloss many of these points without pushback.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0cszb\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">This person comes across as making many intellectually dishonest arguments, and you more or less concede or gloss many of these points without pushback.\\n\\nThat's because I didn't study history at a tertiary level. See how I'm a frequent visitor to r/AskHistorians - because I'm not smart or knowledgeable about history. Are you suggesting that to defeat Christianity, I'll need a university degree in history?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw26yyz\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jw0cszb\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"FerdinandTheGiant\",\n \"body\": \"Most, if not all of the Western values people like to claim are “Judeo-Christian” in origin simply aren’t. For one “Judeo-Christian values” aren’t a thing as these groups have different values, however let’s consider a few things we value in the west. \\n\\n#Democracy\\n\\nIn the Bible, democracy is never extolled or even articulated. Instead, there are endless stories of theocratic, authoritarian rule and the divine right of kings. Power is always concentrated; it’s never distributed. In classical Greece, however, Athenians established what is generally recognized as the world’s first democracy around 500 BCE. This predates Christianity and arose with no Jewish influence.\\n\\n#Common Humanity/ Equality\\n\\nThis is simply not biblical. In the New Testament, women are forbidden from holding authority over a man, told to be silent in church, and instructed to be obedient and submissive to their husbands. The same word used for submissive in Colossians also is used to describe how slaves should be to their masters. Women can be killed if they’re suspected of having premarital sex; the tenth commandment forbids coveting property, which includes women in the same sentence as houses and oxen; if a woman was raped, she was forced to marry her rapist if the offender paid her father, and on and on it goes.\\n\\nNon-Israelites or gentiles were forced into slavery and treated as property. This is seen in Leviticus and all over the Hebrew Bible. Slavery was condoned and justified for thousands of years using the Bible. \\n\\n#10 Commandments\\n\\nA common argument is that these “laws” are where we derive most of our morals and values in the west. This is rather silly. \\n\\nFor starters, a lot of the commandments are about idolatry, however other Rules like “thou shall not kill” predate Christianity and Judaism by hundreds of years. Literally any and all functional societies require this rule to be in place. And all over the world you see non-Christian nations follow similar “laws”. This is because they are beneficial for building a society. \\n\\n#Other religions\\n\\nOther religions have much stronger moral codes that Christanity. Jainism believes so much in the value of life that they won’t even talk at night because they could accidentally harm an insect. Buddhists have a deep personal desire to self improve while also improving the lives of those around them. Same could be said for taoists.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0dbxm\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"That's the problem though. You assume that Christianity is pro-democracy and pro-equality when history has shown us that they'd gladly throw these concepts under the bus if it were in the way of their religion.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw27njn\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jw0dbxm\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Circular360Angles90\",\n \"body\": \"People often conflate these two completely separate ideas. God/Higher Power - whatever you want to call it, with - Religion. \\n\\nReligion, in its limited ability tries to use the concept of God in an attempt to sway your reasoning capabilities towards their doctrine. God, however is completely separate from Religion.\\n\\nReligion just seems to have a Monopoly on the word. People feel as though believing in a God or Gods means they should adhere to some way of “knowing” their God. - which is all that a religion really does. But rest assured that it is someone elses ideas you are digesting. Theres nothing wrong with consulting people whom you believe to be wise or have more experience, but if you start feeling like they have some sort of answer that you cant quite grasp, then your talking to the wrong people. \\n\\nThis is not something that anyone can “show” you or “debate” you about. \\n\\nGod isnt in a book. God isnt an idea you learn from the pulpit. God isnt reason nor logic. God isnt bad. God isnt good. \\n\\nYou are engaging in a debate where their is nothing to debate, thus you always be “outwitted.”\\n\\nThink for yourself, walk your own path. You’ll fall flat on your face initially, perhaps for many years and, if you can muster up strength to get up on your own and not ask anybody why you fell and why it hurts so bad - you’ll stop feeling “outwitted.”\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0f9fa\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">You are engaging in a debate where their is nothing to debate, thus you always be “outwitted.”\\n\\n>Think for yourself, walk your own path. You’ll fall flat on your face initially, perhaps for many years and, if you can muster up strength to get up on your own and not ask anybody why you fell and why it hurts so bad - you’ll stop feeling “outwitted.”\\n\\nIsn't this the problem though? Most people can earn external respect being just who they are. In contrast, I have to prove my respectability, and prove why I have valid views, and I always lose.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw2llv2\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jw0f9fa\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CIABrainBugs\",\n \"body\": \"If God was real, his actions would prevent me from giving him any respect. I don't care if he's real.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0fl5d\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Nghtmare-Moon\",\n \"body\": \"Read Carl Sagan’s demon haunted world. It’s the best essay to counter all religious arguments\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0g6mu\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"GainPornCity\",\n \"body\": \"It's not that there's a rebuttle for everything. There's just a different lens to look through. \\n\\nSay an atheist has blue shades on and sees everything as blue. Christian sees everything as red. However, the one commonality between the Athiest and the Christian is the human construct..thereby despite being in different mindsets, they both acknowledge phenomena as they unfold in the world\\n\\nNo matter how much blue you speak regarding world phenomena, the Christian will respond to *each* phenomenon with a red response. \\n\\n\\nThis phenomenon, you look at through a blue lens and say: \\\"The Christian has an excuse for everything, no matter how blue, there's always gonna be some red to speak on from their side.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0gw4r\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Realistic-Cat4116\",\n \"body\": \"The only rebuttal you need is: \\\"Prove it.\\\" Keep repeating that over and over again. They can't, you win, end of argument.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0h3pm\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Okami_The_Agressor_0\",\n \"body\": \"Debating things that are designed to explain all with a basis in non-falsifiable statements is impossible. Religions are all memetic viruses that are meant to superimpose a false sense of the world on their followers, there are other belief systems that do the same that don't involve god but a well designed memetic virus can't be successful with out being impervious to logic or ways to side step rational thinking. That being said many modern political beliefs are structured similarly and operate in a similar fashion to religions. \\n\\nReligion imparts a base line culture and morality to people that allows for a more respectful and peaceful society. Part of what make that possible is ideological sanitation of a populace. Diversity of ways of life sparks conflict and religion solves that a good portion of the time. You could potentially see how many recent events have been the result of diverse culture and belief systems, so any derivation of heterogenization of society would logically be rejected by such belief systems with understandable cause.\\n\\nI believe people should be able to do what ever they please but when there is no respect in society people seek control from government to maintain the peace. So the easiest way for a country to stay free is to remain an ethno/ideological-state, or very slow and controlled change. When accounting these things you must satisfy for the lowest common denominator which will inevitable reject things on the basis of tribal instinct.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0k3j1\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"ApeMummy\",\n \"body\": \"You’re outwitted because you lack wit not because christianity is special.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0k3sk\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"SeymoreButz38\",\n \"body\": \"1st is a citation needed. Second was a semantic argument. Third is a no true scotsman fallacy.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0kns0\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Ecoronel1989\",\n \"body\": \"I think the issue here is your brother does a few things to confuse you.\\n1. Switching between defending spirituality and Christianity.\\n2. Berating you with words so it's hard for you to rebuttal everything that is said (an overwhelming tactic).\\n3. Throws out unprovable claims that are opinions as facts.\\n\\nFor #1, there's a big difference between spirituality and Christianity. Christianity asserts it is the one true religion, all others are wrong and lead to a wrong lifestyle. Spirituality is a general idea about believing in something outside oneself. To Christians, spirituality is paganism (unless it's Christianity itself) and therefore wrong and cannot be accepted or celebrated. So your brother can't simply pick and choose to say spirituality is good for the health and then switch to say Islam is not a good religion as these are contradictory statements.\\n\\nBut this issue is linked to #2, he berates arguments with a ton of words and makes multiple \\\"points\\\" at once. This is a similar tactic to what Donald Trump has used during his time as a politician. Simply overload the other side with a word soup, throwing out multiple arguments that are each wrong, but takes effort to debate each of them. By the time you gather your thoughts about the first wrong statement, he's moved on to the next 3, it's overwhelming.\\n\\nWhich leads to the last point, that is throwing out unprovable claims in the midst of his word soup. Claims such as there would be no morality without religion are unprovable for modern science since we have had religion in all cultures for over 2000 years, so it's hard to test this \\\"fact\\\". Another one that comes to mind is saying there's objective morality in the Bible, which you argued is not because of the Bible. Another counterargument is that the interpretation to the Bibles teachings changes across generations (i.e. slavery allowed for priests) and is therefore not objective, but his claim is unprovable in general as you can only offer up counter examples he can claim we're people not following the \\\"truth\\\".\\n\\nOverall, I think you're doing better than you think at debating this issue. The larger issue is what others have pointed out, that you don't have to win this argument, simply live by what you believe is true like they do.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0m923\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"TimeFliesFaster\",\n \"body\": \"It doesn’t have a good rebuttal as to why Jesus is the prophesied messiah of a religion that believes in a single unitary god. Especially when Jesus didn’t have the right ancestors and failed to meet the applicable prophesies (ie dead all coming back to life, temple being restored for all time, diaspora returning, war coming to permanent end, and entire world embracing scripture in messiah’s lifetime)\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0sjyl\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"David_Warden\",\n \"body\": \"You are trying to prove a negative which is a waste of time.\\n\\nThey are the ones making the improbable claims so the burden of proof lies with them. \\n\\nIf they continue to pester you, ask them to prove it.\\n\\nI think you will find that it boils down to belief in the highly improbable that is not adequately supported by either evidence or reasoning.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw1cnr9\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"SaltiestRaccoon\",\n \"body\": \"Sure. They have rebuttals. They're just not as good as you think they are. And they tend to be the same rebuttals over and over.\\n\\nI mean just to refute the ones you were hit with... In the first example, he paints the 'pagan' world monolithically while citing the worst examples from many different cultures, while kind of also ignoring that many of those things also apply to Christian nations. Pretty sure the weak and poor weren't running Medieval England, for instance. Likewise slaves were absolutely still a thing among Christians... the slaves just couldn't also be Christian. There were Christian Germanic warriors pillaging right along with the rest of them. Finally virtually any civilization that has kept slaves does in fact have laws about how they can be treated. It can certainly even be argued that serfdom is still just slavery but called something else to make it acceptable, as people can still be bought and sold, they just count as part of the land instead and likewise must work for their lord or face abuse or death. Sounds a lot like slavery to me.\\n\\nAltruism is in fact a part of human nature. It evolved because we are a social species and we are inclined to act for the good of our group, as our group is beneficial to our survival. There's a [great example](https://www.upi.com/Archives/1987/11/04/Cavemen-took-care-of-physically-disabled/5137563000400/) of a cave man skeleton with some pretty crippling deformities, who could not have hunted for himself that lived to old age. That means his tribe or his family unit was caring for him despite the fact he was a burden. And this is humanity in the stone age, at our least civilized. The Gauls, as well routinely collected a portion of taxes to help pay for their disabled citizens (though in Rome, it was preached if not always practiced that disabled children should be put to death.)\\n\\nIn a lot of instances he just seems ignorant on history and expects you to go along with it. A lot of it is very gish-gallupy too. He says so many wrong things that there's no way to correct them all without getting so bogged down with corrections that you can never make a point of your own, or even refute all of his errors. Don't allow that. Insist on arguing one point at a time.\\n\\nReally I think it's gaps in your knowledge more than Christianity being particularly difficult to criticize. I find it quite easy.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-14\",\n \"id\": \"jw3kj7g\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ]\n]","isConversational":false},"2":{"kind":"string","value":"moderate"}}},{"rowIdx":57,"cells":{"0":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"NatchoFriend","body":"I don't think I can change your mind, but I recommend you look up Matt Dillahunty and his call show \"the atheist experience\". He is an excellent debater, and although he kinda loses his shit at times, he always manages to corner religious people by exposing the fallacies they use. I've started using many of his arguments and examples in my own discussions and found that it led to some less frustrating exchanges. People usually end up saying \"well it's my personal choice\" which indicates that their arguments stopped holding any weight because of my counters.\n\nExplaining concepts such as the burden of proof and secular morality in unbiased terms goes a long way in my experience.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzvbun","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">I don't think I can change your mind, but I recommend you look up Matt Dillahunty and his call show \"the atheist experience\". He is an excellent debater, and although he kinda loses his shit at times, he always manages to corner religious people by exposing the fallacies they use. I've started using many of his arguments and examples in my own discussions and found that it led to some less frustrating exchanges. People usually end up saying \"well it's my personal choice\" which indicates that their arguments stopped holding any weight because of my counters.\n\n!delta\n\nI have watched some videos of The Atheist Experience. In the 3 debates I linked, I knew my opponents were using tactics like Gish Gallop, and No True Scotsman. But I also knew that whether or not I called out my opponents, they have yet more tricks up their sleeve to counter me. I don't have the time or tenacity for endless debates, so it usually ends at a point where I am \"losing\", instead of me grinding them down until they can say \"well it's my personal choice\".","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw09q7t","parent_id":"jvzvbun","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"DeltaBot","body":"Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/NatchoFriend ([1∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/NatchoFriend)).\n\n^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw09u97","parent_id":"jw09q7t","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],"string":"[\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"NatchoFriend\",\n \"body\": \"I don't think I can change your mind, but I recommend you look up Matt Dillahunty and his call show \\\"the atheist experience\\\". He is an excellent debater, and although he kinda loses his shit at times, he always manages to corner religious people by exposing the fallacies they use. I've started using many of his arguments and examples in my own discussions and found that it led to some less frustrating exchanges. People usually end up saying \\\"well it's my personal choice\\\" which indicates that their arguments stopped holding any weight because of my counters.\\n\\nExplaining concepts such as the burden of proof and secular morality in unbiased terms goes a long way in my experience.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzvbun\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">I don't think I can change your mind, but I recommend you look up Matt Dillahunty and his call show \\\"the atheist experience\\\". He is an excellent debater, and although he kinda loses his shit at times, he always manages to corner religious people by exposing the fallacies they use. I've started using many of his arguments and examples in my own discussions and found that it led to some less frustrating exchanges. People usually end up saying \\\"well it's my personal choice\\\" which indicates that their arguments stopped holding any weight because of my counters.\\n\\n!delta\\n\\nI have watched some videos of The Atheist Experience. In the 3 debates I linked, I knew my opponents were using tactics like Gish Gallop, and No True Scotsman. But I also knew that whether or not I called out my opponents, they have yet more tricks up their sleeve to counter me. I don't have the time or tenacity for endless debates, so it usually ends at a point where I am \\\"losing\\\", instead of me grinding them down until they can say \\\"well it's my personal choice\\\".\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw09q7t\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzvbun\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"DeltaBot\",\n \"body\": \"Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/NatchoFriend ([1∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/NatchoFriend)).\\n\\n^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw09u97\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jw09q7t\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n]","isConversational":false},"1":{"kind":"list like","value":[[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"DeadCupcakes23","body":"Why does it matter if Christianity has a rebuttal for something? You can criticise the bible and Christianity based on what it says and the actions done in its name (context depending).\n\nPeople have moral values without Christianity and most things people appreciate nowadays are not inherent to Christianity, for example the bible allows slavery.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzggd4","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">Why does it matter if Christianity has a rebuttal for something? You can criticise the bible and Christianity based on what it says and the actions done in its name (context depending).\n\nBecause losing a debate due to their rebuttals makes me look stupid. Also, if you follow the links to their arguments, even the atrocities done in its name don't count because those fall under \"false prophets\". \n\nIt's like the Bible was written with this possibility in mind to entrap us.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzh2ui","parent_id":"jvzggd4","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"tipoima","body":"Christianity *was* fabricated, but not by geniuses. \nYou're fighting against over two thousand years worth of apologetics, where all the weakest arguments have been pruned away. \nHowever, as expected of something that isn't actually true, those arguments are often plainly wrong, be it due to logical fallacies, appeals to unknown, obtuse philosophy you probably don't know you don't subscribe to, no-true-scotsmanning, e.t.c.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzh8ep","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">However, as expected of something that isn't actually true, those arguments are often plainly wrong, be it due to logical fallacies, appeals to unknown, obtuse philosophy you probably don't know you don't subscribe to, no-true-scotsmanning, e.t.c.\n\nThis is exactly what they do. The problem is that \"I don't know\" is not an acceptable answer to them ([see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvhr81y/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)), whereas they already have something up their sleeve to entrap me. \n\nAs you mentioned, with 2000 years of experience creating answers, I even if I am able to point out something wrong or intellectually dishonest, they'll still have an answer for that, forcing me to spend yet more time and effort to come up with an answer. And I am not intelligent enough to create an answer for everything they throw at me, so I'm trapped.\n\nIt's an uphill battle, and one that can easily be lost. Until we can come up with a rebuttal they can't defeat, there will always be a risk that secular society and LGBT rights might be defeated.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzhurp","parent_id":"jvzh8ep","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Watchyobackistan","body":"Not really, most of their \"rebuttals\" are stuff like \"god doesn't give us all the answers\" and \"Don't worry jesus loves you\" Non-answers.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzhdab","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"MercurianAspirations","body":"But why should you give a shit? If you have conviction in your own beliefs, it shouldn't matter whether or not you can convince others using your super debater skillz or not. After all, if somebody were sufficiently dumb or insane, it would be impossible to convince them of the truth, no matter how clear and apparent the truth were; therefore, whether or not a thing is widely believed and people are readily convinced of its truth is not a guide to truth. When there was only one person on the earth who believed in heliocentrism they were still right, and the geocentrists were still wrong. The geocentrists had answers for every single objection, and they won every single debate, yet, they were still wrong. \n\nMoreover, it isn't that Christianity is super well designed or anything. It's just that people who have strongly held convictions are not available to be convinced by facts and logic. That's just how people are: they do not actually change their minds that much.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzhezx","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">But why should you give a shit?\n\nBecause I don't want my stances to look stupid. I was once likened to an anti-vaxxer for not being able to provide evidence to back my lack of faith.\n\n> If you have conviction in your own beliefs, it shouldn't matter whether or not you can convince others using your super debater skillz or not. \n\nConviction in your own beliefs doesn't make one right. Besides, their side also has a firm conviction in their beliefs.\n\n>When there was only one person on the earth who believed in heliocentrism they were still right, and the geocentrists were still wrong. The geocentrists had answers for every single objection, and they won every single debate, yet, they were still wrong.\n\nScience doesn't care about number of believers, what matters is the evidence. And in the case of heliocentrism, it was proven right by overwhelming evidence. I wish I had overwhelming evidence to back my lack of faith.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzih4p","parent_id":"jvzhezx","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Mr-Bitter","body":"Send your brother my way. I know of a way to convince him that it was Satan that wrote the Bible and can kill every single one of his arguments. I would thoroughly enjoy a civilized religious debate.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzhg91","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"ApocalypseYay","body":">CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\n\nThis makes zero sense. Rebuttals require logic and facts, and there are only apologia and special pleasing fallacy described herein. \n\nLet's start from the basic - where is the evidence for chris, the alleged son of god, and somehow also god, that killed himself to please himself? There is zero historical evidence for this event, before we even get to the easily debunked claims of miracles, or the plainly immoral laws being promulgated as divine commandments.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzhig9","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">where is the evidence for chris,\n\n[Most historians accept that Jesus Christ existed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus). The rest of the biblical story isn't accepted by historians.\n\n>before we even get to the easily debunked claims of miracles,\n\n[I miserably failed at convincing someone that I don't believe in miracles](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvai6qm/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). How would you convince him?\n\n> or the plainly immoral laws being promulgated as divine commandments.\n\nHow would you convince them that their side is immoral? They have methods up their sleeve to dismiss the malice conducted in the name of Christianity, and justify the anti-LGBT commandments.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzj8qx","parent_id":"jvzhig9","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"physioworld","body":"The most important concept you have to remember is the burden of proof. It’s not up to you to prove the Christianity ISNT TRUE, it’s up to them to prove that it IS TRUE. So if they can’t prove their own religion you need to accept it, you don’t have to worry about disproving their beliefs. \n\nA good way to illustrate this, is whether they would accept comparable claims with comparable evidence from other religions. So if they claim that Christianity is true because it says so in the bible, ask whether you should also accept Islam because it says so in the Quran.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzhlry","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">The most important concept you have to remember is the burden of proof. It’s not up to you to prove the Christianity ISNT TRUE, it’s up to them to prove that it IS TRUE. So if they can’t prove their own religion you need to accept it, you don’t have to worry about disproving their beliefs.\n\nBut that's the problem - they consider themselves as proving it is true. For example, one guy who told me of miracles he received - [and I lacked a sufficient rebuttal to convince him he's wrong](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvai6qm/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzjexi","parent_id":"jvzhlry","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Adam__B","body":"You don’t have to defend not believing in something that is invisible, utterly silent, immeasurable, illogical, unscientific, undetectable and untestable. The burden is on them to prove a positive, not you a negative.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzi1gp","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"OrangeBlancmange","body":"Why do you think you are losing? They obviously haven’t convinced you in these arguments and just falling back to faith (which is all they really have) doesn’t ‘win’ anything in any meaningful way. You won’t be able to argue them out of their faith so you can’t ‘win’ either. Ultimately it’s not an argument in the philosophical sense - they aren’t engaging in good faith and simply will not change their minds regardless of what you say.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzi24f","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"> they aren’t engaging in good faith and simply will not change their minds regardless of what you say.\n\nBad faith arguments are like doping in sports - they make it easier for them to win. You just need to be a good enough debater to win despite the disadvantage.\n\n>Why do you think you are losing? \n\nBecause I failed to be that \"good enough debater\". Any argument I can throw at them is utterly crushed and thrown back at me.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzk4ge","parent_id":"jvzi24f","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Cayowin","body":"How did you lose that debate?\n\nSlavery - Christians used the bible to promote the slave trade\n\n[https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/01/a-harvard-exhibit-on-slavery-and-christianity/#:\\~:text=In%20the%20modern%20era%2C%20Christianity,often%20used%20to%20justify%20slavery](https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/01/a-harvard-exhibit-on-slavery-and-christianity/#:~:text=In%20the%20modern%20era%2C%20Christianity,often%20used%20to%20justify%20slavery).\n\nYes there were abolitionists, but if the same text can be used to both justify and condemn an action how is that text a good moral guide?\n\nThe bible explicitly allows the owning of humans as property. So either god is not unchanging or he changed his mind. \n\n1 Peter 2:18, Saint Peter writes \"Slaves, be subject to your masters with all reverence, not only to those who are good and equitable but also to those who are perverse.\"\n\nYes they have prepared apologetics, it just means you need to do more research. Remember they have no evidence for their claims beyond personal gut feelings and a collection of contradictory, fictional and historic works.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzi8a8","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">Slavery - Christians used the bible to promote the slave trade\n\nI've miserably failed when using the \"what about slavery argument\" - it's in the link following \"It all started 3 years ago\". Sure, I could point out the pro-slavery parts, but they'll have a reason why that bit is irrelevant or misinterpreted. It's exhausting, finding every argument to throw at them, and having each one of those utterly crushed with more rebuttals thrown your way.\n\n>Yes they have prepared apologetics, it just means you need to do more research. Remember they have no evidence for their claims beyond personal gut feelings and a collection of contradictory, fictional and historic works.\r \n\r\n\nI tried pointing out to someone that I don't believe in his \"miracle\". [My attempt failed miserably](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvai6qm/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzkhnt","parent_id":"jvzi8a8","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Augnelli","body":"What is the rebuttal for the Ark? What did the carnivores eat? How did the Kangaroos and Koalas make it up from Australia? What about fresh water fish? How much space was designated for JUST the elephants food?\n\nYou don't need to debate every detail, just enough to invalidate the core; the truth on which they base their faith.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzikz2","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">What is the rebuttal for the Ark? What did the carnivores eat? How did the Kangaroos and Koalas make it up from Australia? What about fresh water fish? How much space was designated for JUST the elephants food?\n\nThat's the problem - even since the medieval era, most Christians disavowed biblical literalism, because biblical literalism is easier to poke holes into. Instead, they've come up with apologia, and now, with over 2000 years of apologia to defend against, it's become an unwinnable fight.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzlcvy","parent_id":"jvzikz2","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"ch0cko","body":"No. I am a frequent debater on subs like r/DebateReligion and r/DebateAnAtheist and everything you've said here is just... no. The vast majority of arguments for theism or counterarguments against arguments against theism, generally lead to special pleading or other fallacies.\n\nHere's one post I recently made: [https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/15pjew5/extraordinary\\_claims\\_need\\_extraordinary\\_evidence/](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/15pjew5/extraordinary_claims_need_extraordinary_evidence/) which then links to another one of my posts that goes more in-depth: [https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/15ey939/if\\_religious\\_beliefs\\_were\\_subject\\_to\\_consistent/](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/15ey939/if_religious_beliefs_were_subject_to_consistent/)\n\nA lot of what Christianity said is very similar to other religions and old mythologies. It has a generic reward-punishment system/carrot and stick system, that is, a hell and heaven. On top of that, all of the claims in Christianity hold no good evidence with most being anecdotal. Most arguments for Christianity are not Christian-specific and more so just theism in general. Even then, those thesitic arguments lead to either, 1. fallacies, or 2. only making theism \"more likely,\" but even then, these arguments have counters.\n\nThey were not geniuses. A little clever, but they essentially copied other religions and mythologies and is a cookie-cutter religion. Christianity isn't wide spread just because of how \"logical\" and \"sound\" it is; indoctrination or generationally passing the idea down is a big part of it. There are also contradictions in the Bible which can be found at this website: [https://www.lyingforjesus.org/Bible-Contradictions/](https://www.lyingforjesus.org/Bible-Contradictions/)","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzirf5","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">They were not geniuses. A little clever, but they essentially copied other beliefs and mythologies and is a cookie-cutter religion. Christianity isn't widespread just because of how \"logical\" and \"sound\" it is; indoctrination or generationally passing the idea down is a big part of it. There are also contradictions in the Bible which can be found at this website: https://www.lyingforjesus.org/Bible-Contradictions/\n\nI wasn't implying that Christianity was \"logical\" and \"sound\". I was implying it was successful because it has so many tricks up its sleeve. It may be full of lies, but for every one I point out, I'll get one or more rebuttals thrown my way.\n\nThink of it as being like in the middle of a dense minefield. Whoever laid the minefield might not have a \"logical\" and \"sound\" reason for it, but any step you could take will blow up in your face.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzlzr1","parent_id":"jvzirf5","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"xper0072","body":"Just because someone has an answer for everything doesn't mean that the answer is a good answer. Your inability to properly debate the topic does not mean that the other side is correct in any way.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzj07m","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">Your inability to properly debate the topic does not mean that the other side is correct in any way.\n\nI wasn't saying the other side was correct. My point is that they are impossible to defeat and are good at ensnaring their critics.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzmc3l","parent_id":"jvzj07m","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"razvanght","body":"In my experience, Christian s believe that God is real because they feel He is real. Then you can ask them whether a person of a different religion can also use the same method (I feel Zeus is real because I feel Him) to conclude that a different god is real. Christians generally agree that that person used the same method (feeling based) to reach an opposite conclusion (Zeus, not God, is real). In my discussions at least, this argument works in that it gives people pause. Of course, it does not change their belief immediately because they have been holding it for some time but I feel like it adds a seed of doubt.\n\nDo you know the official Christian response against this line of argument?","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzj0m8","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">In my experience, Christian s believe that God is real because they feel He is real. Then you can ask them whether a person of a different religion can also use the same method (I feel Zeus is real because I feel Him) to conclude that a different god is real. \n\nHow can I get them to accept the argument that \"oh I don't feel God is real, so don't force me to go to church\"? Because that argument always failed me in the past. Also, on a tangent, how are you able to \"feel\" Zeus?\n\n>adds a seed of doubt.\n\nPlanting seeds of doubt is a great political strategy. For example, in Australia, we have an upcoming referendum on constitutional indigenous recognition - and because the No side is so good at planting seeds of doubt, the Yes side is losing despite having academia and the arts sector on its side. \n\nBut back to the point, I tried planting seeds of doubt and failed miserably. The Christians I've had to defend my opinions from don't merely consider themselves as \"feelings based\", they consider their views as backed by literature (the Bible).","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzmy3i","parent_id":"jvzj0m8","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Apprehensive_Box3199","body":"I dropped my Catholicism at 21 after learning basic logic at University. In year 6 whilst at a Catholic school, we were given a Catholic Catechism - literally the manual for being a good Catholic. Most of the book is written in question-and-answer format. This is indoctrination 101. The first 3 questions are, and I quote:\n\n>1. Question: Who made the world? \n Answer: God made the world. \n> \n>2. Q. Who is God? \n> \n> A. God is the Creator of heaven and earth and of all things and the Supreme Lord of all. \n> \n>3. Q. How do we know there is a God? \n> \n> A. We know that there is a God by the things that He made.\n\nRight there; in the first 3 question-and-answers is a Circular Argument. The entire basis of the Catechism is premised on a Circular Argument. If nothing else, the entire point of Catholicism is to justify the original statement that God exists.\n\nI looked through the whole of the Catechism highlighting anything I still believed. I highlighted a single sentence in the preface about doing unto others etc... NOTHING else.\n\nBefore you have a go at me for not knowing what a circular argument until I was 21 - I went to Catholic schools for all of high school and it is in their best interests NOT to teach that and it was the 80s. That's my excuse and I sticking to it.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzjc23","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">Right there; in the first 3 question-and-answers is a Circular Argument. The entire basis of the Catechism is premised on a Circular Argument. If nothing else, the entire point of Catholicism is to justify the original statement that God exists. \n> \n>I looked through the whole of the Catechism highlighting anything I still believed. I highlighted a single sentence in the preface about doing unto others etc... NOTHING else. \n> \n>Before you have a go at me for not knowing what a circular argument until I was 21 - I went to Catholic schools for all of high school and it is in their best interests NOT to teach that and it was the 80s. That's my excuse and I sticking to it.\n\nIn my experience, pointing out the circular argument leads to one of 2 outcomes:\n\n1. Getting more apologia that I am unable to defeat\n2. The \"*Do you have a better explanation?*\" rebuttal","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvznrln","parent_id":"jvzjc23","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Simbabz","body":"The most important story of the bible is Jesus ressurecction, the gospels contradict each other in the telling of the story, hardly designed by geniuses.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzktxv","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">The most important story of the bible is Jesus ressurecction, the gospels contradict each other in the telling of the story, hardly designed by geniuses.\n\nNot sure what Protestants say, but Catholicism claims that slight differences with the same overall story prove it's written by real people observing the same things. We can accuse them of using a dodgy argument, but it still wouldn't undermine their side.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzp1ei","parent_id":"jvzktxv","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"vote4bort","body":"I think you're just trying way too hard in these debates and starting from the wrong point. You're coming at them like religion is something that can be proved through debate when it fundamentally can't. \nThe religious rebuttal for every point will always be essentially the same. That is they'll say \"well I believe this I so\". And you can't argue with that because its not a statement that can be argued against.\n\nWhat can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzkuyc","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.\n\nThe problem is when they think they have evidence and you think they don't. [Here's an example with a Protestant](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jv9g3kt/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3), and we can't agree on anything.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzp2i6","parent_id":"jvzkuyc","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"sapphireminds","body":"You seem to be a poor debater. You are accepting a lot of arguments as true when they aren't. \n\nAll children are born atheists. Coincidentally, they just happen to usually believe in the god(s) their parents/community believes it. \n\nAnd personally, if there is a god with the power ascribed to it by the bible, I would refuse to worship it. \n\nYou also need to educate yourself about the null hypothesis.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzl8ri","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">You seem to be a poor debater. You are accepting a lot of arguments as true when they aren't.\r\n\nI don't accept their arguments as true. I accept them as difficult to defeat.\n\n>And personally, if there is a god with the power ascribed to it by the bible, I would refuse to worship it.\n\nI wouldn't want to worship such a God either. [I've told a Protestant that if I were to accept that he indeed received a miracle, it would still prove that the Christian god is unjust](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvkkegk/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). But that argument still failed to sway him.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzqf91","parent_id":"jvzl8ri","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"-paperbrain-","body":"What you seem to be saying is just that you are not able, with the mere power of logic, to get Christians to abandon their belief.\n\nI hate to break it to you, but this is not a particular quality of Christianity. Anything people are dug in on will face this hill. Not only will you encounter it with every religion, but you won't argue many people out of their political doctrine, flat earth belief, or whether they side with Ross or Rachel on friends. People have rebuttals for everything about many totally conflicting positions. It's part of having strong beliefs and giving it some thought. And religions in particular have had a long time and tons of resources to give it thought.\n\nThat doesn't mean there's no room for criticism. Just that your expectation about change is ridiculously optimistic.\n\nHowever, regardless of how your personal debates are going, people are leaving Christianity in droves, partly because they don't find those rebuttals to critique to be logically, morally or emotionally satisfying. The fastest growing religious affiliation is \"none\".","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzlzcb","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">That doesn't mean there's no room for criticism. Just that your expectation about change is ridiculously optimistic.\n\nSometimes, I'm challenged to debate when I'm not looking for one (see my first link in the post details). I wasn't expecting to change anyone's views, just successfully defend my decision, and I failed even that.\n\n>However, regardless of how your personal debates are going, people are leaving Christianity in droves, partly because they don't find those rebuttals to critique to be logically, morally or emotionally satisfying. The fastest growing religious affiliation is \"none\".\n\n[Christianity is still growing overall](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_population_growth). Even if it's not growing in the Western World, this shrinkage is negated by growth outside the Western World.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzs5r5","parent_id":"jvzlzcb","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"wrongfulness","body":"What a waste of time","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzmu4k","parent_id":"15purrs","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"The_White_Ram","body":"This isn't hard. Christianity literally endorses slavery.\n\nIf you believe slavery is wrong then that's the only argument you need.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzniyg","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">This isn't hard. Christianity literally endorses slavery. \n> \n>If you believe slavery is wrong then that's the only argument you need.\n\nI tried using such an argument. [It backfired](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvztyn7","parent_id":"jvzniyg","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"ElPwnero","body":"I like the one Muslims use:\\\nThe word of allah is perfect and if you find inconsistencies, then it’s your human brain that’s incapable of understanding the true meaning.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzoket","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">I like the one Muslims use:\r \n> \n>The word of allah is perfect and if you find inconsistencies, then it’s your human brain that’s incapable of understanding the true meaning.\n\nI mean, they're basically insulting your intelligence. But isn't that a great bad faith tactic, dodging accountability by accusing your opponent of being too dumb to understand? I can't imagine myself faring any better debating a Muslim than debating a Christian.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzvglo","parent_id":"jvzoket","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"indigoneutrino","body":"The interesting thing is I've had the opposite experience. Plenty of experiences online and in person where they can barely rebut *anything* to the point that I've had a minister apologise she can't answer my questions satisfactorily. I've seen no-one rebut or even explain why the crucifixion makes sense without legitimising blood sacrifice. It just constantly defaults to \"Jesus paid for our sins,\" without explaining why the death of an innocent third party was accepted as a valid payment within a supposedly just system.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzppfh","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Pichkuchu","body":">It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted\n\nJust because you got outwitted doesn't mean the other side was right, they were, in fact, blatantly wrong. Christianity is just as guilty of atrocities as any religion. Keep in mind that Christianity is 2000 years old and they enslaved people until 1860 and they had to be \"convinced\" by war to give it up. They genocided native populations in America and colonized Asia and Africa. There was inquisition. They burned people for heresy, including scientists. They weren't different from other big religions or even pagans. The modern view of the world and humanity encompasses non Christian populations too and one could argue that it's in fact the result of secularism.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzqu5n","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"StrangeAssonance","body":"I’m curious why you think one has to prove God exists? \n\nAlso, when Jesus was on earth the Jews kept asking for a sign from Him. They were blind to what he was doing with His ministry. The world is blind, so when you try to have these arguments that you feel you can’t win, I think you aren’t ever going to win them. I can show you God through my words and deeds but if you are blind to that, you won’t see what’s there to see.\n\nJesus repeatedly talks about how blind and deaf people are to God and his word.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzr1ue","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">Also, when Jesus was on earth the Jews kept asking for a sign from Him. They were blind to what he was doing with His ministry. The world is blind, so when you try to have these arguments that you feel you can’t win, I think you aren’t ever going to win them. I can show you God through my words and deeds but if you are blind to that, you won’t see what’s there to see.\n\nThis is why I see my inability to believe as a disability comparable to being unable to read.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzzkhs","parent_id":"jvzr1ue","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"mo_ff","body":"You can have faith that your monthly bills will be paid whilst you have no money or means to do so OR you can actually have the money. One will work. The other will leave you with no utilities. Full stop.\n\nIn a debate with a Christian you would encounter, \"Oh, but have you no faith a brother in Christ would not help you?\" And then a large quantity of scriptural examples would be brought forth from whatever version of the bible they are most familiar with.\n\nAs others have stated, the deck is stacked. If you can approach the conversation with your family in a civil manor, stop going to church. Believe what makes you happy and mentally healthy so long as it doesn't hurt others.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzr2rx","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"HansPGruber","body":"You need to read some Thomas Paine my friend. A renegade if the atomic age.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzrn0v","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Morasain","body":"Couple things.\n\nThe first thing is that burden of proof is with the person making a claim - Christians in this case.\n\nThe second thing is - you don't need to refute the religion itself, because you can't.\n\nUsually, if you bring up things like pastors being molesters, or the crusades, or witch burnings, Christians will commit a No True Scotsman fallacy. \"These pastors aren't *real* Christians.\" You don't need to refute that argument because it is in itself wrong - but if you want, you can always go the path of saying that everyone in the church is, in the end, appointed by God.\n\nThe easiest way to reject Christianity is to instead reject God, though. You don't even need to prove that he's bad or anything - you need to use your own morality to reject the idea that a god like depicted in Christianity can be a god you want to believe in.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzrwx0","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"hdhddf","body":"you don't need to convince them, they're arguing from a position of ignorance and indoctrination, you can't argue with that because their arguments aren't built on logic or sound reasoning.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzs63u","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Huffers1010","body":"Let's do it by example. What did they have a rebuttal for that you couldn't respond to?\n\nMy suspicion is that they really didn't.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzt6nt","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"misersoze","body":"Just say: “hey I also met a Muslim, a Mormon, a Jew and a Hindu. They all make the exact same arguments as you do about why their religion is the correct one and they all say they have the one true religion. So why should I join yours over their’s”.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvztpz1","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Potential_Cod_8473","body":"They might win a debate but the world still is a shitty place full of diseases, suffering, birth defeacts. \n\nIt only prove how dishonest someone is to defend a claim it was created my omnipotent and omniscient being. \n\nChristianity was falsified many times\nAdam and Eve? Fairytale\nGreat Flood? Fairytale\nBabel's tower? Fairytale\nExocus? Fairytale \nRessurection? Really improbable\n\nThe fact that the scripture has to be interpreted in the face of new evidence like why would omnipotent God need 4 bilions years to create highly imperfect and miserable beings or why universe is 93 bilion light years wide and we are limited by a speed of light is a powerful evidence against revelation.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvztt3e","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"the_internet_clown","body":"Just because someone says something in response doesn’t make it a good rebuttal","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzugyn","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Relevant_Maybe6747","body":"Christianity doesn’t have a rebuttal against Judaism - they’ve tried and tried to kill us and never succeeded","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzuj4l","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Is that really a good argument though? By that logic, Islam doesn't have a rebuttal against Christianity either (or vice versa).","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw075ml","parent_id":"jvzuj4l","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Scott_The_Protogen","body":"Why \"debate\" someone's faith anyways? Unless they're being a jerk about it like in the last part. I always just have that whole live and let live thing (Even if some fanatics might not be that way either). I know you say some of these people come to you with the debates, but I feel like just giving a solid \"I don't want to talk about it\" or \"My views aren't going to change\" might work, even if they do continue to badger you regarding it, It doesn't have to be a winning-losing game.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzullx","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">Why \"debate\" someone's faith anyways? \n\nIn the first link, I was challenged to a debate out of the blue when I requested not to go to church anymore. He wanted me to read his spiel and change my views, or give a counter-argument strong enough to defend my views.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw07dt4","parent_id":"jvzullx","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Key-Extension1458","body":"2000 years ago there was a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem that took animal sacrifice from the people. This was fulfilling the Mosaic Covenant, and sustained Israel called \"Judea\". Like Jesus said it would happen, the temple was thrown down to the last stone and the sacrificial rite was \"nailed to the cross\" in the words of Paul the Apostle. This leaves us without redemption under the law, and everyone is guilty of sin everywhere. \n\nHence the figure of Christ intervenes, and made the ultimate sacrifice, putting death and guilt and hell itself into the fire. Now we have grace and mercy, and redemption by faith. It seems to work, since 2000 years of Christian history represented the general improvement of life everywhere. At the same time, the movement was hijacked by earthly forces resulting in \"churchianty\" and roman catholicism. All \"debates\" are just scholastic noise from that time, arguing in circles about nothing relevant. It is what it is, the temple of jerusalem was destroyed 2000 years ago and the levitical rites were nailed to the Cross.\n\nNow everything is a free gift, the more we cast off the old man and put on the new. Strong enough faith loses fear of everything and moves mountains, it is divine power given to mankind. God loves the children of this world and Israel in dispersion, which means everyone.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzur3s","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Key-Extension1458","body":"2000 years ago there was a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem that took animal sacrifice from the people. This was fulfilling the Mosaic Covenant, and sustained Israel called \"Judea\". Like Jesus said it would happen, the temple was thrown down to the last stone and the sacrificial rite was \"nailed to the cross\" in the words of Paul the Apostle. This leaves us without redemption under the law, and everyone is guilty of sin everywhere. \n\nHence the figure of Christ intervenes, and made the ultimate sacrifice, putting death and guilt and hell itself into the fire. Now we have grace and mercy, and redemption by faith. It seems to work, since 2000 years of Christian history represented the general improvement of life everywhere. At the same time, the movement was hijacked by earthly forces resulting in \"churchianty\" and roman catholicism. All \"debates\" are just scholastic noise from that time, arguing in circles about nothing relevant. It is what it is, the temple of jerusalem was destroyed 2000 years ago and the levitical rites were nailed to the Cross.\n\nNow everything is a free gift, the more we cast off the old man and put on the new. Strong enough faith loses fear of everything and moves mountains, it is divine power given to mankind. God loves the children of this world and Israel in dispersion, which means everyone.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzurg6","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">2000 years ago the Temple in Jerusalem took animal sacrifice from the people. It was fulfilling the Mosaic Covenant, and sustained Israel called \"Judea\" at the time. Like Jesus said it would happen, the temple was thrown down to the last stone and the sacrificial rite was \"nailed to the cross\" in the words of Paul the Apostle. This leaves us without redemption under the law, and everyone is guilty of sin everywhere. \n> \n>Hence the figure of Christ intervenes, and made the ultimate sacrifice, putting death and guilt and hell itself into the fire. Now we have grace and mercy, and redemption by faith. It seems to work, since 2000 years of Christian history represented the general improvement of life everywhere. At the same time, the movement was hijacked by earthly forces resulting in \"churchianty\" and roman catholicism. All \"debates\" are just scholastic noise from that time, arguing in circles about nothing relevant. It is what it is, the temple of jerusalem was destroyed 2000 years ago and the levitical rites were nailed to the Cross. \n> \n>Now everything is a free gift, the more we cast off the old man and put on the new. Strong enough faith loses fear of everything and moves mountains, it is divine power given to mankind. God loves the children of this world and Israel in dispersion, which means everyone.\n\nIs this supposed to be a promotion of Protestantism?","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw07io1","parent_id":"jvzurg6","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"danmilligan","body":"One thing I'm sensing is that you're thinking of Christianity as a monolith, and while that was once true, it hasn't been for a long, long time. So many types of Christianity exist that there will be Christians on opposite sides of nearly any given issue. The true non-negotiables of the religion are extremely minimal, and highly interpretive. Because of this, you can't really say \"Christians are like this\" or \"Christians do that\", because this will apply to SOME Christians, but certainly not all. For a good example, the majority of American Christians are extremely unique from a global perspective, being far more individualistic, and reading the Bible in a slavishly literal fashion, among other things. So if you say \"Christians are anti-LGBTQ\", there are millions and millions of other Christians ready to counter that.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzusf6","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">One thing I'm sensing is that you're thinking of Christianity as a monolith, and while that was once true, it hasn't been for a long, long time. So many types of Christianity exist that there will be Christians on opposite sides of nearly any given issue. The true non-negotiables of the religion are extremely minimal, and highly interpretive.\n\nI'm well aware of the splits within Christianity. What I mention in my post detail is that I have tried and miserably failed to defend my lack of faith from both Catholics and Protestants. I understand that they'd have different ways of thinking regarding lack of faith, but at the end of the day, both defeated me.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw07u6h","parent_id":"jvzusf6","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"GreasyPorkGoodness","body":"You need to dismantle the church hierarchy and not the “existence of god”. \n\nIt’s not that you don’t believe in god, you don’t believe in Christianities following of god. Their church is corrupt, opulent, child molesters, hypocritical, child marriage, judgmental, in Christ like etcetera. \n\nGod very well might exist, if he does he certainly won’t approve of christianity.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzuv92","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"CutiePopIceberg","body":"Christianity is Middle Eastern mythology. Christians hate when you remind them of this.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzv7py","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"JustSomeDude0605","body":"\"I don't believe in that bullshit\"\n\nDebate over.\n\nContrary to your brother's or pastor's wishes, you don't owe them any sort of debate or explanation. Live your life as you want to, not based on what they think you should do. If that means, no religion then stop going to church. \n\nFuck em.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzvaah","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"CriticalThinkingAT","body":"The thing is, there are a mountain of atheist rebuttals as well. Like literally there are so many atheist channels out there to rebutting every Christian argument that it's just a matter of searching and looking for them. Lol. You'll be fine.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzvipb","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">The thing is, there are a mountain of atheist rebuttals as well. Like literally there are so many atheist channels out there to rebutting every Christian argument that it's just a matter of searching and looking for them. Lol. You'll be fine.\n\nCounterpoint: Only a few of these are useful. Most channels appear to be useful only against Protestant pastors who rely on charisma. Catholicism is much harder to debate against as they have 2000 years of church tradition, intellectuals and apologia on their side.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw09z3v","parent_id":"jvzvipb","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"OpenByTheCure","body":"I don't want to be harsh, but I just think you're not very good at debating","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzvw3c","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"I am bad at debating (and most other things). Maybe that's why I always get challenged to debates, because I will lose.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0b11j","parent_id":"jvzvw3c","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Dr_Keyser_Soze","body":"You need to listen to David C. Smalley. Take in a few podcasts and you won’t be disappointed.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzvzk2","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Wintermute815","body":"It’s really not. It depends on circular logic and faith, both of which are critical flaws.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzx8zv","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"j3rdog","body":"Stop trying to debate facts by point counter point. Learn street epistemology. There’s good YouTube channels and subreddits on it.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzxa1z","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Unable-Food7531","body":"You're:\n\n1. Bad at debating in general\n\n2. An unskilled rhetorician \n\n3. Uneducated on the topic you're debating.\n\nThose Three things together mean than any attempt to draw generally-appliable conclusions from your debating losses is doomed to produce bs.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzxmej","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"How can I get all 3 skills when I'm up against people who have so much more knowledge than me? I hate it when I give others a reason to criticise me.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw05k0t","parent_id":"jvzxmej","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"DangForgotUserName","body":"Christians don't have arguments, just elaborate evasions of criticism.\n\nIn order to be religious, or believe in a supernatural god, to some extent, one has to deny certain aspects of science, and also have to deny the foundations of reason and logic. \n\n\nThere are major undemonstrated claims that come with theism:\n\n-a spiritual, divine, or otherwise supernatural realm exists \n\n-there are nonphysical spiritual forces and entities \n -some kind of afterlife exists\n\n-at least humans have souls, which are the spiritual essence \"attached\" to a physical body\n\nEven if all these were demonstrated, we would still have no way of determining which deities were real. These claims are also far from being demonstrated, likely, or even possible. \n\nEven then, we have no way to link such deities to any religion that anyone worships.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzxv11","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Electrical-Rabbit157","body":"It’s not well designed. It’s the worst designed religion in the world actually. The success of Christianity is based around keeping people from learning about other faiths. The moment that happens the VAST majority of them leave christianity for something else. Myself included. \n\nYou have to go at the fundamental hypocrisy of it. The average Christian rants and raves about the Ten Commandments and yet every single one of them break the first 2 commandments daily and most break 3 commandments every Sunday. The average priest breaks the first 4. Then there’s the fact that the Bible is a corrupt text and Christianity as a whole was founded by Paul, a man who is not a prophet, not a disciple, not an apostle, just a random guy who comes out of nowhere and starts preaching that Jesus is God.\n\nThey worship a trinity which is paganism. There is no excuse for it. It’s the same exact belief system as Hindus which are literally the original pagans that Abraham fought against. This trinity also includes a man. That man is considered a prophet but still. This breaks the first commandment. \n\nThey idolize said man and the cross he died on. They wear necklaces with it. They put big gold crosses at the front of their churches and big wooden ones on the outside of them. This breaks the second commandment \n\nThey go to church on Sunday and the vast majority of them believe this is the sabbath. Which directly breaks the fourth commandment.\n\nThe priesthood commits extortion and sometimes even rape in either the name of God or what they lead people to believe is a house of God. This breaks the third commandment \n\nThen you get to the Bible and it’s non existent integrity. There are about 5 major sects of Christianity. Each one has about 40 versions of the Bible. And the average Christian may think this is normal, it’s not. Jews have 1 version of the Torah. Muslims have 1 version of the Quran. Hell even the Hindus only have 1 version of most of their texts. The new testemant is more written by Paul, who is again, not a prophet, than any actual apostle. All of Paul’s letters are included in the vast majority of bibles yet the book of Enoch, book of Jesus Christ, and lost gospel to Peter are considered “uncanon” by the church and have been removed for centuries. That is not a holy text. It may have been a couple thousand years ago but out of 200+ in circulation today, I’d seriously doubt any can be considered uncorrupted.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzyqtq","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"malorane","body":"Isn't this other person either straight up lying or totally misinformed about the Christianity/Catholicism? Like I could be misremembering but I'm pretty sure there are passages that literally give you guidelines about how to treat your slaves and this dude said both have always been against slavery?","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzz7x7","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"CantKeepMeOutYo","body":"You will never win against someone with faith. They will always always always have some other bullshit excusw up their sleeves. That's what makes religion so fucking dangerous: it uses logic when it works and then completely disregards it when logic doesn't work. Don't bother debating christians, they've accepted a parasite into their body that will defend its ability to feed off the host, even if it means killing the host, or YOU.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzzg1h","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"wibbly-water","body":">If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\r \n\r \nIf you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\n\nIgnoring the second proposition for a second I want to propose 2 more reasonable secular arguments;\n\n1. This is true of all religions because their axioms and methods for diving truth are different. They believe, want to believe, will tie all phenomena in with their argument, will ignore Occam's Razor to do so. \n2. If Christianity is better than (some) other religions at doing this it may be because it is a highly evolved system of memes. A meme is the idea equivalent to a gene. Religions are memetic in nature - they are ideologies, ideas about how the world works. Memes compete for space and survival much like genes do. And every time one of its memes is threatened it is forced to either drop that meme and adapt or bolster it to do the same. Look at the iterations of historical Christianity. Where are the puritans today? Even Protestantism evolved out of Catholicism - many will claim that they are barely the same religion.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzzk96","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"DangForgotUserName","body":"The salvation of man is dependent on the suffering of Jesus Christ. His 'blood sacrifice magic' supposedly forgives original sin - doctrine that we know though biology is utterly wrong. (A couple of garden nudists were guilty of rebellious fruit munching, so everyone deserves death or eternal torment?) This makes the theological story around Jesus one where he is scapegoat of a nonexistent forebear. This should undermine the value of Jesus as well as the foundational basis for belief in God.\n\n \n\nFurther, the idea that the only way to forgive is through ritualized punishment? That is petty and immoral. No forgiveness without bloodshed or death. Horrible, ignorant and outdated ideas.\n\n\nThe idea of a messiah, one who will deliver us from the tribulations of the present, is an ancient idea that distracts us from the hard work that must be done to build a better world.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzzkww","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Emotional_platypuss","body":"The problem here is both sides trying to impose beliefs on others. What you believe or don't believe is your problem. You don't need to explain why you don't follow a religion, specially to religious people. Is like them telling you why their religion is so good. Break out of that circle and move on","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0052z","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"notjuan_f_m","body":"This Is the problem with everything lately. \"I am right, you are wrong, and I will continue to tell you until you accept that i am right\"","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw00l9j","parent_id":"jw0052z","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"JackedLilJill","body":"If anything, just from your text and title, the fact that Christians explain themselves fully in the face of debate, should be the reason to change your view.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw00vuq","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"FerdinandTheGiant","body":"For your first debate with your brother, he was just straight up wrong on so much. Christianity is not and does not serve as the basis for morality in the western world or the world as a whole. \n\nMost of the non-western world like in Asia is not heavily Christian and wasn’t for most of their history. They of course are doing just fine. Christian morals have not been consistent nor are they the basis for a basic society. \n\nAdditionally, you don’t need Christianity to explain altruism as it already has a natural explanation. It’s called kin selection and essentially means that it is beneficial to help out family since they carry your genes. This means more of your genes will get passed on. This is likely how it evolved in humans and then developed into what we consider today. Animals do this. Altruism isn’t human alone. \n\nThen you have slavery which the Bible openly says is fine. Leviticus 25:44-46","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw013nj","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"-Strawdog-","body":"Taking a quick look at one or two of these examples, you have a very noticeable habit of accepting a lot of the other person's premises and arguments without pushing back on them at all. As an example, your brother mentions multiple times that altruistic behavior is the direct result of the Christian faith, an argument that is absolutely ridiculous for a bunch of reasons, not the least of which that our closest genetic relatives (chimpanzees and bonobos) exhibit all kinds of altruistic behaviors as part of their highly social lifestyles (and they also don't sacrifice eachother, something he seems weirdly hung up on).\n\nTo be honest, it doesn't look like the people you're debating have good arguments or are good at expressing them, it seems that you are just very new to debate, particularly on this topic. If debating religious folks is something you want to do (you are incredibly unlikely to change their minds even with very good arguments), you can find plenty of solid resources online that break down and refute just about any apologetics you are likely to encounter.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw01pm9","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"lamabaronvonawesome","body":"I have found the opposite to be true. I would recommend reading some books on logic and debate. Having an answer doesn't make it a good answer. I had a debate teacher that used to day \"the definition of a reason is anything I put forth as a reason.\" This essentially means you SAY anything, that doesn't mean it will hold up under scrutiny. You mentioned miracles that a person had given you examples of in their own life. Debate in essence is about definitions, how we define things. Get them to give you the definition of a miracle. I personally would define that as any event that is ONLY explainable by divine intervention. See if their miracles hold up to that.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw02avd","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"kountze","body":"The Church did have some good effects on political and cultural development in Europe - for example the separation of powers came from the Church being a strong counter force to the government for so long, church limited the government in ways that led to values of separation of powers and limited government, unlike China which was much more state dominated and still is today. Protestantism represented not only a change in religion but also a change in how humans think logically - so yeah a lot of good things can be tied to how Protestantism changed how people think. \n\nThat being said, the above certainly is a far cry from saying that Protestantism values will work in every situation or that it can address all of today’s modern problems. Protectionism ideally is something that should be open to interpretation, which modern Christianity has moved away from that. \n\nIn terms of science the Church does not have credible arguments - that’s the main problem. If you think they do, you really haven’t encountered anyone who actually knows the science and microbiology. \n\nAlso, do not confuse correlation and causation. Certain positive developments in society may correlate, but that correlation does not prove causation. \n\n\nThe issue with","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw035en","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Jaderholt439","body":"If I’m debating Christianity, I like to go straight to the main topic- the Resurrection.\n\nMost people I know and love are Christians; I don’t have a problem w/ their religion. I love these people. But what I don’t like are apologists. Every single one that I’ve ever seen is dishonest. Especially when it comes to the Resurrection.\n\nIt’s not hard to believe that a guy named Yeshua, who had a religious following, was crucified. I can even believe he was put in his own tomb, although most were put in a mass grave, it’s wasn’t unheard of. The stone being put to block the tomb and guards sound like they were plot holes being fixed in Matthew, but for arguments sake, I’ll agree to that too.\n\nJesus wasn’t in the tomb when they went to him 3 days later. What is the most likely explanation? Is it, “he must’ve overcome death and ascended, bc he’s God”? I think a Guy Ritchie style heist is way more plausible. ‘They forgot which cave’ is more plausible. Literally anything is more plausible. If they are being honest, they have to say, “I believe it on faith”. Yet, apologists will not say this, therefore they are dishonest, therefore they don’t have an answer for everything.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw03fxs","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Entropy_Drop","body":"LOL on the first link. Christianity didn't opposed slavery, and doesn't have a monopoly on being a good person. It actually was the ideological fundation of american slavery.\n\nHypocrates wasn't christian, gandi neither, and personal freedom, democracy and equality of genders aren't christian values.\n\nThe golden rule (\"don't do to other what you dont want done to yourself\") and the silver rule (\"do to others what you want to recieve from them\" (bdsm, for example)) are not creation of christianity. \n\nSome christian are propagandiced all their life into the worldview of \"all good comes from christ\", which is clearly a big lie. Is kinda justified for them to sell that lie, tho.\n\nAlso, that motto has a counter-part: \"No bad comes from christ\" which is my only explanation to how incredible bigoted people justify their behavior without ever thinking \"are we the badies?\". Anita \"pie-face\" Bryant comes to mind, who, in her own words \"loved homosexuals\".","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw04f2l","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Jade_Skie","body":"TJ Kirk (aka The Amazing Atheist) on YouTube once mentioned \"unfalsifiable hypothesis.\" In other words, Christians spout the argument that miracles, what is said in the Bible, Satan, and God all exist and are as the answer to everything because immediate evidence to the contrary can normally not be produced by their opponent, thus no argument against them can be made. So in their minds, they are right. That is, of course, not how the world/universe actually works.\n\nTo quote Carl Sagan: \"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.\"","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw04j73","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"JuliusErrrrrring","body":"Remember the following truths: most people who claim they are Christians are good people; most people who are good people and claim they are Christian are good because of their ignorance of the Bible, not because of the Bible. The Bible is an awful immoral book and the religion is completely silly. It is pro slavery, pro genocide, pro forced abortion and pro incest. If you are debating anyone who isn't in favor of those things, they may be actually non believers too, they are just too ignorant of their religion to know any better.\n\n​\n\nIt is completely silly and does not hold up to debate. Just some quick obvious random thoughts off the top of my head: They suck at math - claim to have one god yet believe in a holy trinity as well as an evil god. Many Christians claim to be against abortion, yet the Bible actually gives an abortion recipe, god murdered pregnant women in his Noah's Arc genocide, and Jesus forced abortions on Jezebel. Many Christians are anti-trans and anti gay - yet Eve transitioned from a male rib and now they worship a dress wearing dude with two fathers who identifies as bread and wine. Cain and Abel were the original motherfuckers. The whole bible was written by people who never met Jesus and there is zero historical proof that there even was a man named Jesus pretending to be god. It's just a gigantic hoax that's been accepted due to peer pressure because life is easier and you can make more money and get laid easier if you simply play along with this silly marketing scheme.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw05bz4","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Loose-Technology7787","body":"Christianity is designed that way. Christians are programmed in a way via church and such where they hold their belief to a much higher standard than any facts or logic despite a lack of evidence. On of christianity's main taglines is to just have faith in god even though hes done nothing to show you hes there.\n\nDebating a religious person on religion is an unwinnable debate. You cant argue against someones opinion when the only points they will accept are those that align with said opinion. For example, many christians say good and evil only exist because god decides whats good and bad. I might say that life is meaningless, therefore our thoughts and feelings are all that exist making them all that matters. Meaning we get to choose whats moral; however the christian would then just say life isnt meaningless because god gives meaning to life. This will go on for any length of time.\n\nThe only reason atheists win those official televised debates is because theres a mediator keeping nonsense out of it. They keep the religious side from using unreasonable and illogical arguments, which leads to them losing.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw05l8j","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"BuzzyShizzle","body":"That's funny because, I have yet to hear them lose an argument/debate on the atheist experience yet. \n\nIf you haven't heard of it, there is a call-in radio show called \"the atheist experience\" and the entire show is welcoming any religious to call in and challenge them. If you want your view changed, that show will do a much better job than anything else.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw06l99","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Sad_Confidence8941","body":"I agree, Christianity is very well designed. The smartest people alive for many centuries spent their lives defending Christianity (Thomas Aquinas, Saint Augustine, etc). They have been philosophically attacked for years and years and are still here","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw06orq","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"nomad5926","body":"Homie out here saying the altruism isn't a natural thing without Christianity..... 🤣 Bro be saying Meerkats are all Christians? Or Naked Mole Rats?\n\nI will never understand why people have to force religion upon others. But essentially an easy way out is to ask them to provide solid proof that God existed. Logically you cannot not prove a belief. (Like others have said before me). Typically the ones making the claim \"god exists\" have the burden of proof. \n\nAlso in my experience you're not going to convince anyone to stop believing. It's the same reason kids believe in Santa it gives them something. For most people, religion is a source of comfort. It's why, from what I see, older folks are more religious. (Cause you know.... Closer to death... Heaven seems nicer).\n\nIf you just want them to stop harassing you, you can just say that your relationship with God is personal and need not be on disability for others. (You don't have to say the bit that the relationship is non-existent).","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0753r","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Moraulf232","body":"Christianity has an answer for any criticism but the answers are silly and unconvincing just like the religion.\n\nJust ask yourself “has this answer explained why I should believe these assertions with no evidence or has it just made more assertions with no evidence?” and “could this answer be used to justify the existence of a Flying Spaghetti Monster or literally any other deity?” or “is there any evidence that the person I am talking to can imagine that would cause them to change their mind?” etc.\n\nThe philosophical arguments (apologetics) religions use are just fancy noise. There’s nothing there.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw07atx","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"lpuckeri","body":"Theres many reasons why christianity is absolutely absurd, at a childlike and comical level imo. I have equal belief in it than i do Santa. The apologetics for christianity are just excuses for something as rediculous as believing in flying to heaven on a winged horse.\n\nLets remember, we are arguing about. A cosmic jewish god zombie who is his own father and was born a virgin birth to a women impregnated by a holy ghost. \n\nThere is zero evidence for this that is not heresay. Not a single item or record or peice of evidence contemporary to jesus exists. To confirm this laughably absurd story all we have is stories that contradict each other, written in the wrong language, written decades to centuries after the fact, much of which we know was straight up forged and copied from surrounding greek myths and people.\n\nGetting lost in abologetics is exacty meant to make you forget you are proving an absurd thing eith zero evidence, and get caught up in the weeds.\n\n\nReasons. \n\n1. Supernatural events in the bible are empirically impossible to prove. Christians may use awful arguments like minimal facts etc, but these are all comically bad and fallacious. Abuductive reasoning is all we have access to, and that can never demonstrate supernatural events... This alone is enough, as it is logicalltly impossible to demonstrate christianity through our resources.\n\n2. The bible is self contradictory, the trinity and more is exceedingly illogical. By this i mean it literslly violates the laws of logic... and is isnanely stupid.\n\n3. The bible is obvious myth taken from surrounding cultures.\n\n4. There are no decent biblical scholars who think Moses wrote the old testament. Moses clearly never existed and exodus never happened. This is extremely confirmed... there is extreme evidence the base of both judeaism and christianity is 100% made up.\n\n5. People that claim supernatural events or whatever... 1. Does not prove god, or their god... it proves they had something special happen and nothing more. 2. These are nothing more than claims. 3. People claim this shit for every religion, thousands... if you apply this standard as evidence for one... you must for thousands of gods. 4. Once you understand psychology you realize how the brain works snd how easy it is for people to misnterpret things visually and auditory.\n\n6. Religions are not one off inventions. They are all representations and copyings of popular myths at the time. This can be seen in thousands of religions. Just as it is in christianity... the devil and hell doesnt become a thing until Greek influence, things like rising and dying saviours were popular greek myths too at the time of the bible etc. In fact the bible was wirtten in greek, not aramaic, the language Jesis and his follower would have spoken. You see babylonian myths copied into the parts of the bible, when they were written there...you see the bibles hell and devil and apocalyptic influences copying greek myth during the hellenistic period. Religions are copies of surrounding myth and cultures.\n\n7. Apologists often use arguments to prove god that are diestic. Things like the ontological srgument, teleological argument... aside from these being bad arguments, they only prove A God... not christianity. Even if the Kalam is true... the odds of christianity bring true is still zero... it gets you no closer.\n\n8. The bible wasnt written by geniuses. It was written by copying and adapting popular myths, cultures, and laws at the time. From copying ancient semetic religions and near eastern traditions 4000 tears ago, to adapting greek myths 2000 years ago. It also was written of centuries, adapted, edited, revised, forged, faked, reinterpreted thousands of times by hundeds of people. This idea some geniuses wrote this thing like you see it now is childishly ignorant of scholarship and history.\n\n9. There are actually about 94 gospels. 90 of which christians will admit are 100% bullshit mythological stories... yet they somehow think these are the special true 4, because the church leaders centuries ago simply decided so. \n\n10. These excuses and arguments for christianity are no better and no different than the ones Jews will use, or muslims, or Sikhs. You just live in a place around christians most likely. \n\nIts interesting because i have never heard a christian argument to me than is not childishly rediculous imo.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw07u2w","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Inevitable_Spare_777","body":"You can’t have a factual, logical debate with a person who’s worldview doesn’t subscribe to facts and logic","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw08ays","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"drzowie","body":"There is no direct way to argue a Christian out of Christianity, because it is a faith-based system of beliefs. But you *can* demand respect for your own beliefs.\n\nA couple of years ago, I wrote about just how incompatible Christian beliefs are with the scientific worldview. That line of argument is (like any other argument) unlikely to convince a fervent believer -- but may help you to understand that there are real weaknesses in the edifice of Christian thought. \n\nBelow is [copypasta from an early CMV post I made](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/7zy9wp/cmv_you_can_accept_todays_scientific_theory/durqqmi/):","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw08i8h","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"DouglerK","body":"I mean if they didn't the religion would probably be dead by now.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw08xbe","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"joshp23","body":"> If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniouses\n\nAll they have at their disposal are unfalsifiable claims. You can't prove that the invisible dragon in my garage doesn't exist either. The rest is a con act to attribute personal experience to the dragon. \n\nBut unfalsifiability and con tactics aside, wouldn't a genius be able to construct an effective argument *and* compile an internally consistent document at the same time? You have to do mental gymnastics to apologize for the ignorance and inconsistencies in the Bible.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw09c2d","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Crookwell","body":"OR you just aren't a very good critic?\nBecause I can rebuke shitty religious claims all day","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw09wvx","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"redstar15551","body":"Maybe you should give up then? You're not gonna \"Gotcha\" Christianity so leave them alone. Your lack of faith and overabundance of cynicism does not bug anyone the slightest. Don't trap yourself because you view this as an unwinnable battle against some dogmatic close minded religion, when that in and of itself is close minded. There's a modern pushback against religion, Christianity specifically, that has been pushed hard; but Christianity has and will continue to endue.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0a4wk","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Various_Succotash_79","body":"When my brothers were young, they played a game that was very much like Calvinball (if you've never read the comic Calvin and Hobbes, this is a game they made up on the fly). So it was all stuff like \"now the floor is lava so you burn up!\" \"Oh yeah? I throw 60 million tons of dry uce on it and that cools it off\", \"well that was too much and now you're frozen solid!\" Etc. \n\nThat's pretty much what religion is. Your mistake is in trying to make any sense of it.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0b260","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">When my brothers were young, they played a game that was very much like Calvinball (if you've never read the comic Calvin and Hobbes, this is a game they make up on the fly, so it never has the same rules). So it was all stuff like \"now the floor is lava so you burn up!\" \"Oh yeah? I throw 60 million tons of dry ice on it and that cools it off\", \"well that was too much and now you're frozen solid!\" Etc. \n\n!delta\n\nAs you show, you can't get anywhere trying to defend yourself from a religion which is designed to dodge accountability and make opponents lose. It's not designed for a debate, it's designed to be inescapable.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw25sdi","parent_id":"jw0b260","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Collective82","body":"If you are having such a hard time debating it, shouldn’t you consider it’s right and maybe you should look at converting?","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0bbov","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"I have. The problem is no matter how hard I try, I have zero spirituality and a complete inability to be sincerely connected with any religion. I see this as a disability comparable to being unable to because it's such a drag on my life.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw263jo","parent_id":"jw0bbov","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Fluffy_Candle6800","body":"I'll give you a quote from a book I read - \"God is omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent. However, bad things still happen. This means God cannot stop the bad things - he is not omnipotent, God does not know the things are happening - he is not omniscient, or he allows the bad things to happen - he is not benevolent.\"","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0bhc0","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"I've accepted the last one. How can I possibly believe in a benevolent god, when he gives miracles to some and neglects genuine victims, or when the religion he designed has endless excuses and loopholes to dodge all accountability?","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw26dbi","parent_id":"jw0bhc0","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"ItsAll42","body":"I do feel as though you too quickly concede many points that are not accurate or honest, but stated with such confidence they are difficult to rebutt just as confidently without sufficient background knowledge. In fact, some of these claims are just straight up racist, such as claiming altruism is not only a strictly christian virtue, but that many values such as caring for the sick and needy or having basic human decency are strictly Western practices and values.\n\n This is wildly inaccurate to claim, knowledge of history can easily debunk such ludicrous statments, especially considering much of the Western ideology is more focused on individualism where confucianism is more focused on the community as a whole. Buddhism stresses that all beings have inherent worth and challenges the strictly heiarchichal values of confucianism, yet still plenty of emphasis is placed on how to better the community as a whole and being kind for the sake of altruism and kindness without any expectation of personal rewards. You do not have to be a historian or theologian to debunk so much of what this person is claiming, especially in regard to other Abrahamic religions which are incredibly similar to the teachings of Christianity, you know, because they share a common historical and biblical root. While modern interpretations of Abrahamic faiths run the gamut, they are more alike than many of their subscribers would like to admit. \n\nIn fact, I'd argue that Christianity and most of its branches contain more self-serving motives than many religious beliefs, promising prosperity and wealth in heaven as a reward for good behavior. As an agnostic person I do not need a reward for my good behavior. \n\nAs you tried to point out, when this person claims pagans did not care for the sick or other absurd claims, the burden of proof is on them to substantiate such a ridiculous assumption. \n\nThis person comes across as making many intellectually dishonest arguments, and you more or less concede or gloss many of these points without pushback.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0cszb","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">This person comes across as making many intellectually dishonest arguments, and you more or less concede or gloss many of these points without pushback.\n\nThat's because I didn't study history at a tertiary level. See how I'm a frequent visitor to r/AskHistorians - because I'm not smart or knowledgeable about history. Are you suggesting that to defeat Christianity, I'll need a university degree in history?","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw26yyz","parent_id":"jw0cszb","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"FerdinandTheGiant","body":"Most, if not all of the Western values people like to claim are “Judeo-Christian” in origin simply aren’t. For one “Judeo-Christian values” aren’t a thing as these groups have different values, however let’s consider a few things we value in the west. \n\n#Democracy\n\nIn the Bible, democracy is never extolled or even articulated. Instead, there are endless stories of theocratic, authoritarian rule and the divine right of kings. Power is always concentrated; it’s never distributed. In classical Greece, however, Athenians established what is generally recognized as the world’s first democracy around 500 BCE. This predates Christianity and arose with no Jewish influence.\n\n#Common Humanity/ Equality\n\nThis is simply not biblical. In the New Testament, women are forbidden from holding authority over a man, told to be silent in church, and instructed to be obedient and submissive to their husbands. The same word used for submissive in Colossians also is used to describe how slaves should be to their masters. Women can be killed if they’re suspected of having premarital sex; the tenth commandment forbids coveting property, which includes women in the same sentence as houses and oxen; if a woman was raped, she was forced to marry her rapist if the offender paid her father, and on and on it goes.\n\nNon-Israelites or gentiles were forced into slavery and treated as property. This is seen in Leviticus and all over the Hebrew Bible. Slavery was condoned and justified for thousands of years using the Bible. \n\n#10 Commandments\n\nA common argument is that these “laws” are where we derive most of our morals and values in the west. This is rather silly. \n\nFor starters, a lot of the commandments are about idolatry, however other Rules like “thou shall not kill” predate Christianity and Judaism by hundreds of years. Literally any and all functional societies require this rule to be in place. And all over the world you see non-Christian nations follow similar “laws”. This is because they are beneficial for building a society. \n\n#Other religions\n\nOther religions have much stronger moral codes that Christanity. Jainism believes so much in the value of life that they won’t even talk at night because they could accidentally harm an insect. Buddhists have a deep personal desire to self improve while also improving the lives of those around them. Same could be said for taoists.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0dbxm","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"That's the problem though. You assume that Christianity is pro-democracy and pro-equality when history has shown us that they'd gladly throw these concepts under the bus if it were in the way of their religion.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw27njn","parent_id":"jw0dbxm","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Circular360Angles90","body":"People often conflate these two completely separate ideas. God/Higher Power - whatever you want to call it, with - Religion. \n\nReligion, in its limited ability tries to use the concept of God in an attempt to sway your reasoning capabilities towards their doctrine. God, however is completely separate from Religion.\n\nReligion just seems to have a Monopoly on the word. People feel as though believing in a God or Gods means they should adhere to some way of “knowing” their God. - which is all that a religion really does. But rest assured that it is someone elses ideas you are digesting. Theres nothing wrong with consulting people whom you believe to be wise or have more experience, but if you start feeling like they have some sort of answer that you cant quite grasp, then your talking to the wrong people. \n\nThis is not something that anyone can “show” you or “debate” you about. \n\nGod isnt in a book. God isnt an idea you learn from the pulpit. God isnt reason nor logic. God isnt bad. God isnt good. \n\nYou are engaging in a debate where their is nothing to debate, thus you always be “outwitted.”\n\nThink for yourself, walk your own path. You’ll fall flat on your face initially, perhaps for many years and, if you can muster up strength to get up on your own and not ask anybody why you fell and why it hurts so bad - you’ll stop feeling “outwitted.”","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0f9fa","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">You are engaging in a debate where their is nothing to debate, thus you always be “outwitted.”\n\n>Think for yourself, walk your own path. You’ll fall flat on your face initially, perhaps for many years and, if you can muster up strength to get up on your own and not ask anybody why you fell and why it hurts so bad - you’ll stop feeling “outwitted.”\n\nIsn't this the problem though? Most people can earn external respect being just who they are. In contrast, I have to prove my respectability, and prove why I have valid views, and I always lose.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw2llv2","parent_id":"jw0f9fa","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"CIABrainBugs","body":"If God was real, his actions would prevent me from giving him any respect. I don't care if he's real.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0fl5d","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Nghtmare-Moon","body":"Read Carl Sagan’s demon haunted world. It’s the best essay to counter all religious arguments","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0g6mu","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"GainPornCity","body":"It's not that there's a rebuttle for everything. There's just a different lens to look through. \n\nSay an atheist has blue shades on and sees everything as blue. Christian sees everything as red. However, the one commonality between the Athiest and the Christian is the human construct..thereby despite being in different mindsets, they both acknowledge phenomena as they unfold in the world\n\nNo matter how much blue you speak regarding world phenomena, the Christian will respond to *each* phenomenon with a red response. \n\n\nThis phenomenon, you look at through a blue lens and say: \"The Christian has an excuse for everything, no matter how blue, there's always gonna be some red to speak on from their side.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0gw4r","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Realistic-Cat4116","body":"The only rebuttal you need is: \"Prove it.\" Keep repeating that over and over again. They can't, you win, end of argument.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0h3pm","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Okami_The_Agressor_0","body":"Debating things that are designed to explain all with a basis in non-falsifiable statements is impossible. Religions are all memetic viruses that are meant to superimpose a false sense of the world on their followers, there are other belief systems that do the same that don't involve god but a well designed memetic virus can't be successful with out being impervious to logic or ways to side step rational thinking. That being said many modern political beliefs are structured similarly and operate in a similar fashion to religions. \n\nReligion imparts a base line culture and morality to people that allows for a more respectful and peaceful society. Part of what make that possible is ideological sanitation of a populace. Diversity of ways of life sparks conflict and religion solves that a good portion of the time. You could potentially see how many recent events have been the result of diverse culture and belief systems, so any derivation of heterogenization of society would logically be rejected by such belief systems with understandable cause.\n\nI believe people should be able to do what ever they please but when there is no respect in society people seek control from government to maintain the peace. So the easiest way for a country to stay free is to remain an ethno/ideological-state, or very slow and controlled change. When accounting these things you must satisfy for the lowest common denominator which will inevitable reject things on the basis of tribal instinct.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0k3j1","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"ApeMummy","body":"You’re outwitted because you lack wit not because christianity is special.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0k3sk","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"SeymoreButz38","body":"1st is a citation needed. Second was a semantic argument. Third is a no true scotsman fallacy.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0kns0","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Ecoronel1989","body":"I think the issue here is your brother does a few things to confuse you.\n1. Switching between defending spirituality and Christianity.\n2. Berating you with words so it's hard for you to rebuttal everything that is said (an overwhelming tactic).\n3. Throws out unprovable claims that are opinions as facts.\n\nFor #1, there's a big difference between spirituality and Christianity. Christianity asserts it is the one true religion, all others are wrong and lead to a wrong lifestyle. Spirituality is a general idea about believing in something outside oneself. To Christians, spirituality is paganism (unless it's Christianity itself) and therefore wrong and cannot be accepted or celebrated. So your brother can't simply pick and choose to say spirituality is good for the health and then switch to say Islam is not a good religion as these are contradictory statements.\n\nBut this issue is linked to #2, he berates arguments with a ton of words and makes multiple \"points\" at once. This is a similar tactic to what Donald Trump has used during his time as a politician. Simply overload the other side with a word soup, throwing out multiple arguments that are each wrong, but takes effort to debate each of them. By the time you gather your thoughts about the first wrong statement, he's moved on to the next 3, it's overwhelming.\n\nWhich leads to the last point, that is throwing out unprovable claims in the midst of his word soup. Claims such as there would be no morality without religion are unprovable for modern science since we have had religion in all cultures for over 2000 years, so it's hard to test this \"fact\". Another one that comes to mind is saying there's objective morality in the Bible, which you argued is not because of the Bible. Another counterargument is that the interpretation to the Bibles teachings changes across generations (i.e. slavery allowed for priests) and is therefore not objective, but his claim is unprovable in general as you can only offer up counter examples he can claim we're people not following the \"truth\".\n\nOverall, I think you're doing better than you think at debating this issue. The larger issue is what others have pointed out, that you don't have to win this argument, simply live by what you believe is true like they do.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0m923","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"TimeFliesFaster","body":"It doesn’t have a good rebuttal as to why Jesus is the prophesied messiah of a religion that believes in a single unitary god. Especially when Jesus didn’t have the right ancestors and failed to meet the applicable prophesies (ie dead all coming back to life, temple being restored for all time, diaspora returning, war coming to permanent end, and entire world embracing scripture in messiah’s lifetime)","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0sjyl","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"David_Warden","body":"You are trying to prove a negative which is a waste of time.\n\nThey are the ones making the improbable claims so the burden of proof lies with them. \n\nIf they continue to pester you, ask them to prove it.\n\nI think you will find that it boils down to belief in the highly improbable that is not adequately supported by either evidence or reasoning.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw1cnr9","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"SaltiestRaccoon","body":"Sure. They have rebuttals. They're just not as good as you think they are. And they tend to be the same rebuttals over and over.\n\nI mean just to refute the ones you were hit with... In the first example, he paints the 'pagan' world monolithically while citing the worst examples from many different cultures, while kind of also ignoring that many of those things also apply to Christian nations. Pretty sure the weak and poor weren't running Medieval England, for instance. Likewise slaves were absolutely still a thing among Christians... the slaves just couldn't also be Christian. There were Christian Germanic warriors pillaging right along with the rest of them. Finally virtually any civilization that has kept slaves does in fact have laws about how they can be treated. It can certainly even be argued that serfdom is still just slavery but called something else to make it acceptable, as people can still be bought and sold, they just count as part of the land instead and likewise must work for their lord or face abuse or death. Sounds a lot like slavery to me.\n\nAltruism is in fact a part of human nature. It evolved because we are a social species and we are inclined to act for the good of our group, as our group is beneficial to our survival. There's a [great example](https://www.upi.com/Archives/1987/11/04/Cavemen-took-care-of-physically-disabled/5137563000400/) of a cave man skeleton with some pretty crippling deformities, who could not have hunted for himself that lived to old age. That means his tribe or his family unit was caring for him despite the fact he was a burden. And this is humanity in the stone age, at our least civilized. The Gauls, as well routinely collected a portion of taxes to help pay for their disabled citizens (though in Rome, it was preached if not always practiced that disabled children should be put to death.)\n\nIn a lot of instances he just seems ignorant on history and expects you to go along with it. A lot of it is very gish-gallupy too. He says so many wrong things that there's no way to correct them all without getting so bogged down with corrections that you can never make a point of your own, or even refute all of his errors. Don't allow that. Insist on arguing one point at a time.\n\nReally I think it's gaps in your knowledge more than Christianity being particularly difficult to criticize. I find it quite easy.","date":"2023-08-14","id":"jw3kj7g","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}]],"string":"[\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"DeadCupcakes23\",\n \"body\": \"Why does it matter if Christianity has a rebuttal for something? You can criticise the bible and Christianity based on what it says and the actions done in its name (context depending).\\n\\nPeople have moral values without Christianity and most things people appreciate nowadays are not inherent to Christianity, for example the bible allows slavery.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzggd4\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">Why does it matter if Christianity has a rebuttal for something? You can criticise the bible and Christianity based on what it says and the actions done in its name (context depending).\\n\\nBecause losing a debate due to their rebuttals makes me look stupid. Also, if you follow the links to their arguments, even the atrocities done in its name don't count because those fall under \\\"false prophets\\\". \\n\\nIt's like the Bible was written with this possibility in mind to entrap us.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzh2ui\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzggd4\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"tipoima\",\n \"body\": \"Christianity *was* fabricated, but not by geniuses. \\nYou're fighting against over two thousand years worth of apologetics, where all the weakest arguments have been pruned away. \\nHowever, as expected of something that isn't actually true, those arguments are often plainly wrong, be it due to logical fallacies, appeals to unknown, obtuse philosophy you probably don't know you don't subscribe to, no-true-scotsmanning, e.t.c.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzh8ep\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">However, as expected of something that isn't actually true, those arguments are often plainly wrong, be it due to logical fallacies, appeals to unknown, obtuse philosophy you probably don't know you don't subscribe to, no-true-scotsmanning, e.t.c.\\n\\nThis is exactly what they do. The problem is that \\\"I don't know\\\" is not an acceptable answer to them ([see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvhr81y/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)), whereas they already have something up their sleeve to entrap me. \\n\\nAs you mentioned, with 2000 years of experience creating answers, I even if I am able to point out something wrong or intellectually dishonest, they'll still have an answer for that, forcing me to spend yet more time and effort to come up with an answer. And I am not intelligent enough to create an answer for everything they throw at me, so I'm trapped.\\n\\nIt's an uphill battle, and one that can easily be lost. Until we can come up with a rebuttal they can't defeat, there will always be a risk that secular society and LGBT rights might be defeated.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzhurp\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzh8ep\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Watchyobackistan\",\n \"body\": \"Not really, most of their \\\"rebuttals\\\" are stuff like \\\"god doesn't give us all the answers\\\" and \\\"Don't worry jesus loves you\\\" Non-answers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzhdab\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"MercurianAspirations\",\n \"body\": \"But why should you give a shit? If you have conviction in your own beliefs, it shouldn't matter whether or not you can convince others using your super debater skillz or not. After all, if somebody were sufficiently dumb or insane, it would be impossible to convince them of the truth, no matter how clear and apparent the truth were; therefore, whether or not a thing is widely believed and people are readily convinced of its truth is not a guide to truth. When there was only one person on the earth who believed in heliocentrism they were still right, and the geocentrists were still wrong. The geocentrists had answers for every single objection, and they won every single debate, yet, they were still wrong. \\n\\nMoreover, it isn't that Christianity is super well designed or anything. It's just that people who have strongly held convictions are not available to be convinced by facts and logic. That's just how people are: they do not actually change their minds that much.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzhezx\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">But why should you give a shit?\\n\\nBecause I don't want my stances to look stupid. I was once likened to an anti-vaxxer for not being able to provide evidence to back my lack of faith.\\n\\n> If you have conviction in your own beliefs, it shouldn't matter whether or not you can convince others using your super debater skillz or not. \\n\\nConviction in your own beliefs doesn't make one right. Besides, their side also has a firm conviction in their beliefs.\\n\\n>When there was only one person on the earth who believed in heliocentrism they were still right, and the geocentrists were still wrong. The geocentrists had answers for every single objection, and they won every single debate, yet, they were still wrong.\\n\\nScience doesn't care about number of believers, what matters is the evidence. And in the case of heliocentrism, it was proven right by overwhelming evidence. I wish I had overwhelming evidence to back my lack of faith.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzih4p\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzhezx\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Mr-Bitter\",\n \"body\": \"Send your brother my way. I know of a way to convince him that it was Satan that wrote the Bible and can kill every single one of his arguments. I would thoroughly enjoy a civilized religious debate.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzhg91\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"ApocalypseYay\",\n \"body\": \">CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\\n\\nThis makes zero sense. Rebuttals require logic and facts, and there are only apologia and special pleasing fallacy described herein. \\n\\nLet's start from the basic - where is the evidence for chris, the alleged son of god, and somehow also god, that killed himself to please himself? There is zero historical evidence for this event, before we even get to the easily debunked claims of miracles, or the plainly immoral laws being promulgated as divine commandments.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzhig9\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">where is the evidence for chris,\\n\\n[Most historians accept that Jesus Christ existed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus). The rest of the biblical story isn't accepted by historians.\\n\\n>before we even get to the easily debunked claims of miracles,\\n\\n[I miserably failed at convincing someone that I don't believe in miracles](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvai6qm/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). How would you convince him?\\n\\n> or the plainly immoral laws being promulgated as divine commandments.\\n\\nHow would you convince them that their side is immoral? They have methods up their sleeve to dismiss the malice conducted in the name of Christianity, and justify the anti-LGBT commandments.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzj8qx\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzhig9\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"physioworld\",\n \"body\": \"The most important concept you have to remember is the burden of proof. It’s not up to you to prove the Christianity ISNT TRUE, it’s up to them to prove that it IS TRUE. So if they can’t prove their own religion you need to accept it, you don’t have to worry about disproving their beliefs. \\n\\nA good way to illustrate this, is whether they would accept comparable claims with comparable evidence from other religions. So if they claim that Christianity is true because it says so in the bible, ask whether you should also accept Islam because it says so in the Quran.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzhlry\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">The most important concept you have to remember is the burden of proof. It’s not up to you to prove the Christianity ISNT TRUE, it’s up to them to prove that it IS TRUE. So if they can’t prove their own religion you need to accept it, you don’t have to worry about disproving their beliefs.\\n\\nBut that's the problem - they consider themselves as proving it is true. For example, one guy who told me of miracles he received - [and I lacked a sufficient rebuttal to convince him he's wrong](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvai6qm/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzjexi\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzhlry\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Adam__B\",\n \"body\": \"You don’t have to defend not believing in something that is invisible, utterly silent, immeasurable, illogical, unscientific, undetectable and untestable. The burden is on them to prove a positive, not you a negative.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzi1gp\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"OrangeBlancmange\",\n \"body\": \"Why do you think you are losing? They obviously haven’t convinced you in these arguments and just falling back to faith (which is all they really have) doesn’t ‘win’ anything in any meaningful way. You won’t be able to argue them out of their faith so you can’t ‘win’ either. Ultimately it’s not an argument in the philosophical sense - they aren’t engaging in good faith and simply will not change their minds regardless of what you say.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzi24f\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"> they aren’t engaging in good faith and simply will not change their minds regardless of what you say.\\n\\nBad faith arguments are like doping in sports - they make it easier for them to win. You just need to be a good enough debater to win despite the disadvantage.\\n\\n>Why do you think you are losing? \\n\\nBecause I failed to be that \\\"good enough debater\\\". Any argument I can throw at them is utterly crushed and thrown back at me.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzk4ge\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzi24f\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Cayowin\",\n \"body\": \"How did you lose that debate?\\n\\nSlavery - Christians used the bible to promote the slave trade\\n\\n[https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/01/a-harvard-exhibit-on-slavery-and-christianity/#:\\\\~:text=In%20the%20modern%20era%2C%20Christianity,often%20used%20to%20justify%20slavery](https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/01/a-harvard-exhibit-on-slavery-and-christianity/#:~:text=In%20the%20modern%20era%2C%20Christianity,often%20used%20to%20justify%20slavery).\\n\\nYes there were abolitionists, but if the same text can be used to both justify and condemn an action how is that text a good moral guide?\\n\\nThe bible explicitly allows the owning of humans as property. So either god is not unchanging or he changed his mind. \\n\\n1 Peter 2:18, Saint Peter writes \\\"Slaves, be subject to your masters with all reverence, not only to those who are good and equitable but also to those who are perverse.\\\"\\n\\nYes they have prepared apologetics, it just means you need to do more research. Remember they have no evidence for their claims beyond personal gut feelings and a collection of contradictory, fictional and historic works.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzi8a8\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">Slavery - Christians used the bible to promote the slave trade\\n\\nI've miserably failed when using the \\\"what about slavery argument\\\" - it's in the link following \\\"It all started 3 years ago\\\". Sure, I could point out the pro-slavery parts, but they'll have a reason why that bit is irrelevant or misinterpreted. It's exhausting, finding every argument to throw at them, and having each one of those utterly crushed with more rebuttals thrown your way.\\n\\n>Yes they have prepared apologetics, it just means you need to do more research. Remember they have no evidence for their claims beyond personal gut feelings and a collection of contradictory, fictional and historic works.\\r \\n\\r\\n\\nI tried pointing out to someone that I don't believe in his \\\"miracle\\\". [My attempt failed miserably](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvai6qm/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzkhnt\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzi8a8\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Augnelli\",\n \"body\": \"What is the rebuttal for the Ark? What did the carnivores eat? How did the Kangaroos and Koalas make it up from Australia? What about fresh water fish? How much space was designated for JUST the elephants food?\\n\\nYou don't need to debate every detail, just enough to invalidate the core; the truth on which they base their faith.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzikz2\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">What is the rebuttal for the Ark? What did the carnivores eat? How did the Kangaroos and Koalas make it up from Australia? What about fresh water fish? How much space was designated for JUST the elephants food?\\n\\nThat's the problem - even since the medieval era, most Christians disavowed biblical literalism, because biblical literalism is easier to poke holes into. Instead, they've come up with apologia, and now, with over 2000 years of apologia to defend against, it's become an unwinnable fight.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzlcvy\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzikz2\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"ch0cko\",\n \"body\": \"No. I am a frequent debater on subs like r/DebateReligion and r/DebateAnAtheist and everything you've said here is just... no. The vast majority of arguments for theism or counterarguments against arguments against theism, generally lead to special pleading or other fallacies.\\n\\nHere's one post I recently made: [https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/15pjew5/extraordinary\\\\_claims\\\\_need\\\\_extraordinary\\\\_evidence/](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/15pjew5/extraordinary_claims_need_extraordinary_evidence/) which then links to another one of my posts that goes more in-depth: [https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/15ey939/if\\\\_religious\\\\_beliefs\\\\_were\\\\_subject\\\\_to\\\\_consistent/](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/15ey939/if_religious_beliefs_were_subject_to_consistent/)\\n\\nA lot of what Christianity said is very similar to other religions and old mythologies. It has a generic reward-punishment system/carrot and stick system, that is, a hell and heaven. On top of that, all of the claims in Christianity hold no good evidence with most being anecdotal. Most arguments for Christianity are not Christian-specific and more so just theism in general. Even then, those thesitic arguments lead to either, 1. fallacies, or 2. only making theism \\\"more likely,\\\" but even then, these arguments have counters.\\n\\nThey were not geniuses. A little clever, but they essentially copied other religions and mythologies and is a cookie-cutter religion. Christianity isn't wide spread just because of how \\\"logical\\\" and \\\"sound\\\" it is; indoctrination or generationally passing the idea down is a big part of it. There are also contradictions in the Bible which can be found at this website: [https://www.lyingforjesus.org/Bible-Contradictions/](https://www.lyingforjesus.org/Bible-Contradictions/)\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzirf5\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">They were not geniuses. A little clever, but they essentially copied other beliefs and mythologies and is a cookie-cutter religion. Christianity isn't widespread just because of how \\\"logical\\\" and \\\"sound\\\" it is; indoctrination or generationally passing the idea down is a big part of it. There are also contradictions in the Bible which can be found at this website: https://www.lyingforjesus.org/Bible-Contradictions/\\n\\nI wasn't implying that Christianity was \\\"logical\\\" and \\\"sound\\\". I was implying it was successful because it has so many tricks up its sleeve. It may be full of lies, but for every one I point out, I'll get one or more rebuttals thrown my way.\\n\\nThink of it as being like in the middle of a dense minefield. Whoever laid the minefield might not have a \\\"logical\\\" and \\\"sound\\\" reason for it, but any step you could take will blow up in your face.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzlzr1\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzirf5\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"xper0072\",\n \"body\": \"Just because someone has an answer for everything doesn't mean that the answer is a good answer. Your inability to properly debate the topic does not mean that the other side is correct in any way.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzj07m\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">Your inability to properly debate the topic does not mean that the other side is correct in any way.\\n\\nI wasn't saying the other side was correct. My point is that they are impossible to defeat and are good at ensnaring their critics.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzmc3l\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzj07m\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"razvanght\",\n \"body\": \"In my experience, Christian s believe that God is real because they feel He is real. Then you can ask them whether a person of a different religion can also use the same method (I feel Zeus is real because I feel Him) to conclude that a different god is real. Christians generally agree that that person used the same method (feeling based) to reach an opposite conclusion (Zeus, not God, is real). In my discussions at least, this argument works in that it gives people pause. Of course, it does not change their belief immediately because they have been holding it for some time but I feel like it adds a seed of doubt.\\n\\nDo you know the official Christian response against this line of argument?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzj0m8\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">In my experience, Christian s believe that God is real because they feel He is real. Then you can ask them whether a person of a different religion can also use the same method (I feel Zeus is real because I feel Him) to conclude that a different god is real. \\n\\nHow can I get them to accept the argument that \\\"oh I don't feel God is real, so don't force me to go to church\\\"? Because that argument always failed me in the past. Also, on a tangent, how are you able to \\\"feel\\\" Zeus?\\n\\n>adds a seed of doubt.\\n\\nPlanting seeds of doubt is a great political strategy. For example, in Australia, we have an upcoming referendum on constitutional indigenous recognition - and because the No side is so good at planting seeds of doubt, the Yes side is losing despite having academia and the arts sector on its side. \\n\\nBut back to the point, I tried planting seeds of doubt and failed miserably. The Christians I've had to defend my opinions from don't merely consider themselves as \\\"feelings based\\\", they consider their views as backed by literature (the Bible).\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzmy3i\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzj0m8\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Apprehensive_Box3199\",\n \"body\": \"I dropped my Catholicism at 21 after learning basic logic at University. In year 6 whilst at a Catholic school, we were given a Catholic Catechism - literally the manual for being a good Catholic. Most of the book is written in question-and-answer format. This is indoctrination 101. The first 3 questions are, and I quote:\\n\\n>1. Question: Who made the world? \\n Answer: God made the world. \\n> \\n>2. Q. Who is God? \\n> \\n> A. God is the Creator of heaven and earth and of all things and the Supreme Lord of all. \\n> \\n>3. Q. How do we know there is a God? \\n> \\n> A. We know that there is a God by the things that He made.\\n\\nRight there; in the first 3 question-and-answers is a Circular Argument. The entire basis of the Catechism is premised on a Circular Argument. If nothing else, the entire point of Catholicism is to justify the original statement that God exists.\\n\\nI looked through the whole of the Catechism highlighting anything I still believed. I highlighted a single sentence in the preface about doing unto others etc... NOTHING else.\\n\\nBefore you have a go at me for not knowing what a circular argument until I was 21 - I went to Catholic schools for all of high school and it is in their best interests NOT to teach that and it was the 80s. That's my excuse and I sticking to it.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzjc23\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">Right there; in the first 3 question-and-answers is a Circular Argument. The entire basis of the Catechism is premised on a Circular Argument. If nothing else, the entire point of Catholicism is to justify the original statement that God exists. \\n> \\n>I looked through the whole of the Catechism highlighting anything I still believed. I highlighted a single sentence in the preface about doing unto others etc... NOTHING else. \\n> \\n>Before you have a go at me for not knowing what a circular argument until I was 21 - I went to Catholic schools for all of high school and it is in their best interests NOT to teach that and it was the 80s. That's my excuse and I sticking to it.\\n\\nIn my experience, pointing out the circular argument leads to one of 2 outcomes:\\n\\n1. Getting more apologia that I am unable to defeat\\n2. The \\\"*Do you have a better explanation?*\\\" rebuttal\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvznrln\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzjc23\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Simbabz\",\n \"body\": \"The most important story of the bible is Jesus ressurecction, the gospels contradict each other in the telling of the story, hardly designed by geniuses.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzktxv\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">The most important story of the bible is Jesus ressurecction, the gospels contradict each other in the telling of the story, hardly designed by geniuses.\\n\\nNot sure what Protestants say, but Catholicism claims that slight differences with the same overall story prove it's written by real people observing the same things. We can accuse them of using a dodgy argument, but it still wouldn't undermine their side.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzp1ei\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzktxv\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"vote4bort\",\n \"body\": \"I think you're just trying way too hard in these debates and starting from the wrong point. You're coming at them like religion is something that can be proved through debate when it fundamentally can't. \\nThe religious rebuttal for every point will always be essentially the same. That is they'll say \\\"well I believe this I so\\\". And you can't argue with that because its not a statement that can be argued against.\\n\\nWhat can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzkuyc\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.\\n\\nThe problem is when they think they have evidence and you think they don't. [Here's an example with a Protestant](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jv9g3kt/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3), and we can't agree on anything.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzp2i6\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzkuyc\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"sapphireminds\",\n \"body\": \"You seem to be a poor debater. You are accepting a lot of arguments as true when they aren't. \\n\\nAll children are born atheists. Coincidentally, they just happen to usually believe in the god(s) their parents/community believes it. \\n\\nAnd personally, if there is a god with the power ascribed to it by the bible, I would refuse to worship it. \\n\\nYou also need to educate yourself about the null hypothesis.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzl8ri\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">You seem to be a poor debater. You are accepting a lot of arguments as true when they aren't.\\r\\n\\nI don't accept their arguments as true. I accept them as difficult to defeat.\\n\\n>And personally, if there is a god with the power ascribed to it by the bible, I would refuse to worship it.\\n\\nI wouldn't want to worship such a God either. [I've told a Protestant that if I were to accept that he indeed received a miracle, it would still prove that the Christian god is unjust](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvkkegk/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). But that argument still failed to sway him.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzqf91\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzl8ri\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"-paperbrain-\",\n \"body\": \"What you seem to be saying is just that you are not able, with the mere power of logic, to get Christians to abandon their belief.\\n\\nI hate to break it to you, but this is not a particular quality of Christianity. Anything people are dug in on will face this hill. Not only will you encounter it with every religion, but you won't argue many people out of their political doctrine, flat earth belief, or whether they side with Ross or Rachel on friends. People have rebuttals for everything about many totally conflicting positions. It's part of having strong beliefs and giving it some thought. And religions in particular have had a long time and tons of resources to give it thought.\\n\\nThat doesn't mean there's no room for criticism. Just that your expectation about change is ridiculously optimistic.\\n\\nHowever, regardless of how your personal debates are going, people are leaving Christianity in droves, partly because they don't find those rebuttals to critique to be logically, morally or emotionally satisfying. The fastest growing religious affiliation is \\\"none\\\".\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzlzcb\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">That doesn't mean there's no room for criticism. Just that your expectation about change is ridiculously optimistic.\\n\\nSometimes, I'm challenged to debate when I'm not looking for one (see my first link in the post details). I wasn't expecting to change anyone's views, just successfully defend my decision, and I failed even that.\\n\\n>However, regardless of how your personal debates are going, people are leaving Christianity in droves, partly because they don't find those rebuttals to critique to be logically, morally or emotionally satisfying. The fastest growing religious affiliation is \\\"none\\\".\\n\\n[Christianity is still growing overall](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_population_growth). Even if it's not growing in the Western World, this shrinkage is negated by growth outside the Western World.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzs5r5\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzlzcb\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"wrongfulness\",\n \"body\": \"What a waste of time\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzmu4k\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"The_White_Ram\",\n \"body\": \"This isn't hard. Christianity literally endorses slavery.\\n\\nIf you believe slavery is wrong then that's the only argument you need.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzniyg\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">This isn't hard. Christianity literally endorses slavery. \\n> \\n>If you believe slavery is wrong then that's the only argument you need.\\n\\nI tried using such an argument. [It backfired](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvztyn7\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzniyg\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"ElPwnero\",\n \"body\": \"I like the one Muslims use:\\\\\\nThe word of allah is perfect and if you find inconsistencies, then it’s your human brain that’s incapable of understanding the true meaning.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzoket\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">I like the one Muslims use:\\r \\n> \\n>The word of allah is perfect and if you find inconsistencies, then it’s your human brain that’s incapable of understanding the true meaning.\\n\\nI mean, they're basically insulting your intelligence. But isn't that a great bad faith tactic, dodging accountability by accusing your opponent of being too dumb to understand? I can't imagine myself faring any better debating a Muslim than debating a Christian.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzvglo\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzoket\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"indigoneutrino\",\n \"body\": \"The interesting thing is I've had the opposite experience. Plenty of experiences online and in person where they can barely rebut *anything* to the point that I've had a minister apologise she can't answer my questions satisfactorily. I've seen no-one rebut or even explain why the crucifixion makes sense without legitimising blood sacrifice. It just constantly defaults to \\\"Jesus paid for our sins,\\\" without explaining why the death of an innocent third party was accepted as a valid payment within a supposedly just system.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzppfh\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Pichkuchu\",\n \"body\": \">It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted\\n\\nJust because you got outwitted doesn't mean the other side was right, they were, in fact, blatantly wrong. Christianity is just as guilty of atrocities as any religion. Keep in mind that Christianity is 2000 years old and they enslaved people until 1860 and they had to be \\\"convinced\\\" by war to give it up. They genocided native populations in America and colonized Asia and Africa. There was inquisition. They burned people for heresy, including scientists. They weren't different from other big religions or even pagans. The modern view of the world and humanity encompasses non Christian populations too and one could argue that it's in fact the result of secularism.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzqu5n\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"StrangeAssonance\",\n \"body\": \"I’m curious why you think one has to prove God exists? \\n\\nAlso, when Jesus was on earth the Jews kept asking for a sign from Him. They were blind to what he was doing with His ministry. The world is blind, so when you try to have these arguments that you feel you can’t win, I think you aren’t ever going to win them. I can show you God through my words and deeds but if you are blind to that, you won’t see what’s there to see.\\n\\nJesus repeatedly talks about how blind and deaf people are to God and his word.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzr1ue\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">Also, when Jesus was on earth the Jews kept asking for a sign from Him. They were blind to what he was doing with His ministry. The world is blind, so when you try to have these arguments that you feel you can’t win, I think you aren’t ever going to win them. I can show you God through my words and deeds but if you are blind to that, you won’t see what’s there to see.\\n\\nThis is why I see my inability to believe as a disability comparable to being unable to read.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzzkhs\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzr1ue\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"mo_ff\",\n \"body\": \"You can have faith that your monthly bills will be paid whilst you have no money or means to do so OR you can actually have the money. One will work. The other will leave you with no utilities. Full stop.\\n\\nIn a debate with a Christian you would encounter, \\\"Oh, but have you no faith a brother in Christ would not help you?\\\" And then a large quantity of scriptural examples would be brought forth from whatever version of the bible they are most familiar with.\\n\\nAs others have stated, the deck is stacked. If you can approach the conversation with your family in a civil manor, stop going to church. Believe what makes you happy and mentally healthy so long as it doesn't hurt others.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzr2rx\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"HansPGruber\",\n \"body\": \"You need to read some Thomas Paine my friend. A renegade if the atomic age.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzrn0v\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Morasain\",\n \"body\": \"Couple things.\\n\\nThe first thing is that burden of proof is with the person making a claim - Christians in this case.\\n\\nThe second thing is - you don't need to refute the religion itself, because you can't.\\n\\nUsually, if you bring up things like pastors being molesters, or the crusades, or witch burnings, Christians will commit a No True Scotsman fallacy. \\\"These pastors aren't *real* Christians.\\\" You don't need to refute that argument because it is in itself wrong - but if you want, you can always go the path of saying that everyone in the church is, in the end, appointed by God.\\n\\nThe easiest way to reject Christianity is to instead reject God, though. You don't even need to prove that he's bad or anything - you need to use your own morality to reject the idea that a god like depicted in Christianity can be a god you want to believe in.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzrwx0\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"hdhddf\",\n \"body\": \"you don't need to convince them, they're arguing from a position of ignorance and indoctrination, you can't argue with that because their arguments aren't built on logic or sound reasoning.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzs63u\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Huffers1010\",\n \"body\": \"Let's do it by example. What did they have a rebuttal for that you couldn't respond to?\\n\\nMy suspicion is that they really didn't.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzt6nt\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"misersoze\",\n \"body\": \"Just say: “hey I also met a Muslim, a Mormon, a Jew and a Hindu. They all make the exact same arguments as you do about why their religion is the correct one and they all say they have the one true religion. So why should I join yours over their’s”.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvztpz1\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Potential_Cod_8473\",\n \"body\": \"They might win a debate but the world still is a shitty place full of diseases, suffering, birth defeacts. \\n\\nIt only prove how dishonest someone is to defend a claim it was created my omnipotent and omniscient being. \\n\\nChristianity was falsified many times\\nAdam and Eve? Fairytale\\nGreat Flood? Fairytale\\nBabel's tower? Fairytale\\nExocus? Fairytale \\nRessurection? Really improbable\\n\\nThe fact that the scripture has to be interpreted in the face of new evidence like why would omnipotent God need 4 bilions years to create highly imperfect and miserable beings or why universe is 93 bilion light years wide and we are limited by a speed of light is a powerful evidence against revelation.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvztt3e\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"the_internet_clown\",\n \"body\": \"Just because someone says something in response doesn’t make it a good rebuttal\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzugyn\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Relevant_Maybe6747\",\n \"body\": \"Christianity doesn’t have a rebuttal against Judaism - they’ve tried and tried to kill us and never succeeded\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzuj4l\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Is that really a good argument though? By that logic, Islam doesn't have a rebuttal against Christianity either (or vice versa).\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw075ml\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzuj4l\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Scott_The_Protogen\",\n \"body\": \"Why \\\"debate\\\" someone's faith anyways? Unless they're being a jerk about it like in the last part. I always just have that whole live and let live thing (Even if some fanatics might not be that way either). I know you say some of these people come to you with the debates, but I feel like just giving a solid \\\"I don't want to talk about it\\\" or \\\"My views aren't going to change\\\" might work, even if they do continue to badger you regarding it, It doesn't have to be a winning-losing game.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzullx\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">Why \\\"debate\\\" someone's faith anyways? \\n\\nIn the first link, I was challenged to a debate out of the blue when I requested not to go to church anymore. He wanted me to read his spiel and change my views, or give a counter-argument strong enough to defend my views.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw07dt4\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzullx\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Key-Extension1458\",\n \"body\": \"2000 years ago there was a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem that took animal sacrifice from the people. This was fulfilling the Mosaic Covenant, and sustained Israel called \\\"Judea\\\". Like Jesus said it would happen, the temple was thrown down to the last stone and the sacrificial rite was \\\"nailed to the cross\\\" in the words of Paul the Apostle. This leaves us without redemption under the law, and everyone is guilty of sin everywhere. \\n\\nHence the figure of Christ intervenes, and made the ultimate sacrifice, putting death and guilt and hell itself into the fire. Now we have grace and mercy, and redemption by faith. It seems to work, since 2000 years of Christian history represented the general improvement of life everywhere. At the same time, the movement was hijacked by earthly forces resulting in \\\"churchianty\\\" and roman catholicism. All \\\"debates\\\" are just scholastic noise from that time, arguing in circles about nothing relevant. It is what it is, the temple of jerusalem was destroyed 2000 years ago and the levitical rites were nailed to the Cross.\\n\\nNow everything is a free gift, the more we cast off the old man and put on the new. Strong enough faith loses fear of everything and moves mountains, it is divine power given to mankind. God loves the children of this world and Israel in dispersion, which means everyone.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzur3s\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Key-Extension1458\",\n \"body\": \"2000 years ago there was a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem that took animal sacrifice from the people. This was fulfilling the Mosaic Covenant, and sustained Israel called \\\"Judea\\\". Like Jesus said it would happen, the temple was thrown down to the last stone and the sacrificial rite was \\\"nailed to the cross\\\" in the words of Paul the Apostle. This leaves us without redemption under the law, and everyone is guilty of sin everywhere. \\n\\nHence the figure of Christ intervenes, and made the ultimate sacrifice, putting death and guilt and hell itself into the fire. Now we have grace and mercy, and redemption by faith. It seems to work, since 2000 years of Christian history represented the general improvement of life everywhere. At the same time, the movement was hijacked by earthly forces resulting in \\\"churchianty\\\" and roman catholicism. All \\\"debates\\\" are just scholastic noise from that time, arguing in circles about nothing relevant. It is what it is, the temple of jerusalem was destroyed 2000 years ago and the levitical rites were nailed to the Cross.\\n\\nNow everything is a free gift, the more we cast off the old man and put on the new. Strong enough faith loses fear of everything and moves mountains, it is divine power given to mankind. God loves the children of this world and Israel in dispersion, which means everyone.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzurg6\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">2000 years ago the Temple in Jerusalem took animal sacrifice from the people. It was fulfilling the Mosaic Covenant, and sustained Israel called \\\"Judea\\\" at the time. Like Jesus said it would happen, the temple was thrown down to the last stone and the sacrificial rite was \\\"nailed to the cross\\\" in the words of Paul the Apostle. This leaves us without redemption under the law, and everyone is guilty of sin everywhere. \\n> \\n>Hence the figure of Christ intervenes, and made the ultimate sacrifice, putting death and guilt and hell itself into the fire. Now we have grace and mercy, and redemption by faith. It seems to work, since 2000 years of Christian history represented the general improvement of life everywhere. At the same time, the movement was hijacked by earthly forces resulting in \\\"churchianty\\\" and roman catholicism. All \\\"debates\\\" are just scholastic noise from that time, arguing in circles about nothing relevant. It is what it is, the temple of jerusalem was destroyed 2000 years ago and the levitical rites were nailed to the Cross. \\n> \\n>Now everything is a free gift, the more we cast off the old man and put on the new. Strong enough faith loses fear of everything and moves mountains, it is divine power given to mankind. God loves the children of this world and Israel in dispersion, which means everyone.\\n\\nIs this supposed to be a promotion of Protestantism?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw07io1\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzurg6\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"danmilligan\",\n \"body\": \"One thing I'm sensing is that you're thinking of Christianity as a monolith, and while that was once true, it hasn't been for a long, long time. So many types of Christianity exist that there will be Christians on opposite sides of nearly any given issue. The true non-negotiables of the religion are extremely minimal, and highly interpretive. Because of this, you can't really say \\\"Christians are like this\\\" or \\\"Christians do that\\\", because this will apply to SOME Christians, but certainly not all. For a good example, the majority of American Christians are extremely unique from a global perspective, being far more individualistic, and reading the Bible in a slavishly literal fashion, among other things. So if you say \\\"Christians are anti-LGBTQ\\\", there are millions and millions of other Christians ready to counter that.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzusf6\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">One thing I'm sensing is that you're thinking of Christianity as a monolith, and while that was once true, it hasn't been for a long, long time. So many types of Christianity exist that there will be Christians on opposite sides of nearly any given issue. The true non-negotiables of the religion are extremely minimal, and highly interpretive.\\n\\nI'm well aware of the splits within Christianity. What I mention in my post detail is that I have tried and miserably failed to defend my lack of faith from both Catholics and Protestants. I understand that they'd have different ways of thinking regarding lack of faith, but at the end of the day, both defeated me.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw07u6h\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzusf6\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"GreasyPorkGoodness\",\n \"body\": \"You need to dismantle the church hierarchy and not the “existence of god”. \\n\\nIt’s not that you don’t believe in god, you don’t believe in Christianities following of god. Their church is corrupt, opulent, child molesters, hypocritical, child marriage, judgmental, in Christ like etcetera. \\n\\nGod very well might exist, if he does he certainly won’t approve of christianity.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzuv92\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CutiePopIceberg\",\n \"body\": \"Christianity is Middle Eastern mythology. Christians hate when you remind them of this.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzv7py\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"JustSomeDude0605\",\n \"body\": \"\\\"I don't believe in that bullshit\\\"\\n\\nDebate over.\\n\\nContrary to your brother's or pastor's wishes, you don't owe them any sort of debate or explanation. Live your life as you want to, not based on what they think you should do. If that means, no religion then stop going to church. \\n\\nFuck em.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzvaah\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CriticalThinkingAT\",\n \"body\": \"The thing is, there are a mountain of atheist rebuttals as well. Like literally there are so many atheist channels out there to rebutting every Christian argument that it's just a matter of searching and looking for them. Lol. You'll be fine.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzvipb\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">The thing is, there are a mountain of atheist rebuttals as well. Like literally there are so many atheist channels out there to rebutting every Christian argument that it's just a matter of searching and looking for them. Lol. You'll be fine.\\n\\nCounterpoint: Only a few of these are useful. Most channels appear to be useful only against Protestant pastors who rely on charisma. Catholicism is much harder to debate against as they have 2000 years of church tradition, intellectuals and apologia on their side.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw09z3v\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzvipb\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"OpenByTheCure\",\n \"body\": \"I don't want to be harsh, but I just think you're not very good at debating\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzvw3c\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"I am bad at debating (and most other things). Maybe that's why I always get challenged to debates, because I will lose.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0b11j\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzvw3c\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Dr_Keyser_Soze\",\n \"body\": \"You need to listen to David C. Smalley. Take in a few podcasts and you won’t be disappointed.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzvzk2\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Wintermute815\",\n \"body\": \"It’s really not. It depends on circular logic and faith, both of which are critical flaws.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzx8zv\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"j3rdog\",\n \"body\": \"Stop trying to debate facts by point counter point. Learn street epistemology. There’s good YouTube channels and subreddits on it.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzxa1z\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Unable-Food7531\",\n \"body\": \"You're:\\n\\n1. Bad at debating in general\\n\\n2. An unskilled rhetorician \\n\\n3. Uneducated on the topic you're debating.\\n\\nThose Three things together mean than any attempt to draw generally-appliable conclusions from your debating losses is doomed to produce bs.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzxmej\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"How can I get all 3 skills when I'm up against people who have so much more knowledge than me? I hate it when I give others a reason to criticise me.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw05k0t\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzxmej\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"DangForgotUserName\",\n \"body\": \"Christians don't have arguments, just elaborate evasions of criticism.\\n\\nIn order to be religious, or believe in a supernatural god, to some extent, one has to deny certain aspects of science, and also have to deny the foundations of reason and logic. \\n\\n\\nThere are major undemonstrated claims that come with theism:\\n\\n-a spiritual, divine, or otherwise supernatural realm exists \\n\\n-there are nonphysical spiritual forces and entities \\n -some kind of afterlife exists\\n\\n-at least humans have souls, which are the spiritual essence \\\"attached\\\" to a physical body\\n\\nEven if all these were demonstrated, we would still have no way of determining which deities were real. These claims are also far from being demonstrated, likely, or even possible. \\n\\nEven then, we have no way to link such deities to any religion that anyone worships.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzxv11\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Electrical-Rabbit157\",\n \"body\": \"It’s not well designed. It’s the worst designed religion in the world actually. The success of Christianity is based around keeping people from learning about other faiths. The moment that happens the VAST majority of them leave christianity for something else. Myself included. \\n\\nYou have to go at the fundamental hypocrisy of it. The average Christian rants and raves about the Ten Commandments and yet every single one of them break the first 2 commandments daily and most break 3 commandments every Sunday. The average priest breaks the first 4. Then there’s the fact that the Bible is a corrupt text and Christianity as a whole was founded by Paul, a man who is not a prophet, not a disciple, not an apostle, just a random guy who comes out of nowhere and starts preaching that Jesus is God.\\n\\nThey worship a trinity which is paganism. There is no excuse for it. It’s the same exact belief system as Hindus which are literally the original pagans that Abraham fought against. This trinity also includes a man. That man is considered a prophet but still. This breaks the first commandment. \\n\\nThey idolize said man and the cross he died on. They wear necklaces with it. They put big gold crosses at the front of their churches and big wooden ones on the outside of them. This breaks the second commandment \\n\\nThey go to church on Sunday and the vast majority of them believe this is the sabbath. Which directly breaks the fourth commandment.\\n\\nThe priesthood commits extortion and sometimes even rape in either the name of God or what they lead people to believe is a house of God. This breaks the third commandment \\n\\nThen you get to the Bible and it’s non existent integrity. There are about 5 major sects of Christianity. Each one has about 40 versions of the Bible. And the average Christian may think this is normal, it’s not. Jews have 1 version of the Torah. Muslims have 1 version of the Quran. Hell even the Hindus only have 1 version of most of their texts. The new testemant is more written by Paul, who is again, not a prophet, than any actual apostle. All of Paul’s letters are included in the vast majority of bibles yet the book of Enoch, book of Jesus Christ, and lost gospel to Peter are considered “uncanon” by the church and have been removed for centuries. That is not a holy text. It may have been a couple thousand years ago but out of 200+ in circulation today, I’d seriously doubt any can be considered uncorrupted.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzyqtq\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"malorane\",\n \"body\": \"Isn't this other person either straight up lying or totally misinformed about the Christianity/Catholicism? Like I could be misremembering but I'm pretty sure there are passages that literally give you guidelines about how to treat your slaves and this dude said both have always been against slavery?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzz7x7\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CantKeepMeOutYo\",\n \"body\": \"You will never win against someone with faith. They will always always always have some other bullshit excusw up their sleeves. That's what makes religion so fucking dangerous: it uses logic when it works and then completely disregards it when logic doesn't work. Don't bother debating christians, they've accepted a parasite into their body that will defend its ability to feed off the host, even if it means killing the host, or YOU.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzzg1h\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"wibbly-water\",\n \"body\": \">If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\r \\n\\r \\nIf you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\\n\\nIgnoring the second proposition for a second I want to propose 2 more reasonable secular arguments;\\n\\n1. This is true of all religions because their axioms and methods for diving truth are different. They believe, want to believe, will tie all phenomena in with their argument, will ignore Occam's Razor to do so. \\n2. If Christianity is better than (some) other religions at doing this it may be because it is a highly evolved system of memes. A meme is the idea equivalent to a gene. Religions are memetic in nature - they are ideologies, ideas about how the world works. Memes compete for space and survival much like genes do. And every time one of its memes is threatened it is forced to either drop that meme and adapt or bolster it to do the same. Look at the iterations of historical Christianity. Where are the puritans today? Even Protestantism evolved out of Catholicism - many will claim that they are barely the same religion.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzzk96\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"DangForgotUserName\",\n \"body\": \"The salvation of man is dependent on the suffering of Jesus Christ. His 'blood sacrifice magic' supposedly forgives original sin - doctrine that we know though biology is utterly wrong. (A couple of garden nudists were guilty of rebellious fruit munching, so everyone deserves death or eternal torment?) This makes the theological story around Jesus one where he is scapegoat of a nonexistent forebear. This should undermine the value of Jesus as well as the foundational basis for belief in God.\\n\\n \\n\\nFurther, the idea that the only way to forgive is through ritualized punishment? That is petty and immoral. No forgiveness without bloodshed or death. Horrible, ignorant and outdated ideas.\\n\\n\\nThe idea of a messiah, one who will deliver us from the tribulations of the present, is an ancient idea that distracts us from the hard work that must be done to build a better world.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzzkww\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Emotional_platypuss\",\n \"body\": \"The problem here is both sides trying to impose beliefs on others. What you believe or don't believe is your problem. You don't need to explain why you don't follow a religion, specially to religious people. Is like them telling you why their religion is so good. Break out of that circle and move on\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0052z\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"notjuan_f_m\",\n \"body\": \"This Is the problem with everything lately. \\\"I am right, you are wrong, and I will continue to tell you until you accept that i am right\\\"\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw00l9j\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jw0052z\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"JackedLilJill\",\n \"body\": \"If anything, just from your text and title, the fact that Christians explain themselves fully in the face of debate, should be the reason to change your view.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw00vuq\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"FerdinandTheGiant\",\n \"body\": \"For your first debate with your brother, he was just straight up wrong on so much. Christianity is not and does not serve as the basis for morality in the western world or the world as a whole. \\n\\nMost of the non-western world like in Asia is not heavily Christian and wasn’t for most of their history. They of course are doing just fine. Christian morals have not been consistent nor are they the basis for a basic society. \\n\\nAdditionally, you don’t need Christianity to explain altruism as it already has a natural explanation. It’s called kin selection and essentially means that it is beneficial to help out family since they carry your genes. This means more of your genes will get passed on. This is likely how it evolved in humans and then developed into what we consider today. Animals do this. Altruism isn’t human alone. \\n\\nThen you have slavery which the Bible openly says is fine. Leviticus 25:44-46\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw013nj\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"-Strawdog-\",\n \"body\": \"Taking a quick look at one or two of these examples, you have a very noticeable habit of accepting a lot of the other person's premises and arguments without pushing back on them at all. As an example, your brother mentions multiple times that altruistic behavior is the direct result of the Christian faith, an argument that is absolutely ridiculous for a bunch of reasons, not the least of which that our closest genetic relatives (chimpanzees and bonobos) exhibit all kinds of altruistic behaviors as part of their highly social lifestyles (and they also don't sacrifice eachother, something he seems weirdly hung up on).\\n\\nTo be honest, it doesn't look like the people you're debating have good arguments or are good at expressing them, it seems that you are just very new to debate, particularly on this topic. If debating religious folks is something you want to do (you are incredibly unlikely to change their minds even with very good arguments), you can find plenty of solid resources online that break down and refute just about any apologetics you are likely to encounter.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw01pm9\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"lamabaronvonawesome\",\n \"body\": \"I have found the opposite to be true. I would recommend reading some books on logic and debate. Having an answer doesn't make it a good answer. I had a debate teacher that used to day \\\"the definition of a reason is anything I put forth as a reason.\\\" This essentially means you SAY anything, that doesn't mean it will hold up under scrutiny. You mentioned miracles that a person had given you examples of in their own life. Debate in essence is about definitions, how we define things. Get them to give you the definition of a miracle. I personally would define that as any event that is ONLY explainable by divine intervention. See if their miracles hold up to that.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw02avd\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"kountze\",\n \"body\": \"The Church did have some good effects on political and cultural development in Europe - for example the separation of powers came from the Church being a strong counter force to the government for so long, church limited the government in ways that led to values of separation of powers and limited government, unlike China which was much more state dominated and still is today. Protestantism represented not only a change in religion but also a change in how humans think logically - so yeah a lot of good things can be tied to how Protestantism changed how people think. \\n\\nThat being said, the above certainly is a far cry from saying that Protestantism values will work in every situation or that it can address all of today’s modern problems. Protectionism ideally is something that should be open to interpretation, which modern Christianity has moved away from that. \\n\\nIn terms of science the Church does not have credible arguments - that’s the main problem. If you think they do, you really haven’t encountered anyone who actually knows the science and microbiology. \\n\\nAlso, do not confuse correlation and causation. Certain positive developments in society may correlate, but that correlation does not prove causation. \\n\\n\\nThe issue with\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw035en\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Jaderholt439\",\n \"body\": \"If I’m debating Christianity, I like to go straight to the main topic- the Resurrection.\\n\\nMost people I know and love are Christians; I don’t have a problem w/ their religion. I love these people. But what I don’t like are apologists. Every single one that I’ve ever seen is dishonest. Especially when it comes to the Resurrection.\\n\\nIt’s not hard to believe that a guy named Yeshua, who had a religious following, was crucified. I can even believe he was put in his own tomb, although most were put in a mass grave, it’s wasn’t unheard of. The stone being put to block the tomb and guards sound like they were plot holes being fixed in Matthew, but for arguments sake, I’ll agree to that too.\\n\\nJesus wasn’t in the tomb when they went to him 3 days later. What is the most likely explanation? Is it, “he must’ve overcome death and ascended, bc he’s God”? I think a Guy Ritchie style heist is way more plausible. ‘They forgot which cave’ is more plausible. Literally anything is more plausible. If they are being honest, they have to say, “I believe it on faith”. Yet, apologists will not say this, therefore they are dishonest, therefore they don’t have an answer for everything.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw03fxs\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Entropy_Drop\",\n \"body\": \"LOL on the first link. Christianity didn't opposed slavery, and doesn't have a monopoly on being a good person. It actually was the ideological fundation of american slavery.\\n\\nHypocrates wasn't christian, gandi neither, and personal freedom, democracy and equality of genders aren't christian values.\\n\\nThe golden rule (\\\"don't do to other what you dont want done to yourself\\\") and the silver rule (\\\"do to others what you want to recieve from them\\\" (bdsm, for example)) are not creation of christianity. \\n\\nSome christian are propagandiced all their life into the worldview of \\\"all good comes from christ\\\", which is clearly a big lie. Is kinda justified for them to sell that lie, tho.\\n\\nAlso, that motto has a counter-part: \\\"No bad comes from christ\\\" which is my only explanation to how incredible bigoted people justify their behavior without ever thinking \\\"are we the badies?\\\". Anita \\\"pie-face\\\" Bryant comes to mind, who, in her own words \\\"loved homosexuals\\\".\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw04f2l\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Jade_Skie\",\n \"body\": \"TJ Kirk (aka The Amazing Atheist) on YouTube once mentioned \\\"unfalsifiable hypothesis.\\\" In other words, Christians spout the argument that miracles, what is said in the Bible, Satan, and God all exist and are as the answer to everything because immediate evidence to the contrary can normally not be produced by their opponent, thus no argument against them can be made. So in their minds, they are right. That is, of course, not how the world/universe actually works.\\n\\nTo quote Carl Sagan: \\\"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.\\\"\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw04j73\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"JuliusErrrrrring\",\n \"body\": \"Remember the following truths: most people who claim they are Christians are good people; most people who are good people and claim they are Christian are good because of their ignorance of the Bible, not because of the Bible. The Bible is an awful immoral book and the religion is completely silly. It is pro slavery, pro genocide, pro forced abortion and pro incest. If you are debating anyone who isn't in favor of those things, they may be actually non believers too, they are just too ignorant of their religion to know any better.\\n\\n​\\n\\nIt is completely silly and does not hold up to debate. Just some quick obvious random thoughts off the top of my head: They suck at math - claim to have one god yet believe in a holy trinity as well as an evil god. Many Christians claim to be against abortion, yet the Bible actually gives an abortion recipe, god murdered pregnant women in his Noah's Arc genocide, and Jesus forced abortions on Jezebel. Many Christians are anti-trans and anti gay - yet Eve transitioned from a male rib and now they worship a dress wearing dude with two fathers who identifies as bread and wine. Cain and Abel were the original motherfuckers. The whole bible was written by people who never met Jesus and there is zero historical proof that there even was a man named Jesus pretending to be god. It's just a gigantic hoax that's been accepted due to peer pressure because life is easier and you can make more money and get laid easier if you simply play along with this silly marketing scheme.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw05bz4\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Loose-Technology7787\",\n \"body\": \"Christianity is designed that way. Christians are programmed in a way via church and such where they hold their belief to a much higher standard than any facts or logic despite a lack of evidence. On of christianity's main taglines is to just have faith in god even though hes done nothing to show you hes there.\\n\\nDebating a religious person on religion is an unwinnable debate. You cant argue against someones opinion when the only points they will accept are those that align with said opinion. For example, many christians say good and evil only exist because god decides whats good and bad. I might say that life is meaningless, therefore our thoughts and feelings are all that exist making them all that matters. Meaning we get to choose whats moral; however the christian would then just say life isnt meaningless because god gives meaning to life. This will go on for any length of time.\\n\\nThe only reason atheists win those official televised debates is because theres a mediator keeping nonsense out of it. They keep the religious side from using unreasonable and illogical arguments, which leads to them losing.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw05l8j\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"BuzzyShizzle\",\n \"body\": \"That's funny because, I have yet to hear them lose an argument/debate on the atheist experience yet. \\n\\nIf you haven't heard of it, there is a call-in radio show called \\\"the atheist experience\\\" and the entire show is welcoming any religious to call in and challenge them. If you want your view changed, that show will do a much better job than anything else.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw06l99\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Sad_Confidence8941\",\n \"body\": \"I agree, Christianity is very well designed. The smartest people alive for many centuries spent their lives defending Christianity (Thomas Aquinas, Saint Augustine, etc). They have been philosophically attacked for years and years and are still here\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw06orq\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"nomad5926\",\n \"body\": \"Homie out here saying the altruism isn't a natural thing without Christianity..... 🤣 Bro be saying Meerkats are all Christians? Or Naked Mole Rats?\\n\\nI will never understand why people have to force religion upon others. But essentially an easy way out is to ask them to provide solid proof that God existed. Logically you cannot not prove a belief. (Like others have said before me). Typically the ones making the claim \\\"god exists\\\" have the burden of proof. \\n\\nAlso in my experience you're not going to convince anyone to stop believing. It's the same reason kids believe in Santa it gives them something. For most people, religion is a source of comfort. It's why, from what I see, older folks are more religious. (Cause you know.... Closer to death... Heaven seems nicer).\\n\\nIf you just want them to stop harassing you, you can just say that your relationship with God is personal and need not be on disability for others. (You don't have to say the bit that the relationship is non-existent).\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0753r\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Moraulf232\",\n \"body\": \"Christianity has an answer for any criticism but the answers are silly and unconvincing just like the religion.\\n\\nJust ask yourself “has this answer explained why I should believe these assertions with no evidence or has it just made more assertions with no evidence?” and “could this answer be used to justify the existence of a Flying Spaghetti Monster or literally any other deity?” or “is there any evidence that the person I am talking to can imagine that would cause them to change their mind?” etc.\\n\\nThe philosophical arguments (apologetics) religions use are just fancy noise. There’s nothing there.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw07atx\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"lpuckeri\",\n \"body\": \"Theres many reasons why christianity is absolutely absurd, at a childlike and comical level imo. I have equal belief in it than i do Santa. The apologetics for christianity are just excuses for something as rediculous as believing in flying to heaven on a winged horse.\\n\\nLets remember, we are arguing about. A cosmic jewish god zombie who is his own father and was born a virgin birth to a women impregnated by a holy ghost. \\n\\nThere is zero evidence for this that is not heresay. Not a single item or record or peice of evidence contemporary to jesus exists. To confirm this laughably absurd story all we have is stories that contradict each other, written in the wrong language, written decades to centuries after the fact, much of which we know was straight up forged and copied from surrounding greek myths and people.\\n\\nGetting lost in abologetics is exacty meant to make you forget you are proving an absurd thing eith zero evidence, and get caught up in the weeds.\\n\\n\\nReasons. \\n\\n1. Supernatural events in the bible are empirically impossible to prove. Christians may use awful arguments like minimal facts etc, but these are all comically bad and fallacious. Abuductive reasoning is all we have access to, and that can never demonstrate supernatural events... This alone is enough, as it is logicalltly impossible to demonstrate christianity through our resources.\\n\\n2. The bible is self contradictory, the trinity and more is exceedingly illogical. By this i mean it literslly violates the laws of logic... and is isnanely stupid.\\n\\n3. The bible is obvious myth taken from surrounding cultures.\\n\\n4. There are no decent biblical scholars who think Moses wrote the old testament. Moses clearly never existed and exodus never happened. This is extremely confirmed... there is extreme evidence the base of both judeaism and christianity is 100% made up.\\n\\n5. People that claim supernatural events or whatever... 1. Does not prove god, or their god... it proves they had something special happen and nothing more. 2. These are nothing more than claims. 3. People claim this shit for every religion, thousands... if you apply this standard as evidence for one... you must for thousands of gods. 4. Once you understand psychology you realize how the brain works snd how easy it is for people to misnterpret things visually and auditory.\\n\\n6. Religions are not one off inventions. They are all representations and copyings of popular myths at the time. This can be seen in thousands of religions. Just as it is in christianity... the devil and hell doesnt become a thing until Greek influence, things like rising and dying saviours were popular greek myths too at the time of the bible etc. In fact the bible was wirtten in greek, not aramaic, the language Jesis and his follower would have spoken. You see babylonian myths copied into the parts of the bible, when they were written there...you see the bibles hell and devil and apocalyptic influences copying greek myth during the hellenistic period. Religions are copies of surrounding myth and cultures.\\n\\n7. Apologists often use arguments to prove god that are diestic. Things like the ontological srgument, teleological argument... aside from these being bad arguments, they only prove A God... not christianity. Even if the Kalam is true... the odds of christianity bring true is still zero... it gets you no closer.\\n\\n8. The bible wasnt written by geniuses. It was written by copying and adapting popular myths, cultures, and laws at the time. From copying ancient semetic religions and near eastern traditions 4000 tears ago, to adapting greek myths 2000 years ago. It also was written of centuries, adapted, edited, revised, forged, faked, reinterpreted thousands of times by hundeds of people. This idea some geniuses wrote this thing like you see it now is childishly ignorant of scholarship and history.\\n\\n9. There are actually about 94 gospels. 90 of which christians will admit are 100% bullshit mythological stories... yet they somehow think these are the special true 4, because the church leaders centuries ago simply decided so. \\n\\n10. These excuses and arguments for christianity are no better and no different than the ones Jews will use, or muslims, or Sikhs. You just live in a place around christians most likely. \\n\\nIts interesting because i have never heard a christian argument to me than is not childishly rediculous imo.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw07u2w\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Inevitable_Spare_777\",\n \"body\": \"You can’t have a factual, logical debate with a person who’s worldview doesn’t subscribe to facts and logic\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw08ays\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"drzowie\",\n \"body\": \"There is no direct way to argue a Christian out of Christianity, because it is a faith-based system of beliefs. But you *can* demand respect for your own beliefs.\\n\\nA couple of years ago, I wrote about just how incompatible Christian beliefs are with the scientific worldview. That line of argument is (like any other argument) unlikely to convince a fervent believer -- but may help you to understand that there are real weaknesses in the edifice of Christian thought. \\n\\nBelow is [copypasta from an early CMV post I made](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/7zy9wp/cmv_you_can_accept_todays_scientific_theory/durqqmi/):\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw08i8h\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"DouglerK\",\n \"body\": \"I mean if they didn't the religion would probably be dead by now.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw08xbe\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"joshp23\",\n \"body\": \"> If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniouses\\n\\nAll they have at their disposal are unfalsifiable claims. You can't prove that the invisible dragon in my garage doesn't exist either. The rest is a con act to attribute personal experience to the dragon. \\n\\nBut unfalsifiability and con tactics aside, wouldn't a genius be able to construct an effective argument *and* compile an internally consistent document at the same time? You have to do mental gymnastics to apologize for the ignorance and inconsistencies in the Bible.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw09c2d\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Crookwell\",\n \"body\": \"OR you just aren't a very good critic?\\nBecause I can rebuke shitty religious claims all day\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw09wvx\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"redstar15551\",\n \"body\": \"Maybe you should give up then? You're not gonna \\\"Gotcha\\\" Christianity so leave them alone. Your lack of faith and overabundance of cynicism does not bug anyone the slightest. Don't trap yourself because you view this as an unwinnable battle against some dogmatic close minded religion, when that in and of itself is close minded. There's a modern pushback against religion, Christianity specifically, that has been pushed hard; but Christianity has and will continue to endue.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0a4wk\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Various_Succotash_79\",\n \"body\": \"When my brothers were young, they played a game that was very much like Calvinball (if you've never read the comic Calvin and Hobbes, this is a game they made up on the fly). So it was all stuff like \\\"now the floor is lava so you burn up!\\\" \\\"Oh yeah? I throw 60 million tons of dry uce on it and that cools it off\\\", \\\"well that was too much and now you're frozen solid!\\\" Etc. \\n\\nThat's pretty much what religion is. Your mistake is in trying to make any sense of it.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0b260\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">When my brothers were young, they played a game that was very much like Calvinball (if you've never read the comic Calvin and Hobbes, this is a game they make up on the fly, so it never has the same rules). So it was all stuff like \\\"now the floor is lava so you burn up!\\\" \\\"Oh yeah? I throw 60 million tons of dry ice on it and that cools it off\\\", \\\"well that was too much and now you're frozen solid!\\\" Etc. \\n\\n!delta\\n\\nAs you show, you can't get anywhere trying to defend yourself from a religion which is designed to dodge accountability and make opponents lose. It's not designed for a debate, it's designed to be inescapable.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw25sdi\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jw0b260\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Collective82\",\n \"body\": \"If you are having such a hard time debating it, shouldn’t you consider it’s right and maybe you should look at converting?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0bbov\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"I have. The problem is no matter how hard I try, I have zero spirituality and a complete inability to be sincerely connected with any religion. I see this as a disability comparable to being unable to because it's such a drag on my life.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw263jo\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jw0bbov\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Fluffy_Candle6800\",\n \"body\": \"I'll give you a quote from a book I read - \\\"God is omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent. However, bad things still happen. This means God cannot stop the bad things - he is not omnipotent, God does not know the things are happening - he is not omniscient, or he allows the bad things to happen - he is not benevolent.\\\"\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0bhc0\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"I've accepted the last one. How can I possibly believe in a benevolent god, when he gives miracles to some and neglects genuine victims, or when the religion he designed has endless excuses and loopholes to dodge all accountability?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw26dbi\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jw0bhc0\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"ItsAll42\",\n \"body\": \"I do feel as though you too quickly concede many points that are not accurate or honest, but stated with such confidence they are difficult to rebutt just as confidently without sufficient background knowledge. In fact, some of these claims are just straight up racist, such as claiming altruism is not only a strictly christian virtue, but that many values such as caring for the sick and needy or having basic human decency are strictly Western practices and values.\\n\\n This is wildly inaccurate to claim, knowledge of history can easily debunk such ludicrous statments, especially considering much of the Western ideology is more focused on individualism where confucianism is more focused on the community as a whole. Buddhism stresses that all beings have inherent worth and challenges the strictly heiarchichal values of confucianism, yet still plenty of emphasis is placed on how to better the community as a whole and being kind for the sake of altruism and kindness without any expectation of personal rewards. You do not have to be a historian or theologian to debunk so much of what this person is claiming, especially in regard to other Abrahamic religions which are incredibly similar to the teachings of Christianity, you know, because they share a common historical and biblical root. While modern interpretations of Abrahamic faiths run the gamut, they are more alike than many of their subscribers would like to admit. \\n\\nIn fact, I'd argue that Christianity and most of its branches contain more self-serving motives than many religious beliefs, promising prosperity and wealth in heaven as a reward for good behavior. As an agnostic person I do not need a reward for my good behavior. \\n\\nAs you tried to point out, when this person claims pagans did not care for the sick or other absurd claims, the burden of proof is on them to substantiate such a ridiculous assumption. \\n\\nThis person comes across as making many intellectually dishonest arguments, and you more or less concede or gloss many of these points without pushback.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0cszb\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">This person comes across as making many intellectually dishonest arguments, and you more or less concede or gloss many of these points without pushback.\\n\\nThat's because I didn't study history at a tertiary level. See how I'm a frequent visitor to r/AskHistorians - because I'm not smart or knowledgeable about history. Are you suggesting that to defeat Christianity, I'll need a university degree in history?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw26yyz\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jw0cszb\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"FerdinandTheGiant\",\n \"body\": \"Most, if not all of the Western values people like to claim are “Judeo-Christian” in origin simply aren’t. For one “Judeo-Christian values” aren’t a thing as these groups have different values, however let’s consider a few things we value in the west. \\n\\n#Democracy\\n\\nIn the Bible, democracy is never extolled or even articulated. Instead, there are endless stories of theocratic, authoritarian rule and the divine right of kings. Power is always concentrated; it’s never distributed. In classical Greece, however, Athenians established what is generally recognized as the world’s first democracy around 500 BCE. This predates Christianity and arose with no Jewish influence.\\n\\n#Common Humanity/ Equality\\n\\nThis is simply not biblical. In the New Testament, women are forbidden from holding authority over a man, told to be silent in church, and instructed to be obedient and submissive to their husbands. The same word used for submissive in Colossians also is used to describe how slaves should be to their masters. Women can be killed if they’re suspected of having premarital sex; the tenth commandment forbids coveting property, which includes women in the same sentence as houses and oxen; if a woman was raped, she was forced to marry her rapist if the offender paid her father, and on and on it goes.\\n\\nNon-Israelites or gentiles were forced into slavery and treated as property. This is seen in Leviticus and all over the Hebrew Bible. Slavery was condoned and justified for thousands of years using the Bible. \\n\\n#10 Commandments\\n\\nA common argument is that these “laws” are where we derive most of our morals and values in the west. This is rather silly. \\n\\nFor starters, a lot of the commandments are about idolatry, however other Rules like “thou shall not kill” predate Christianity and Judaism by hundreds of years. Literally any and all functional societies require this rule to be in place. And all over the world you see non-Christian nations follow similar “laws”. This is because they are beneficial for building a society. \\n\\n#Other religions\\n\\nOther religions have much stronger moral codes that Christanity. Jainism believes so much in the value of life that they won’t even talk at night because they could accidentally harm an insect. Buddhists have a deep personal desire to self improve while also improving the lives of those around them. Same could be said for taoists.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0dbxm\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"That's the problem though. You assume that Christianity is pro-democracy and pro-equality when history has shown us that they'd gladly throw these concepts under the bus if it were in the way of their religion.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw27njn\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jw0dbxm\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Circular360Angles90\",\n \"body\": \"People often conflate these two completely separate ideas. God/Higher Power - whatever you want to call it, with - Religion. \\n\\nReligion, in its limited ability tries to use the concept of God in an attempt to sway your reasoning capabilities towards their doctrine. God, however is completely separate from Religion.\\n\\nReligion just seems to have a Monopoly on the word. People feel as though believing in a God or Gods means they should adhere to some way of “knowing” their God. - which is all that a religion really does. But rest assured that it is someone elses ideas you are digesting. Theres nothing wrong with consulting people whom you believe to be wise or have more experience, but if you start feeling like they have some sort of answer that you cant quite grasp, then your talking to the wrong people. \\n\\nThis is not something that anyone can “show” you or “debate” you about. \\n\\nGod isnt in a book. God isnt an idea you learn from the pulpit. God isnt reason nor logic. God isnt bad. God isnt good. \\n\\nYou are engaging in a debate where their is nothing to debate, thus you always be “outwitted.”\\n\\nThink for yourself, walk your own path. You’ll fall flat on your face initially, perhaps for many years and, if you can muster up strength to get up on your own and not ask anybody why you fell and why it hurts so bad - you’ll stop feeling “outwitted.”\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0f9fa\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">You are engaging in a debate where their is nothing to debate, thus you always be “outwitted.”\\n\\n>Think for yourself, walk your own path. You’ll fall flat on your face initially, perhaps for many years and, if you can muster up strength to get up on your own and not ask anybody why you fell and why it hurts so bad - you’ll stop feeling “outwitted.”\\n\\nIsn't this the problem though? Most people can earn external respect being just who they are. In contrast, I have to prove my respectability, and prove why I have valid views, and I always lose.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw2llv2\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jw0f9fa\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CIABrainBugs\",\n \"body\": \"If God was real, his actions would prevent me from giving him any respect. I don't care if he's real.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0fl5d\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Nghtmare-Moon\",\n \"body\": \"Read Carl Sagan’s demon haunted world. It’s the best essay to counter all religious arguments\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0g6mu\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"GainPornCity\",\n \"body\": \"It's not that there's a rebuttle for everything. There's just a different lens to look through. \\n\\nSay an atheist has blue shades on and sees everything as blue. Christian sees everything as red. However, the one commonality between the Athiest and the Christian is the human construct..thereby despite being in different mindsets, they both acknowledge phenomena as they unfold in the world\\n\\nNo matter how much blue you speak regarding world phenomena, the Christian will respond to *each* phenomenon with a red response. \\n\\n\\nThis phenomenon, you look at through a blue lens and say: \\\"The Christian has an excuse for everything, no matter how blue, there's always gonna be some red to speak on from their side.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0gw4r\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Realistic-Cat4116\",\n \"body\": \"The only rebuttal you need is: \\\"Prove it.\\\" Keep repeating that over and over again. They can't, you win, end of argument.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0h3pm\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Okami_The_Agressor_0\",\n \"body\": \"Debating things that are designed to explain all with a basis in non-falsifiable statements is impossible. Religions are all memetic viruses that are meant to superimpose a false sense of the world on their followers, there are other belief systems that do the same that don't involve god but a well designed memetic virus can't be successful with out being impervious to logic or ways to side step rational thinking. That being said many modern political beliefs are structured similarly and operate in a similar fashion to religions. \\n\\nReligion imparts a base line culture and morality to people that allows for a more respectful and peaceful society. Part of what make that possible is ideological sanitation of a populace. Diversity of ways of life sparks conflict and religion solves that a good portion of the time. You could potentially see how many recent events have been the result of diverse culture and belief systems, so any derivation of heterogenization of society would logically be rejected by such belief systems with understandable cause.\\n\\nI believe people should be able to do what ever they please but when there is no respect in society people seek control from government to maintain the peace. So the easiest way for a country to stay free is to remain an ethno/ideological-state, or very slow and controlled change. When accounting these things you must satisfy for the lowest common denominator which will inevitable reject things on the basis of tribal instinct.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0k3j1\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"ApeMummy\",\n \"body\": \"You’re outwitted because you lack wit not because christianity is special.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0k3sk\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"SeymoreButz38\",\n \"body\": \"1st is a citation needed. Second was a semantic argument. Third is a no true scotsman fallacy.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0kns0\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Ecoronel1989\",\n \"body\": \"I think the issue here is your brother does a few things to confuse you.\\n1. Switching between defending spirituality and Christianity.\\n2. Berating you with words so it's hard for you to rebuttal everything that is said (an overwhelming tactic).\\n3. Throws out unprovable claims that are opinions as facts.\\n\\nFor #1, there's a big difference between spirituality and Christianity. Christianity asserts it is the one true religion, all others are wrong and lead to a wrong lifestyle. Spirituality is a general idea about believing in something outside oneself. To Christians, spirituality is paganism (unless it's Christianity itself) and therefore wrong and cannot be accepted or celebrated. So your brother can't simply pick and choose to say spirituality is good for the health and then switch to say Islam is not a good religion as these are contradictory statements.\\n\\nBut this issue is linked to #2, he berates arguments with a ton of words and makes multiple \\\"points\\\" at once. This is a similar tactic to what Donald Trump has used during his time as a politician. Simply overload the other side with a word soup, throwing out multiple arguments that are each wrong, but takes effort to debate each of them. By the time you gather your thoughts about the first wrong statement, he's moved on to the next 3, it's overwhelming.\\n\\nWhich leads to the last point, that is throwing out unprovable claims in the midst of his word soup. Claims such as there would be no morality without religion are unprovable for modern science since we have had religion in all cultures for over 2000 years, so it's hard to test this \\\"fact\\\". Another one that comes to mind is saying there's objective morality in the Bible, which you argued is not because of the Bible. Another counterargument is that the interpretation to the Bibles teachings changes across generations (i.e. slavery allowed for priests) and is therefore not objective, but his claim is unprovable in general as you can only offer up counter examples he can claim we're people not following the \\\"truth\\\".\\n\\nOverall, I think you're doing better than you think at debating this issue. The larger issue is what others have pointed out, that you don't have to win this argument, simply live by what you believe is true like they do.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0m923\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"TimeFliesFaster\",\n \"body\": \"It doesn’t have a good rebuttal as to why Jesus is the prophesied messiah of a religion that believes in a single unitary god. Especially when Jesus didn’t have the right ancestors and failed to meet the applicable prophesies (ie dead all coming back to life, temple being restored for all time, diaspora returning, war coming to permanent end, and entire world embracing scripture in messiah’s lifetime)\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0sjyl\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"David_Warden\",\n \"body\": \"You are trying to prove a negative which is a waste of time.\\n\\nThey are the ones making the improbable claims so the burden of proof lies with them. \\n\\nIf they continue to pester you, ask them to prove it.\\n\\nI think you will find that it boils down to belief in the highly improbable that is not adequately supported by either evidence or reasoning.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw1cnr9\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"SaltiestRaccoon\",\n \"body\": \"Sure. They have rebuttals. They're just not as good as you think they are. And they tend to be the same rebuttals over and over.\\n\\nI mean just to refute the ones you were hit with... In the first example, he paints the 'pagan' world monolithically while citing the worst examples from many different cultures, while kind of also ignoring that many of those things also apply to Christian nations. Pretty sure the weak and poor weren't running Medieval England, for instance. Likewise slaves were absolutely still a thing among Christians... the slaves just couldn't also be Christian. There were Christian Germanic warriors pillaging right along with the rest of them. Finally virtually any civilization that has kept slaves does in fact have laws about how they can be treated. It can certainly even be argued that serfdom is still just slavery but called something else to make it acceptable, as people can still be bought and sold, they just count as part of the land instead and likewise must work for their lord or face abuse or death. Sounds a lot like slavery to me.\\n\\nAltruism is in fact a part of human nature. It evolved because we are a social species and we are inclined to act for the good of our group, as our group is beneficial to our survival. There's a [great example](https://www.upi.com/Archives/1987/11/04/Cavemen-took-care-of-physically-disabled/5137563000400/) of a cave man skeleton with some pretty crippling deformities, who could not have hunted for himself that lived to old age. That means his tribe or his family unit was caring for him despite the fact he was a burden. And this is humanity in the stone age, at our least civilized. The Gauls, as well routinely collected a portion of taxes to help pay for their disabled citizens (though in Rome, it was preached if not always practiced that disabled children should be put to death.)\\n\\nIn a lot of instances he just seems ignorant on history and expects you to go along with it. A lot of it is very gish-gallupy too. He says so many wrong things that there's no way to correct them all without getting so bogged down with corrections that you can never make a point of your own, or even refute all of his errors. Don't allow that. Insist on arguing one point at a time.\\n\\nReally I think it's gaps in your knowledge more than Christianity being particularly difficult to criticize. I find it quite easy.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-14\",\n \"id\": \"jw3kj7g\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ]\n]","isConversational":false},"2":{"kind":"string","value":"moderate"}}},{"rowIdx":58,"cells":{"0":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Ok_Abroad9642","body":"Maybe you just lack knowledge and debating skills???\n\n# Debate With Brother\n\n>In the pagan world: Imperfect children were killed, slaves were seen as possessions, to be used as one wished, weak and poor had no rights\n\nAll of these things were done by Christians and non-Christians (In fact, you can see God commanding these things in OT Law. Exodus 21:2 states that \"the slave is \\[the owner's\\] money\"). The modern idea of human rights did come from a Protestant (John Locke), but many of his contemporaries who both developed the idea and argued for it were probably deistic. On top of that, John Locke's ideas were most certainly not completely from the bible, since Protestants existed for around a century during John Locke's times and could not come up with that idea.\n\n>\\[insert Roman example here\\]\n\nIt would be very difficult to argue that one act of kindness from a Christian community in Rome had anything to do with the origin of modern concepts of \"Western\" values. Irrelevant example for the topic of the debate.\n\n>Buddhist 'compassion'...surrounding culture\n\nPaul himself did not do good for the good itself. He specifically states in Scripture multiple times that he looked towards the reward promised to him by god. Since Paul is highly regarded to be the highest example of a Christian by Christians themselves, it is theologically inaccurate to state that a Christian should and does do good purely for the good itself.\n\n>No...You cannot derive goodness from the world or society...Because that would result in relativity and different notions of goodness/badness...Christianity believes in objective good\n\nThis is in response to you asking if one could do good without being involved in religion. Your brother pre-supposes a definition of good that suits him best. \"Good\" is what is morally correct. Most moral systems try to describe moral behavior in humans. Moral behavior in humans is evolved (Read \"The Evolution of Moral Dispositions in the Human Species by Dennis L Krebs). So depending on what moral system you follow, it is possible for you to do \"good.\" It is a severe blunder on your end to let your brother define what good is.\n\n>Otherwise...prove it\n\nYour brother assumes that all atheists must be subjective moralists. This is wrong. Your brother defines objective morality as \"not something that changes from person to person or culture to culture\". In this case, a strict deontologist or ethical egoist would be considered objective morality, since their a universalist deontologist would believe that their rules apply to everybody.\n\n>The Catholic Church and Christianity has ALWAYS been against slavery - you know this is true! - in Scripture and it's teachines\n\nOT law explicitly states that slaves are a man's property. NT Paul states that slaves should be obedient to their owners. You cannot tell me that \"Oh since the Bible teaches you to be kind, it implicitly opposes slavery.\" This is stupid. The Bible teaches you to be kind, and then explicitly condones slavery. If I say \"be kind to other people\" and see you punch someone in the face and say to the victim \"Get punched again, bitch\" and to you \"punch lighter\", then you cannot say that I'm \"implicitly against punching people in the face\"\n\n>...this was always explicitly against Catholicism, as per Scripture (Gal 3:28)\n\nYour brother is the worst bible interpreter I have ever seen. WTF. This verse is not saying that slaves should not exist, in the same way that it is not saying Jews or Greeks should not or do not exist. If this verse is opposed to slaves, then it is also opposed to Jews and Greeks, because it uses the same phrase and grammatical structure. It is saying that instead of emphasizing differences such as race or social status, one should see each other as unified Christians, as brothers and sisters under Jesus Christ. This is the correct interpretation. Galations was written by Paul. Ephesians was also written by Paul. In Ephesian 5:5, Paul tells Slaves to obey their masters \"just as you would obey Christ\" and that doing so would be \"doing the will of God from your heart.\" In Ephesians 5:9, Paul tells slave owners to treat their slaves well and without favoritism. Nobody, nobody, nobody will interpret this as \"Slavery is wrong 100% and you should free all your slaves or you are sinning\". This verse alone tells use that the intention of Gal 3:28 was not to oppose slavery, because if that was the case Paul would have opposed slavery in his letter to Ephesus as well. Things get even worse with Philemon, also written by Paul. In there, he SENDS AN ESCAPED SLAVE BACK. Paul does not imply to Philemon to free Onesimus. If your brother argues that verse 16 implies Philemon to free Onesimus, kindly tell your brother that he needs to take Bible literacy 101 classes ASAP. Similar to Gal 3:28, Paul is emphasizing that both Onesimus and Philemon are BROTHERS IN CHRIST, and that that is the primary nature of their relationship. Prior to that, the nature of their relationship was that of a slave and master. Don't get me wrong, Onesimus would still be the slave of Philemon, it's just that the nature of their relationship was supposed to emphasize spiritual brotherhood. Some CAN argue that verse 21's \"even more\" IMPLIES freedom. Even if the chapter IMPLIES freedom, Paul is not EXPLICITLY against slavery. On top of that, I HIGHLY DOUBT that Paul is EXPLICITLY requesting freedom, because in Ephesians, he doesn't even imply freedom, and especially he is not explicitly requesting freedom for all slaves. Even if Paul tells Philemon to free Onesimus, that still doesn't reflect Paul's true view on slavery, because Philemon is a more specific letter, and Paul clearly has a positive relationship with Philemon, whereas in Ephesians, which has a verse explicitly for all Christian slave owners, Paul doesn't even mention or imply freedom.\n\nTLDR: Your brother argued like a bitch but you were too novice to catch on.\n\n# Debate with Priest\n\n>What about spiritual health? The health experts at the WHO say it's essential.\n\nSpiritual health has nothing to do with spiritual things actually existing.\n\n>To which he told me that I was extremely arrogant to spit on the beliefs of billions without any scientific evidence to back my point.\n\nYour catholic brother shits on protestants, hindus, buddhists, muslims and many more. Arrogant asshole he is, according to himself. You cannot use \"scientific evidence\" to show that a god does not exist. That a god does not exist is a default position. You have to show that a god does exist, something no religious person has successfully done.\n\nPeople shit on Christianity and atheists for not being \"open minded\" Is it shocking to you that other people can be wrong? Open minded means a lack of bias and willingness to accept new ideas on the basis of logical thought, not prejudice. Accepting every single religion as true is not only not open minded, but usually impossible since the vast majority of Christianity and Islam are not compatible. They cannot be true at once.\n\n# LGBT\n\nYour post didn't include any debate. I'm not digging through the comments section to debunk.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzw4w9","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"!delta\n\nI didn't study history, religion or philosophy at a tertiary level and it shows. There was a lot more context behind the scenes that could be used to defeat the arguments I faced, and I was too dumb to find them.\n\n> Is it shocking to you that other people can be wrong?\n\nI am well aware that other people can be wrong, but I'm also the sort of person who lost confidence in their own ability to be right due to their own history of failure.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0asbd","parent_id":"jvzw4w9","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"DeltaBot","body":"Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/Ok_Abroad9642 ([1∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/Ok_Abroad9642)).\n\n^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0auvx","parent_id":"jw0asbd","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],"string":"[\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Ok_Abroad9642\",\n \"body\": \"Maybe you just lack knowledge and debating skills???\\n\\n# Debate With Brother\\n\\n>In the pagan world: Imperfect children were killed, slaves were seen as possessions, to be used as one wished, weak and poor had no rights\\n\\nAll of these things were done by Christians and non-Christians (In fact, you can see God commanding these things in OT Law. Exodus 21:2 states that \\\"the slave is \\\\[the owner's\\\\] money\\\"). The modern idea of human rights did come from a Protestant (John Locke), but many of his contemporaries who both developed the idea and argued for it were probably deistic. On top of that, John Locke's ideas were most certainly not completely from the bible, since Protestants existed for around a century during John Locke's times and could not come up with that idea.\\n\\n>\\\\[insert Roman example here\\\\]\\n\\nIt would be very difficult to argue that one act of kindness from a Christian community in Rome had anything to do with the origin of modern concepts of \\\"Western\\\" values. Irrelevant example for the topic of the debate.\\n\\n>Buddhist 'compassion'...surrounding culture\\n\\nPaul himself did not do good for the good itself. He specifically states in Scripture multiple times that he looked towards the reward promised to him by god. Since Paul is highly regarded to be the highest example of a Christian by Christians themselves, it is theologically inaccurate to state that a Christian should and does do good purely for the good itself.\\n\\n>No...You cannot derive goodness from the world or society...Because that would result in relativity and different notions of goodness/badness...Christianity believes in objective good\\n\\nThis is in response to you asking if one could do good without being involved in religion. Your brother pre-supposes a definition of good that suits him best. \\\"Good\\\" is what is morally correct. Most moral systems try to describe moral behavior in humans. Moral behavior in humans is evolved (Read \\\"The Evolution of Moral Dispositions in the Human Species by Dennis L Krebs). So depending on what moral system you follow, it is possible for you to do \\\"good.\\\" It is a severe blunder on your end to let your brother define what good is.\\n\\n>Otherwise...prove it\\n\\nYour brother assumes that all atheists must be subjective moralists. This is wrong. Your brother defines objective morality as \\\"not something that changes from person to person or culture to culture\\\". In this case, a strict deontologist or ethical egoist would be considered objective morality, since their a universalist deontologist would believe that their rules apply to everybody.\\n\\n>The Catholic Church and Christianity has ALWAYS been against slavery - you know this is true! - in Scripture and it's teachines\\n\\nOT law explicitly states that slaves are a man's property. NT Paul states that slaves should be obedient to their owners. You cannot tell me that \\\"Oh since the Bible teaches you to be kind, it implicitly opposes slavery.\\\" This is stupid. The Bible teaches you to be kind, and then explicitly condones slavery. If I say \\\"be kind to other people\\\" and see you punch someone in the face and say to the victim \\\"Get punched again, bitch\\\" and to you \\\"punch lighter\\\", then you cannot say that I'm \\\"implicitly against punching people in the face\\\"\\n\\n>...this was always explicitly against Catholicism, as per Scripture (Gal 3:28)\\n\\nYour brother is the worst bible interpreter I have ever seen. WTF. This verse is not saying that slaves should not exist, in the same way that it is not saying Jews or Greeks should not or do not exist. If this verse is opposed to slaves, then it is also opposed to Jews and Greeks, because it uses the same phrase and grammatical structure. It is saying that instead of emphasizing differences such as race or social status, one should see each other as unified Christians, as brothers and sisters under Jesus Christ. This is the correct interpretation. Galations was written by Paul. Ephesians was also written by Paul. In Ephesian 5:5, Paul tells Slaves to obey their masters \\\"just as you would obey Christ\\\" and that doing so would be \\\"doing the will of God from your heart.\\\" In Ephesians 5:9, Paul tells slave owners to treat their slaves well and without favoritism. Nobody, nobody, nobody will interpret this as \\\"Slavery is wrong 100% and you should free all your slaves or you are sinning\\\". This verse alone tells use that the intention of Gal 3:28 was not to oppose slavery, because if that was the case Paul would have opposed slavery in his letter to Ephesus as well. Things get even worse with Philemon, also written by Paul. In there, he SENDS AN ESCAPED SLAVE BACK. Paul does not imply to Philemon to free Onesimus. If your brother argues that verse 16 implies Philemon to free Onesimus, kindly tell your brother that he needs to take Bible literacy 101 classes ASAP. Similar to Gal 3:28, Paul is emphasizing that both Onesimus and Philemon are BROTHERS IN CHRIST, and that that is the primary nature of their relationship. Prior to that, the nature of their relationship was that of a slave and master. Don't get me wrong, Onesimus would still be the slave of Philemon, it's just that the nature of their relationship was supposed to emphasize spiritual brotherhood. Some CAN argue that verse 21's \\\"even more\\\" IMPLIES freedom. Even if the chapter IMPLIES freedom, Paul is not EXPLICITLY against slavery. On top of that, I HIGHLY DOUBT that Paul is EXPLICITLY requesting freedom, because in Ephesians, he doesn't even imply freedom, and especially he is not explicitly requesting freedom for all slaves. Even if Paul tells Philemon to free Onesimus, that still doesn't reflect Paul's true view on slavery, because Philemon is a more specific letter, and Paul clearly has a positive relationship with Philemon, whereas in Ephesians, which has a verse explicitly for all Christian slave owners, Paul doesn't even mention or imply freedom.\\n\\nTLDR: Your brother argued like a bitch but you were too novice to catch on.\\n\\n# Debate with Priest\\n\\n>What about spiritual health? The health experts at the WHO say it's essential.\\n\\nSpiritual health has nothing to do with spiritual things actually existing.\\n\\n>To which he told me that I was extremely arrogant to spit on the beliefs of billions without any scientific evidence to back my point.\\n\\nYour catholic brother shits on protestants, hindus, buddhists, muslims and many more. Arrogant asshole he is, according to himself. You cannot use \\\"scientific evidence\\\" to show that a god does not exist. That a god does not exist is a default position. You have to show that a god does exist, something no religious person has successfully done.\\n\\nPeople shit on Christianity and atheists for not being \\\"open minded\\\" Is it shocking to you that other people can be wrong? Open minded means a lack of bias and willingness to accept new ideas on the basis of logical thought, not prejudice. Accepting every single religion as true is not only not open minded, but usually impossible since the vast majority of Christianity and Islam are not compatible. They cannot be true at once.\\n\\n# LGBT\\n\\nYour post didn't include any debate. I'm not digging through the comments section to debunk.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzw4w9\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"!delta\\n\\nI didn't study history, religion or philosophy at a tertiary level and it shows. There was a lot more context behind the scenes that could be used to defeat the arguments I faced, and I was too dumb to find them.\\n\\n> Is it shocking to you that other people can be wrong?\\n\\nI am well aware that other people can be wrong, but I'm also the sort of person who lost confidence in their own ability to be right due to their own history of failure.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0asbd\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzw4w9\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"DeltaBot\",\n \"body\": \"Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/Ok_Abroad9642 ([1∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/Ok_Abroad9642)).\\n\\n^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0auvx\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jw0asbd\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n]","isConversational":false},"1":{"kind":"list like","value":[[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"DeadCupcakes23","body":"Why does it matter if Christianity has a rebuttal for something? You can criticise the bible and Christianity based on what it says and the actions done in its name (context depending).\n\nPeople have moral values without Christianity and most things people appreciate nowadays are not inherent to Christianity, for example the bible allows slavery.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzggd4","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">Why does it matter if Christianity has a rebuttal for something? You can criticise the bible and Christianity based on what it says and the actions done in its name (context depending).\n\nBecause losing a debate due to their rebuttals makes me look stupid. Also, if you follow the links to their arguments, even the atrocities done in its name don't count because those fall under \"false prophets\". \n\nIt's like the Bible was written with this possibility in mind to entrap us.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzh2ui","parent_id":"jvzggd4","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"tipoima","body":"Christianity *was* fabricated, but not by geniuses. \nYou're fighting against over two thousand years worth of apologetics, where all the weakest arguments have been pruned away. \nHowever, as expected of something that isn't actually true, those arguments are often plainly wrong, be it due to logical fallacies, appeals to unknown, obtuse philosophy you probably don't know you don't subscribe to, no-true-scotsmanning, e.t.c.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzh8ep","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">However, as expected of something that isn't actually true, those arguments are often plainly wrong, be it due to logical fallacies, appeals to unknown, obtuse philosophy you probably don't know you don't subscribe to, no-true-scotsmanning, e.t.c.\n\nThis is exactly what they do. The problem is that \"I don't know\" is not an acceptable answer to them ([see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvhr81y/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)), whereas they already have something up their sleeve to entrap me. \n\nAs you mentioned, with 2000 years of experience creating answers, I even if I am able to point out something wrong or intellectually dishonest, they'll still have an answer for that, forcing me to spend yet more time and effort to come up with an answer. And I am not intelligent enough to create an answer for everything they throw at me, so I'm trapped.\n\nIt's an uphill battle, and one that can easily be lost. Until we can come up with a rebuttal they can't defeat, there will always be a risk that secular society and LGBT rights might be defeated.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzhurp","parent_id":"jvzh8ep","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Watchyobackistan","body":"Not really, most of their \"rebuttals\" are stuff like \"god doesn't give us all the answers\" and \"Don't worry jesus loves you\" Non-answers.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzhdab","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"MercurianAspirations","body":"But why should you give a shit? If you have conviction in your own beliefs, it shouldn't matter whether or not you can convince others using your super debater skillz or not. After all, if somebody were sufficiently dumb or insane, it would be impossible to convince them of the truth, no matter how clear and apparent the truth were; therefore, whether or not a thing is widely believed and people are readily convinced of its truth is not a guide to truth. When there was only one person on the earth who believed in heliocentrism they were still right, and the geocentrists were still wrong. The geocentrists had answers for every single objection, and they won every single debate, yet, they were still wrong. \n\nMoreover, it isn't that Christianity is super well designed or anything. It's just that people who have strongly held convictions are not available to be convinced by facts and logic. That's just how people are: they do not actually change their minds that much.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzhezx","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">But why should you give a shit?\n\nBecause I don't want my stances to look stupid. I was once likened to an anti-vaxxer for not being able to provide evidence to back my lack of faith.\n\n> If you have conviction in your own beliefs, it shouldn't matter whether or not you can convince others using your super debater skillz or not. \n\nConviction in your own beliefs doesn't make one right. Besides, their side also has a firm conviction in their beliefs.\n\n>When there was only one person on the earth who believed in heliocentrism they were still right, and the geocentrists were still wrong. The geocentrists had answers for every single objection, and they won every single debate, yet, they were still wrong.\n\nScience doesn't care about number of believers, what matters is the evidence. And in the case of heliocentrism, it was proven right by overwhelming evidence. I wish I had overwhelming evidence to back my lack of faith.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzih4p","parent_id":"jvzhezx","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Mr-Bitter","body":"Send your brother my way. I know of a way to convince him that it was Satan that wrote the Bible and can kill every single one of his arguments. I would thoroughly enjoy a civilized religious debate.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzhg91","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"ApocalypseYay","body":">CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\n\nThis makes zero sense. Rebuttals require logic and facts, and there are only apologia and special pleasing fallacy described herein. \n\nLet's start from the basic - where is the evidence for chris, the alleged son of god, and somehow also god, that killed himself to please himself? There is zero historical evidence for this event, before we even get to the easily debunked claims of miracles, or the plainly immoral laws being promulgated as divine commandments.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzhig9","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">where is the evidence for chris,\n\n[Most historians accept that Jesus Christ existed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus). The rest of the biblical story isn't accepted by historians.\n\n>before we even get to the easily debunked claims of miracles,\n\n[I miserably failed at convincing someone that I don't believe in miracles](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvai6qm/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). How would you convince him?\n\n> or the plainly immoral laws being promulgated as divine commandments.\n\nHow would you convince them that their side is immoral? They have methods up their sleeve to dismiss the malice conducted in the name of Christianity, and justify the anti-LGBT commandments.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzj8qx","parent_id":"jvzhig9","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"physioworld","body":"The most important concept you have to remember is the burden of proof. It’s not up to you to prove the Christianity ISNT TRUE, it’s up to them to prove that it IS TRUE. So if they can’t prove their own religion you need to accept it, you don’t have to worry about disproving their beliefs. \n\nA good way to illustrate this, is whether they would accept comparable claims with comparable evidence from other religions. So if they claim that Christianity is true because it says so in the bible, ask whether you should also accept Islam because it says so in the Quran.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzhlry","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">The most important concept you have to remember is the burden of proof. It’s not up to you to prove the Christianity ISNT TRUE, it’s up to them to prove that it IS TRUE. So if they can’t prove their own religion you need to accept it, you don’t have to worry about disproving their beliefs.\n\nBut that's the problem - they consider themselves as proving it is true. For example, one guy who told me of miracles he received - [and I lacked a sufficient rebuttal to convince him he's wrong](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvai6qm/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzjexi","parent_id":"jvzhlry","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Adam__B","body":"You don’t have to defend not believing in something that is invisible, utterly silent, immeasurable, illogical, unscientific, undetectable and untestable. The burden is on them to prove a positive, not you a negative.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzi1gp","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"OrangeBlancmange","body":"Why do you think you are losing? They obviously haven’t convinced you in these arguments and just falling back to faith (which is all they really have) doesn’t ‘win’ anything in any meaningful way. You won’t be able to argue them out of their faith so you can’t ‘win’ either. Ultimately it’s not an argument in the philosophical sense - they aren’t engaging in good faith and simply will not change their minds regardless of what you say.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzi24f","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"> they aren’t engaging in good faith and simply will not change their minds regardless of what you say.\n\nBad faith arguments are like doping in sports - they make it easier for them to win. You just need to be a good enough debater to win despite the disadvantage.\n\n>Why do you think you are losing? \n\nBecause I failed to be that \"good enough debater\". Any argument I can throw at them is utterly crushed and thrown back at me.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzk4ge","parent_id":"jvzi24f","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Cayowin","body":"How did you lose that debate?\n\nSlavery - Christians used the bible to promote the slave trade\n\n[https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/01/a-harvard-exhibit-on-slavery-and-christianity/#:\\~:text=In%20the%20modern%20era%2C%20Christianity,often%20used%20to%20justify%20slavery](https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/01/a-harvard-exhibit-on-slavery-and-christianity/#:~:text=In%20the%20modern%20era%2C%20Christianity,often%20used%20to%20justify%20slavery).\n\nYes there were abolitionists, but if the same text can be used to both justify and condemn an action how is that text a good moral guide?\n\nThe bible explicitly allows the owning of humans as property. So either god is not unchanging or he changed his mind. \n\n1 Peter 2:18, Saint Peter writes \"Slaves, be subject to your masters with all reverence, not only to those who are good and equitable but also to those who are perverse.\"\n\nYes they have prepared apologetics, it just means you need to do more research. Remember they have no evidence for their claims beyond personal gut feelings and a collection of contradictory, fictional and historic works.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzi8a8","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">Slavery - Christians used the bible to promote the slave trade\n\nI've miserably failed when using the \"what about slavery argument\" - it's in the link following \"It all started 3 years ago\". Sure, I could point out the pro-slavery parts, but they'll have a reason why that bit is irrelevant or misinterpreted. It's exhausting, finding every argument to throw at them, and having each one of those utterly crushed with more rebuttals thrown your way.\n\n>Yes they have prepared apologetics, it just means you need to do more research. Remember they have no evidence for their claims beyond personal gut feelings and a collection of contradictory, fictional and historic works.\r \n\r\n\nI tried pointing out to someone that I don't believe in his \"miracle\". [My attempt failed miserably](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvai6qm/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzkhnt","parent_id":"jvzi8a8","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Augnelli","body":"What is the rebuttal for the Ark? What did the carnivores eat? How did the Kangaroos and Koalas make it up from Australia? What about fresh water fish? How much space was designated for JUST the elephants food?\n\nYou don't need to debate every detail, just enough to invalidate the core; the truth on which they base their faith.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzikz2","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">What is the rebuttal for the Ark? What did the carnivores eat? How did the Kangaroos and Koalas make it up from Australia? What about fresh water fish? How much space was designated for JUST the elephants food?\n\nThat's the problem - even since the medieval era, most Christians disavowed biblical literalism, because biblical literalism is easier to poke holes into. Instead, they've come up with apologia, and now, with over 2000 years of apologia to defend against, it's become an unwinnable fight.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzlcvy","parent_id":"jvzikz2","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"ch0cko","body":"No. I am a frequent debater on subs like r/DebateReligion and r/DebateAnAtheist and everything you've said here is just... no. The vast majority of arguments for theism or counterarguments against arguments against theism, generally lead to special pleading or other fallacies.\n\nHere's one post I recently made: [https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/15pjew5/extraordinary\\_claims\\_need\\_extraordinary\\_evidence/](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/15pjew5/extraordinary_claims_need_extraordinary_evidence/) which then links to another one of my posts that goes more in-depth: [https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/15ey939/if\\_religious\\_beliefs\\_were\\_subject\\_to\\_consistent/](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/15ey939/if_religious_beliefs_were_subject_to_consistent/)\n\nA lot of what Christianity said is very similar to other religions and old mythologies. It has a generic reward-punishment system/carrot and stick system, that is, a hell and heaven. On top of that, all of the claims in Christianity hold no good evidence with most being anecdotal. Most arguments for Christianity are not Christian-specific and more so just theism in general. Even then, those thesitic arguments lead to either, 1. fallacies, or 2. only making theism \"more likely,\" but even then, these arguments have counters.\n\nThey were not geniuses. A little clever, but they essentially copied other religions and mythologies and is a cookie-cutter religion. Christianity isn't wide spread just because of how \"logical\" and \"sound\" it is; indoctrination or generationally passing the idea down is a big part of it. There are also contradictions in the Bible which can be found at this website: [https://www.lyingforjesus.org/Bible-Contradictions/](https://www.lyingforjesus.org/Bible-Contradictions/)","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzirf5","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">They were not geniuses. A little clever, but they essentially copied other beliefs and mythologies and is a cookie-cutter religion. Christianity isn't widespread just because of how \"logical\" and \"sound\" it is; indoctrination or generationally passing the idea down is a big part of it. There are also contradictions in the Bible which can be found at this website: https://www.lyingforjesus.org/Bible-Contradictions/\n\nI wasn't implying that Christianity was \"logical\" and \"sound\". I was implying it was successful because it has so many tricks up its sleeve. It may be full of lies, but for every one I point out, I'll get one or more rebuttals thrown my way.\n\nThink of it as being like in the middle of a dense minefield. Whoever laid the minefield might not have a \"logical\" and \"sound\" reason for it, but any step you could take will blow up in your face.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzlzr1","parent_id":"jvzirf5","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"xper0072","body":"Just because someone has an answer for everything doesn't mean that the answer is a good answer. Your inability to properly debate the topic does not mean that the other side is correct in any way.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzj07m","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">Your inability to properly debate the topic does not mean that the other side is correct in any way.\n\nI wasn't saying the other side was correct. My point is that they are impossible to defeat and are good at ensnaring their critics.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzmc3l","parent_id":"jvzj07m","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"razvanght","body":"In my experience, Christian s believe that God is real because they feel He is real. Then you can ask them whether a person of a different religion can also use the same method (I feel Zeus is real because I feel Him) to conclude that a different god is real. Christians generally agree that that person used the same method (feeling based) to reach an opposite conclusion (Zeus, not God, is real). In my discussions at least, this argument works in that it gives people pause. Of course, it does not change their belief immediately because they have been holding it for some time but I feel like it adds a seed of doubt.\n\nDo you know the official Christian response against this line of argument?","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzj0m8","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">In my experience, Christian s believe that God is real because they feel He is real. Then you can ask them whether a person of a different religion can also use the same method (I feel Zeus is real because I feel Him) to conclude that a different god is real. \n\nHow can I get them to accept the argument that \"oh I don't feel God is real, so don't force me to go to church\"? Because that argument always failed me in the past. Also, on a tangent, how are you able to \"feel\" Zeus?\n\n>adds a seed of doubt.\n\nPlanting seeds of doubt is a great political strategy. For example, in Australia, we have an upcoming referendum on constitutional indigenous recognition - and because the No side is so good at planting seeds of doubt, the Yes side is losing despite having academia and the arts sector on its side. \n\nBut back to the point, I tried planting seeds of doubt and failed miserably. The Christians I've had to defend my opinions from don't merely consider themselves as \"feelings based\", they consider their views as backed by literature (the Bible).","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzmy3i","parent_id":"jvzj0m8","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Apprehensive_Box3199","body":"I dropped my Catholicism at 21 after learning basic logic at University. In year 6 whilst at a Catholic school, we were given a Catholic Catechism - literally the manual for being a good Catholic. Most of the book is written in question-and-answer format. This is indoctrination 101. The first 3 questions are, and I quote:\n\n>1. Question: Who made the world? \n Answer: God made the world. \n> \n>2. Q. Who is God? \n> \n> A. God is the Creator of heaven and earth and of all things and the Supreme Lord of all. \n> \n>3. Q. How do we know there is a God? \n> \n> A. We know that there is a God by the things that He made.\n\nRight there; in the first 3 question-and-answers is a Circular Argument. The entire basis of the Catechism is premised on a Circular Argument. If nothing else, the entire point of Catholicism is to justify the original statement that God exists.\n\nI looked through the whole of the Catechism highlighting anything I still believed. I highlighted a single sentence in the preface about doing unto others etc... NOTHING else.\n\nBefore you have a go at me for not knowing what a circular argument until I was 21 - I went to Catholic schools for all of high school and it is in their best interests NOT to teach that and it was the 80s. That's my excuse and I sticking to it.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzjc23","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">Right there; in the first 3 question-and-answers is a Circular Argument. The entire basis of the Catechism is premised on a Circular Argument. If nothing else, the entire point of Catholicism is to justify the original statement that God exists. \n> \n>I looked through the whole of the Catechism highlighting anything I still believed. I highlighted a single sentence in the preface about doing unto others etc... NOTHING else. \n> \n>Before you have a go at me for not knowing what a circular argument until I was 21 - I went to Catholic schools for all of high school and it is in their best interests NOT to teach that and it was the 80s. That's my excuse and I sticking to it.\n\nIn my experience, pointing out the circular argument leads to one of 2 outcomes:\n\n1. Getting more apologia that I am unable to defeat\n2. The \"*Do you have a better explanation?*\" rebuttal","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvznrln","parent_id":"jvzjc23","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Simbabz","body":"The most important story of the bible is Jesus ressurecction, the gospels contradict each other in the telling of the story, hardly designed by geniuses.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzktxv","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">The most important story of the bible is Jesus ressurecction, the gospels contradict each other in the telling of the story, hardly designed by geniuses.\n\nNot sure what Protestants say, but Catholicism claims that slight differences with the same overall story prove it's written by real people observing the same things. We can accuse them of using a dodgy argument, but it still wouldn't undermine their side.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzp1ei","parent_id":"jvzktxv","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"vote4bort","body":"I think you're just trying way too hard in these debates and starting from the wrong point. You're coming at them like religion is something that can be proved through debate when it fundamentally can't. \nThe religious rebuttal for every point will always be essentially the same. That is they'll say \"well I believe this I so\". And you can't argue with that because its not a statement that can be argued against.\n\nWhat can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzkuyc","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.\n\nThe problem is when they think they have evidence and you think they don't. [Here's an example with a Protestant](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jv9g3kt/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3), and we can't agree on anything.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzp2i6","parent_id":"jvzkuyc","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"sapphireminds","body":"You seem to be a poor debater. You are accepting a lot of arguments as true when they aren't. \n\nAll children are born atheists. Coincidentally, they just happen to usually believe in the god(s) their parents/community believes it. \n\nAnd personally, if there is a god with the power ascribed to it by the bible, I would refuse to worship it. \n\nYou also need to educate yourself about the null hypothesis.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzl8ri","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">You seem to be a poor debater. You are accepting a lot of arguments as true when they aren't.\r\n\nI don't accept their arguments as true. I accept them as difficult to defeat.\n\n>And personally, if there is a god with the power ascribed to it by the bible, I would refuse to worship it.\n\nI wouldn't want to worship such a God either. [I've told a Protestant that if I were to accept that he indeed received a miracle, it would still prove that the Christian god is unjust](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvkkegk/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). But that argument still failed to sway him.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzqf91","parent_id":"jvzl8ri","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"-paperbrain-","body":"What you seem to be saying is just that you are not able, with the mere power of logic, to get Christians to abandon their belief.\n\nI hate to break it to you, but this is not a particular quality of Christianity. Anything people are dug in on will face this hill. Not only will you encounter it with every religion, but you won't argue many people out of their political doctrine, flat earth belief, or whether they side with Ross or Rachel on friends. People have rebuttals for everything about many totally conflicting positions. It's part of having strong beliefs and giving it some thought. And religions in particular have had a long time and tons of resources to give it thought.\n\nThat doesn't mean there's no room for criticism. Just that your expectation about change is ridiculously optimistic.\n\nHowever, regardless of how your personal debates are going, people are leaving Christianity in droves, partly because they don't find those rebuttals to critique to be logically, morally or emotionally satisfying. The fastest growing religious affiliation is \"none\".","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzlzcb","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">That doesn't mean there's no room for criticism. Just that your expectation about change is ridiculously optimistic.\n\nSometimes, I'm challenged to debate when I'm not looking for one (see my first link in the post details). I wasn't expecting to change anyone's views, just successfully defend my decision, and I failed even that.\n\n>However, regardless of how your personal debates are going, people are leaving Christianity in droves, partly because they don't find those rebuttals to critique to be logically, morally or emotionally satisfying. The fastest growing religious affiliation is \"none\".\n\n[Christianity is still growing overall](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_population_growth). Even if it's not growing in the Western World, this shrinkage is negated by growth outside the Western World.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzs5r5","parent_id":"jvzlzcb","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"wrongfulness","body":"What a waste of time","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzmu4k","parent_id":"15purrs","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"The_White_Ram","body":"This isn't hard. Christianity literally endorses slavery.\n\nIf you believe slavery is wrong then that's the only argument you need.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzniyg","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">This isn't hard. Christianity literally endorses slavery. \n> \n>If you believe slavery is wrong then that's the only argument you need.\n\nI tried using such an argument. [It backfired](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvztyn7","parent_id":"jvzniyg","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"ElPwnero","body":"I like the one Muslims use:\\\nThe word of allah is perfect and if you find inconsistencies, then it’s your human brain that’s incapable of understanding the true meaning.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzoket","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">I like the one Muslims use:\r \n> \n>The word of allah is perfect and if you find inconsistencies, then it’s your human brain that’s incapable of understanding the true meaning.\n\nI mean, they're basically insulting your intelligence. But isn't that a great bad faith tactic, dodging accountability by accusing your opponent of being too dumb to understand? I can't imagine myself faring any better debating a Muslim than debating a Christian.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzvglo","parent_id":"jvzoket","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"indigoneutrino","body":"The interesting thing is I've had the opposite experience. Plenty of experiences online and in person where they can barely rebut *anything* to the point that I've had a minister apologise she can't answer my questions satisfactorily. I've seen no-one rebut or even explain why the crucifixion makes sense without legitimising blood sacrifice. It just constantly defaults to \"Jesus paid for our sins,\" without explaining why the death of an innocent third party was accepted as a valid payment within a supposedly just system.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzppfh","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Pichkuchu","body":">It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted\n\nJust because you got outwitted doesn't mean the other side was right, they were, in fact, blatantly wrong. Christianity is just as guilty of atrocities as any religion. Keep in mind that Christianity is 2000 years old and they enslaved people until 1860 and they had to be \"convinced\" by war to give it up. They genocided native populations in America and colonized Asia and Africa. There was inquisition. They burned people for heresy, including scientists. They weren't different from other big religions or even pagans. The modern view of the world and humanity encompasses non Christian populations too and one could argue that it's in fact the result of secularism.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzqu5n","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"StrangeAssonance","body":"I’m curious why you think one has to prove God exists? \n\nAlso, when Jesus was on earth the Jews kept asking for a sign from Him. They were blind to what he was doing with His ministry. The world is blind, so when you try to have these arguments that you feel you can’t win, I think you aren’t ever going to win them. I can show you God through my words and deeds but if you are blind to that, you won’t see what’s there to see.\n\nJesus repeatedly talks about how blind and deaf people are to God and his word.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzr1ue","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">Also, when Jesus was on earth the Jews kept asking for a sign from Him. They were blind to what he was doing with His ministry. The world is blind, so when you try to have these arguments that you feel you can’t win, I think you aren’t ever going to win them. I can show you God through my words and deeds but if you are blind to that, you won’t see what’s there to see.\n\nThis is why I see my inability to believe as a disability comparable to being unable to read.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzzkhs","parent_id":"jvzr1ue","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"mo_ff","body":"You can have faith that your monthly bills will be paid whilst you have no money or means to do so OR you can actually have the money. One will work. The other will leave you with no utilities. Full stop.\n\nIn a debate with a Christian you would encounter, \"Oh, but have you no faith a brother in Christ would not help you?\" And then a large quantity of scriptural examples would be brought forth from whatever version of the bible they are most familiar with.\n\nAs others have stated, the deck is stacked. If you can approach the conversation with your family in a civil manor, stop going to church. Believe what makes you happy and mentally healthy so long as it doesn't hurt others.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzr2rx","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"HansPGruber","body":"You need to read some Thomas Paine my friend. A renegade if the atomic age.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzrn0v","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Morasain","body":"Couple things.\n\nThe first thing is that burden of proof is with the person making a claim - Christians in this case.\n\nThe second thing is - you don't need to refute the religion itself, because you can't.\n\nUsually, if you bring up things like pastors being molesters, or the crusades, or witch burnings, Christians will commit a No True Scotsman fallacy. \"These pastors aren't *real* Christians.\" You don't need to refute that argument because it is in itself wrong - but if you want, you can always go the path of saying that everyone in the church is, in the end, appointed by God.\n\nThe easiest way to reject Christianity is to instead reject God, though. You don't even need to prove that he's bad or anything - you need to use your own morality to reject the idea that a god like depicted in Christianity can be a god you want to believe in.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzrwx0","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"hdhddf","body":"you don't need to convince them, they're arguing from a position of ignorance and indoctrination, you can't argue with that because their arguments aren't built on logic or sound reasoning.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzs63u","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Huffers1010","body":"Let's do it by example. What did they have a rebuttal for that you couldn't respond to?\n\nMy suspicion is that they really didn't.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzt6nt","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"misersoze","body":"Just say: “hey I also met a Muslim, a Mormon, a Jew and a Hindu. They all make the exact same arguments as you do about why their religion is the correct one and they all say they have the one true religion. So why should I join yours over their’s”.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvztpz1","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Potential_Cod_8473","body":"They might win a debate but the world still is a shitty place full of diseases, suffering, birth defeacts. \n\nIt only prove how dishonest someone is to defend a claim it was created my omnipotent and omniscient being. \n\nChristianity was falsified many times\nAdam and Eve? Fairytale\nGreat Flood? Fairytale\nBabel's tower? Fairytale\nExocus? Fairytale \nRessurection? Really improbable\n\nThe fact that the scripture has to be interpreted in the face of new evidence like why would omnipotent God need 4 bilions years to create highly imperfect and miserable beings or why universe is 93 bilion light years wide and we are limited by a speed of light is a powerful evidence against revelation.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvztt3e","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"the_internet_clown","body":"Just because someone says something in response doesn’t make it a good rebuttal","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzugyn","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Relevant_Maybe6747","body":"Christianity doesn’t have a rebuttal against Judaism - they’ve tried and tried to kill us and never succeeded","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzuj4l","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Is that really a good argument though? By that logic, Islam doesn't have a rebuttal against Christianity either (or vice versa).","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw075ml","parent_id":"jvzuj4l","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Scott_The_Protogen","body":"Why \"debate\" someone's faith anyways? Unless they're being a jerk about it like in the last part. I always just have that whole live and let live thing (Even if some fanatics might not be that way either). I know you say some of these people come to you with the debates, but I feel like just giving a solid \"I don't want to talk about it\" or \"My views aren't going to change\" might work, even if they do continue to badger you regarding it, It doesn't have to be a winning-losing game.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzullx","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">Why \"debate\" someone's faith anyways? \n\nIn the first link, I was challenged to a debate out of the blue when I requested not to go to church anymore. He wanted me to read his spiel and change my views, or give a counter-argument strong enough to defend my views.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw07dt4","parent_id":"jvzullx","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Key-Extension1458","body":"2000 years ago there was a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem that took animal sacrifice from the people. This was fulfilling the Mosaic Covenant, and sustained Israel called \"Judea\". Like Jesus said it would happen, the temple was thrown down to the last stone and the sacrificial rite was \"nailed to the cross\" in the words of Paul the Apostle. This leaves us without redemption under the law, and everyone is guilty of sin everywhere. \n\nHence the figure of Christ intervenes, and made the ultimate sacrifice, putting death and guilt and hell itself into the fire. Now we have grace and mercy, and redemption by faith. It seems to work, since 2000 years of Christian history represented the general improvement of life everywhere. At the same time, the movement was hijacked by earthly forces resulting in \"churchianty\" and roman catholicism. All \"debates\" are just scholastic noise from that time, arguing in circles about nothing relevant. It is what it is, the temple of jerusalem was destroyed 2000 years ago and the levitical rites were nailed to the Cross.\n\nNow everything is a free gift, the more we cast off the old man and put on the new. Strong enough faith loses fear of everything and moves mountains, it is divine power given to mankind. God loves the children of this world and Israel in dispersion, which means everyone.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzur3s","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Key-Extension1458","body":"2000 years ago there was a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem that took animal sacrifice from the people. This was fulfilling the Mosaic Covenant, and sustained Israel called \"Judea\". Like Jesus said it would happen, the temple was thrown down to the last stone and the sacrificial rite was \"nailed to the cross\" in the words of Paul the Apostle. This leaves us without redemption under the law, and everyone is guilty of sin everywhere. \n\nHence the figure of Christ intervenes, and made the ultimate sacrifice, putting death and guilt and hell itself into the fire. Now we have grace and mercy, and redemption by faith. It seems to work, since 2000 years of Christian history represented the general improvement of life everywhere. At the same time, the movement was hijacked by earthly forces resulting in \"churchianty\" and roman catholicism. All \"debates\" are just scholastic noise from that time, arguing in circles about nothing relevant. It is what it is, the temple of jerusalem was destroyed 2000 years ago and the levitical rites were nailed to the Cross.\n\nNow everything is a free gift, the more we cast off the old man and put on the new. Strong enough faith loses fear of everything and moves mountains, it is divine power given to mankind. God loves the children of this world and Israel in dispersion, which means everyone.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzurg6","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">2000 years ago the Temple in Jerusalem took animal sacrifice from the people. It was fulfilling the Mosaic Covenant, and sustained Israel called \"Judea\" at the time. Like Jesus said it would happen, the temple was thrown down to the last stone and the sacrificial rite was \"nailed to the cross\" in the words of Paul the Apostle. This leaves us without redemption under the law, and everyone is guilty of sin everywhere. \n> \n>Hence the figure of Christ intervenes, and made the ultimate sacrifice, putting death and guilt and hell itself into the fire. Now we have grace and mercy, and redemption by faith. It seems to work, since 2000 years of Christian history represented the general improvement of life everywhere. At the same time, the movement was hijacked by earthly forces resulting in \"churchianty\" and roman catholicism. All \"debates\" are just scholastic noise from that time, arguing in circles about nothing relevant. It is what it is, the temple of jerusalem was destroyed 2000 years ago and the levitical rites were nailed to the Cross. \n> \n>Now everything is a free gift, the more we cast off the old man and put on the new. Strong enough faith loses fear of everything and moves mountains, it is divine power given to mankind. God loves the children of this world and Israel in dispersion, which means everyone.\n\nIs this supposed to be a promotion of Protestantism?","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw07io1","parent_id":"jvzurg6","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"danmilligan","body":"One thing I'm sensing is that you're thinking of Christianity as a monolith, and while that was once true, it hasn't been for a long, long time. So many types of Christianity exist that there will be Christians on opposite sides of nearly any given issue. The true non-negotiables of the religion are extremely minimal, and highly interpretive. Because of this, you can't really say \"Christians are like this\" or \"Christians do that\", because this will apply to SOME Christians, but certainly not all. For a good example, the majority of American Christians are extremely unique from a global perspective, being far more individualistic, and reading the Bible in a slavishly literal fashion, among other things. So if you say \"Christians are anti-LGBTQ\", there are millions and millions of other Christians ready to counter that.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzusf6","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">One thing I'm sensing is that you're thinking of Christianity as a monolith, and while that was once true, it hasn't been for a long, long time. So many types of Christianity exist that there will be Christians on opposite sides of nearly any given issue. The true non-negotiables of the religion are extremely minimal, and highly interpretive.\n\nI'm well aware of the splits within Christianity. What I mention in my post detail is that I have tried and miserably failed to defend my lack of faith from both Catholics and Protestants. I understand that they'd have different ways of thinking regarding lack of faith, but at the end of the day, both defeated me.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw07u6h","parent_id":"jvzusf6","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"GreasyPorkGoodness","body":"You need to dismantle the church hierarchy and not the “existence of god”. \n\nIt’s not that you don’t believe in god, you don’t believe in Christianities following of god. Their church is corrupt, opulent, child molesters, hypocritical, child marriage, judgmental, in Christ like etcetera. \n\nGod very well might exist, if he does he certainly won’t approve of christianity.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzuv92","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"CutiePopIceberg","body":"Christianity is Middle Eastern mythology. Christians hate when you remind them of this.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzv7py","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"JustSomeDude0605","body":"\"I don't believe in that bullshit\"\n\nDebate over.\n\nContrary to your brother's or pastor's wishes, you don't owe them any sort of debate or explanation. Live your life as you want to, not based on what they think you should do. If that means, no religion then stop going to church. \n\nFuck em.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzvaah","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"CriticalThinkingAT","body":"The thing is, there are a mountain of atheist rebuttals as well. Like literally there are so many atheist channels out there to rebutting every Christian argument that it's just a matter of searching and looking for them. Lol. You'll be fine.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzvipb","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">The thing is, there are a mountain of atheist rebuttals as well. Like literally there are so many atheist channels out there to rebutting every Christian argument that it's just a matter of searching and looking for them. Lol. You'll be fine.\n\nCounterpoint: Only a few of these are useful. Most channels appear to be useful only against Protestant pastors who rely on charisma. Catholicism is much harder to debate against as they have 2000 years of church tradition, intellectuals and apologia on their side.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw09z3v","parent_id":"jvzvipb","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"OpenByTheCure","body":"I don't want to be harsh, but I just think you're not very good at debating","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzvw3c","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"I am bad at debating (and most other things). Maybe that's why I always get challenged to debates, because I will lose.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0b11j","parent_id":"jvzvw3c","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Dr_Keyser_Soze","body":"You need to listen to David C. Smalley. Take in a few podcasts and you won’t be disappointed.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzvzk2","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Wintermute815","body":"It’s really not. It depends on circular logic and faith, both of which are critical flaws.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzx8zv","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"j3rdog","body":"Stop trying to debate facts by point counter point. Learn street epistemology. There’s good YouTube channels and subreddits on it.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzxa1z","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Unable-Food7531","body":"You're:\n\n1. Bad at debating in general\n\n2. An unskilled rhetorician \n\n3. Uneducated on the topic you're debating.\n\nThose Three things together mean than any attempt to draw generally-appliable conclusions from your debating losses is doomed to produce bs.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzxmej","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"How can I get all 3 skills when I'm up against people who have so much more knowledge than me? I hate it when I give others a reason to criticise me.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw05k0t","parent_id":"jvzxmej","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"DangForgotUserName","body":"Christians don't have arguments, just elaborate evasions of criticism.\n\nIn order to be religious, or believe in a supernatural god, to some extent, one has to deny certain aspects of science, and also have to deny the foundations of reason and logic. \n\n\nThere are major undemonstrated claims that come with theism:\n\n-a spiritual, divine, or otherwise supernatural realm exists \n\n-there are nonphysical spiritual forces and entities \n -some kind of afterlife exists\n\n-at least humans have souls, which are the spiritual essence \"attached\" to a physical body\n\nEven if all these were demonstrated, we would still have no way of determining which deities were real. These claims are also far from being demonstrated, likely, or even possible. \n\nEven then, we have no way to link such deities to any religion that anyone worships.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzxv11","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Electrical-Rabbit157","body":"It’s not well designed. It’s the worst designed religion in the world actually. The success of Christianity is based around keeping people from learning about other faiths. The moment that happens the VAST majority of them leave christianity for something else. Myself included. \n\nYou have to go at the fundamental hypocrisy of it. The average Christian rants and raves about the Ten Commandments and yet every single one of them break the first 2 commandments daily and most break 3 commandments every Sunday. The average priest breaks the first 4. Then there’s the fact that the Bible is a corrupt text and Christianity as a whole was founded by Paul, a man who is not a prophet, not a disciple, not an apostle, just a random guy who comes out of nowhere and starts preaching that Jesus is God.\n\nThey worship a trinity which is paganism. There is no excuse for it. It’s the same exact belief system as Hindus which are literally the original pagans that Abraham fought against. This trinity also includes a man. That man is considered a prophet but still. This breaks the first commandment. \n\nThey idolize said man and the cross he died on. They wear necklaces with it. They put big gold crosses at the front of their churches and big wooden ones on the outside of them. This breaks the second commandment \n\nThey go to church on Sunday and the vast majority of them believe this is the sabbath. Which directly breaks the fourth commandment.\n\nThe priesthood commits extortion and sometimes even rape in either the name of God or what they lead people to believe is a house of God. This breaks the third commandment \n\nThen you get to the Bible and it’s non existent integrity. There are about 5 major sects of Christianity. Each one has about 40 versions of the Bible. And the average Christian may think this is normal, it’s not. Jews have 1 version of the Torah. Muslims have 1 version of the Quran. Hell even the Hindus only have 1 version of most of their texts. The new testemant is more written by Paul, who is again, not a prophet, than any actual apostle. All of Paul’s letters are included in the vast majority of bibles yet the book of Enoch, book of Jesus Christ, and lost gospel to Peter are considered “uncanon” by the church and have been removed for centuries. That is not a holy text. It may have been a couple thousand years ago but out of 200+ in circulation today, I’d seriously doubt any can be considered uncorrupted.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzyqtq","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"malorane","body":"Isn't this other person either straight up lying or totally misinformed about the Christianity/Catholicism? Like I could be misremembering but I'm pretty sure there are passages that literally give you guidelines about how to treat your slaves and this dude said both have always been against slavery?","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzz7x7","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"CantKeepMeOutYo","body":"You will never win against someone with faith. They will always always always have some other bullshit excusw up their sleeves. That's what makes religion so fucking dangerous: it uses logic when it works and then completely disregards it when logic doesn't work. Don't bother debating christians, they've accepted a parasite into their body that will defend its ability to feed off the host, even if it means killing the host, or YOU.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzzg1h","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"wibbly-water","body":">If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\r \n\r \nIf you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\n\nIgnoring the second proposition for a second I want to propose 2 more reasonable secular arguments;\n\n1. This is true of all religions because their axioms and methods for diving truth are different. They believe, want to believe, will tie all phenomena in with their argument, will ignore Occam's Razor to do so. \n2. If Christianity is better than (some) other religions at doing this it may be because it is a highly evolved system of memes. A meme is the idea equivalent to a gene. Religions are memetic in nature - they are ideologies, ideas about how the world works. Memes compete for space and survival much like genes do. And every time one of its memes is threatened it is forced to either drop that meme and adapt or bolster it to do the same. Look at the iterations of historical Christianity. Where are the puritans today? Even Protestantism evolved out of Catholicism - many will claim that they are barely the same religion.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzzk96","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"DangForgotUserName","body":"The salvation of man is dependent on the suffering of Jesus Christ. His 'blood sacrifice magic' supposedly forgives original sin - doctrine that we know though biology is utterly wrong. (A couple of garden nudists were guilty of rebellious fruit munching, so everyone deserves death or eternal torment?) This makes the theological story around Jesus one where he is scapegoat of a nonexistent forebear. This should undermine the value of Jesus as well as the foundational basis for belief in God.\n\n \n\nFurther, the idea that the only way to forgive is through ritualized punishment? That is petty and immoral. No forgiveness without bloodshed or death. Horrible, ignorant and outdated ideas.\n\n\nThe idea of a messiah, one who will deliver us from the tribulations of the present, is an ancient idea that distracts us from the hard work that must be done to build a better world.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzzkww","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Emotional_platypuss","body":"The problem here is both sides trying to impose beliefs on others. What you believe or don't believe is your problem. You don't need to explain why you don't follow a religion, specially to religious people. Is like them telling you why their religion is so good. Break out of that circle and move on","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0052z","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"notjuan_f_m","body":"This Is the problem with everything lately. \"I am right, you are wrong, and I will continue to tell you until you accept that i am right\"","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw00l9j","parent_id":"jw0052z","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"JackedLilJill","body":"If anything, just from your text and title, the fact that Christians explain themselves fully in the face of debate, should be the reason to change your view.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw00vuq","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"FerdinandTheGiant","body":"For your first debate with your brother, he was just straight up wrong on so much. Christianity is not and does not serve as the basis for morality in the western world or the world as a whole. \n\nMost of the non-western world like in Asia is not heavily Christian and wasn’t for most of their history. They of course are doing just fine. Christian morals have not been consistent nor are they the basis for a basic society. \n\nAdditionally, you don’t need Christianity to explain altruism as it already has a natural explanation. It’s called kin selection and essentially means that it is beneficial to help out family since they carry your genes. This means more of your genes will get passed on. This is likely how it evolved in humans and then developed into what we consider today. Animals do this. Altruism isn’t human alone. \n\nThen you have slavery which the Bible openly says is fine. Leviticus 25:44-46","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw013nj","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"-Strawdog-","body":"Taking a quick look at one or two of these examples, you have a very noticeable habit of accepting a lot of the other person's premises and arguments without pushing back on them at all. As an example, your brother mentions multiple times that altruistic behavior is the direct result of the Christian faith, an argument that is absolutely ridiculous for a bunch of reasons, not the least of which that our closest genetic relatives (chimpanzees and bonobos) exhibit all kinds of altruistic behaviors as part of their highly social lifestyles (and they also don't sacrifice eachother, something he seems weirdly hung up on).\n\nTo be honest, it doesn't look like the people you're debating have good arguments or are good at expressing them, it seems that you are just very new to debate, particularly on this topic. If debating religious folks is something you want to do (you are incredibly unlikely to change their minds even with very good arguments), you can find plenty of solid resources online that break down and refute just about any apologetics you are likely to encounter.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw01pm9","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"lamabaronvonawesome","body":"I have found the opposite to be true. I would recommend reading some books on logic and debate. Having an answer doesn't make it a good answer. I had a debate teacher that used to day \"the definition of a reason is anything I put forth as a reason.\" This essentially means you SAY anything, that doesn't mean it will hold up under scrutiny. You mentioned miracles that a person had given you examples of in their own life. Debate in essence is about definitions, how we define things. Get them to give you the definition of a miracle. I personally would define that as any event that is ONLY explainable by divine intervention. See if their miracles hold up to that.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw02avd","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"kountze","body":"The Church did have some good effects on political and cultural development in Europe - for example the separation of powers came from the Church being a strong counter force to the government for so long, church limited the government in ways that led to values of separation of powers and limited government, unlike China which was much more state dominated and still is today. Protestantism represented not only a change in religion but also a change in how humans think logically - so yeah a lot of good things can be tied to how Protestantism changed how people think. \n\nThat being said, the above certainly is a far cry from saying that Protestantism values will work in every situation or that it can address all of today’s modern problems. Protectionism ideally is something that should be open to interpretation, which modern Christianity has moved away from that. \n\nIn terms of science the Church does not have credible arguments - that’s the main problem. If you think they do, you really haven’t encountered anyone who actually knows the science and microbiology. \n\nAlso, do not confuse correlation and causation. Certain positive developments in society may correlate, but that correlation does not prove causation. \n\n\nThe issue with","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw035en","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Jaderholt439","body":"If I’m debating Christianity, I like to go straight to the main topic- the Resurrection.\n\nMost people I know and love are Christians; I don’t have a problem w/ their religion. I love these people. But what I don’t like are apologists. Every single one that I’ve ever seen is dishonest. Especially when it comes to the Resurrection.\n\nIt’s not hard to believe that a guy named Yeshua, who had a religious following, was crucified. I can even believe he was put in his own tomb, although most were put in a mass grave, it’s wasn’t unheard of. The stone being put to block the tomb and guards sound like they were plot holes being fixed in Matthew, but for arguments sake, I’ll agree to that too.\n\nJesus wasn’t in the tomb when they went to him 3 days later. What is the most likely explanation? Is it, “he must’ve overcome death and ascended, bc he’s God”? I think a Guy Ritchie style heist is way more plausible. ‘They forgot which cave’ is more plausible. Literally anything is more plausible. If they are being honest, they have to say, “I believe it on faith”. Yet, apologists will not say this, therefore they are dishonest, therefore they don’t have an answer for everything.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw03fxs","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Entropy_Drop","body":"LOL on the first link. Christianity didn't opposed slavery, and doesn't have a monopoly on being a good person. It actually was the ideological fundation of american slavery.\n\nHypocrates wasn't christian, gandi neither, and personal freedom, democracy and equality of genders aren't christian values.\n\nThe golden rule (\"don't do to other what you dont want done to yourself\") and the silver rule (\"do to others what you want to recieve from them\" (bdsm, for example)) are not creation of christianity. \n\nSome christian are propagandiced all their life into the worldview of \"all good comes from christ\", which is clearly a big lie. Is kinda justified for them to sell that lie, tho.\n\nAlso, that motto has a counter-part: \"No bad comes from christ\" which is my only explanation to how incredible bigoted people justify their behavior without ever thinking \"are we the badies?\". Anita \"pie-face\" Bryant comes to mind, who, in her own words \"loved homosexuals\".","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw04f2l","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Jade_Skie","body":"TJ Kirk (aka The Amazing Atheist) on YouTube once mentioned \"unfalsifiable hypothesis.\" In other words, Christians spout the argument that miracles, what is said in the Bible, Satan, and God all exist and are as the answer to everything because immediate evidence to the contrary can normally not be produced by their opponent, thus no argument against them can be made. So in their minds, they are right. That is, of course, not how the world/universe actually works.\n\nTo quote Carl Sagan: \"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.\"","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw04j73","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"JuliusErrrrrring","body":"Remember the following truths: most people who claim they are Christians are good people; most people who are good people and claim they are Christian are good because of their ignorance of the Bible, not because of the Bible. The Bible is an awful immoral book and the religion is completely silly. It is pro slavery, pro genocide, pro forced abortion and pro incest. If you are debating anyone who isn't in favor of those things, they may be actually non believers too, they are just too ignorant of their religion to know any better.\n\n​\n\nIt is completely silly and does not hold up to debate. Just some quick obvious random thoughts off the top of my head: They suck at math - claim to have one god yet believe in a holy trinity as well as an evil god. Many Christians claim to be against abortion, yet the Bible actually gives an abortion recipe, god murdered pregnant women in his Noah's Arc genocide, and Jesus forced abortions on Jezebel. Many Christians are anti-trans and anti gay - yet Eve transitioned from a male rib and now they worship a dress wearing dude with two fathers who identifies as bread and wine. Cain and Abel were the original motherfuckers. The whole bible was written by people who never met Jesus and there is zero historical proof that there even was a man named Jesus pretending to be god. It's just a gigantic hoax that's been accepted due to peer pressure because life is easier and you can make more money and get laid easier if you simply play along with this silly marketing scheme.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw05bz4","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Loose-Technology7787","body":"Christianity is designed that way. Christians are programmed in a way via church and such where they hold their belief to a much higher standard than any facts or logic despite a lack of evidence. On of christianity's main taglines is to just have faith in god even though hes done nothing to show you hes there.\n\nDebating a religious person on religion is an unwinnable debate. You cant argue against someones opinion when the only points they will accept are those that align with said opinion. For example, many christians say good and evil only exist because god decides whats good and bad. I might say that life is meaningless, therefore our thoughts and feelings are all that exist making them all that matters. Meaning we get to choose whats moral; however the christian would then just say life isnt meaningless because god gives meaning to life. This will go on for any length of time.\n\nThe only reason atheists win those official televised debates is because theres a mediator keeping nonsense out of it. They keep the religious side from using unreasonable and illogical arguments, which leads to them losing.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw05l8j","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"BuzzyShizzle","body":"That's funny because, I have yet to hear them lose an argument/debate on the atheist experience yet. \n\nIf you haven't heard of it, there is a call-in radio show called \"the atheist experience\" and the entire show is welcoming any religious to call in and challenge them. If you want your view changed, that show will do a much better job than anything else.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw06l99","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Sad_Confidence8941","body":"I agree, Christianity is very well designed. The smartest people alive for many centuries spent their lives defending Christianity (Thomas Aquinas, Saint Augustine, etc). They have been philosophically attacked for years and years and are still here","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw06orq","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"nomad5926","body":"Homie out here saying the altruism isn't a natural thing without Christianity..... 🤣 Bro be saying Meerkats are all Christians? Or Naked Mole Rats?\n\nI will never understand why people have to force religion upon others. But essentially an easy way out is to ask them to provide solid proof that God existed. Logically you cannot not prove a belief. (Like others have said before me). Typically the ones making the claim \"god exists\" have the burden of proof. \n\nAlso in my experience you're not going to convince anyone to stop believing. It's the same reason kids believe in Santa it gives them something. For most people, religion is a source of comfort. It's why, from what I see, older folks are more religious. (Cause you know.... Closer to death... Heaven seems nicer).\n\nIf you just want them to stop harassing you, you can just say that your relationship with God is personal and need not be on disability for others. (You don't have to say the bit that the relationship is non-existent).","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0753r","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Moraulf232","body":"Christianity has an answer for any criticism but the answers are silly and unconvincing just like the religion.\n\nJust ask yourself “has this answer explained why I should believe these assertions with no evidence or has it just made more assertions with no evidence?” and “could this answer be used to justify the existence of a Flying Spaghetti Monster or literally any other deity?” or “is there any evidence that the person I am talking to can imagine that would cause them to change their mind?” etc.\n\nThe philosophical arguments (apologetics) religions use are just fancy noise. There’s nothing there.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw07atx","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"lpuckeri","body":"Theres many reasons why christianity is absolutely absurd, at a childlike and comical level imo. I have equal belief in it than i do Santa. The apologetics for christianity are just excuses for something as rediculous as believing in flying to heaven on a winged horse.\n\nLets remember, we are arguing about. A cosmic jewish god zombie who is his own father and was born a virgin birth to a women impregnated by a holy ghost. \n\nThere is zero evidence for this that is not heresay. Not a single item or record or peice of evidence contemporary to jesus exists. To confirm this laughably absurd story all we have is stories that contradict each other, written in the wrong language, written decades to centuries after the fact, much of which we know was straight up forged and copied from surrounding greek myths and people.\n\nGetting lost in abologetics is exacty meant to make you forget you are proving an absurd thing eith zero evidence, and get caught up in the weeds.\n\n\nReasons. \n\n1. Supernatural events in the bible are empirically impossible to prove. Christians may use awful arguments like minimal facts etc, but these are all comically bad and fallacious. Abuductive reasoning is all we have access to, and that can never demonstrate supernatural events... This alone is enough, as it is logicalltly impossible to demonstrate christianity through our resources.\n\n2. The bible is self contradictory, the trinity and more is exceedingly illogical. By this i mean it literslly violates the laws of logic... and is isnanely stupid.\n\n3. The bible is obvious myth taken from surrounding cultures.\n\n4. There are no decent biblical scholars who think Moses wrote the old testament. Moses clearly never existed and exodus never happened. This is extremely confirmed... there is extreme evidence the base of both judeaism and christianity is 100% made up.\n\n5. People that claim supernatural events or whatever... 1. Does not prove god, or their god... it proves they had something special happen and nothing more. 2. These are nothing more than claims. 3. People claim this shit for every religion, thousands... if you apply this standard as evidence for one... you must for thousands of gods. 4. Once you understand psychology you realize how the brain works snd how easy it is for people to misnterpret things visually and auditory.\n\n6. Religions are not one off inventions. They are all representations and copyings of popular myths at the time. This can be seen in thousands of religions. Just as it is in christianity... the devil and hell doesnt become a thing until Greek influence, things like rising and dying saviours were popular greek myths too at the time of the bible etc. In fact the bible was wirtten in greek, not aramaic, the language Jesis and his follower would have spoken. You see babylonian myths copied into the parts of the bible, when they were written there...you see the bibles hell and devil and apocalyptic influences copying greek myth during the hellenistic period. Religions are copies of surrounding myth and cultures.\n\n7. Apologists often use arguments to prove god that are diestic. Things like the ontological srgument, teleological argument... aside from these being bad arguments, they only prove A God... not christianity. Even if the Kalam is true... the odds of christianity bring true is still zero... it gets you no closer.\n\n8. The bible wasnt written by geniuses. It was written by copying and adapting popular myths, cultures, and laws at the time. From copying ancient semetic religions and near eastern traditions 4000 tears ago, to adapting greek myths 2000 years ago. It also was written of centuries, adapted, edited, revised, forged, faked, reinterpreted thousands of times by hundeds of people. This idea some geniuses wrote this thing like you see it now is childishly ignorant of scholarship and history.\n\n9. There are actually about 94 gospels. 90 of which christians will admit are 100% bullshit mythological stories... yet they somehow think these are the special true 4, because the church leaders centuries ago simply decided so. \n\n10. These excuses and arguments for christianity are no better and no different than the ones Jews will use, or muslims, or Sikhs. You just live in a place around christians most likely. \n\nIts interesting because i have never heard a christian argument to me than is not childishly rediculous imo.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw07u2w","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Inevitable_Spare_777","body":"You can’t have a factual, logical debate with a person who’s worldview doesn’t subscribe to facts and logic","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw08ays","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"drzowie","body":"There is no direct way to argue a Christian out of Christianity, because it is a faith-based system of beliefs. But you *can* demand respect for your own beliefs.\n\nA couple of years ago, I wrote about just how incompatible Christian beliefs are with the scientific worldview. That line of argument is (like any other argument) unlikely to convince a fervent believer -- but may help you to understand that there are real weaknesses in the edifice of Christian thought. \n\nBelow is [copypasta from an early CMV post I made](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/7zy9wp/cmv_you_can_accept_todays_scientific_theory/durqqmi/):","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw08i8h","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"DouglerK","body":"I mean if they didn't the religion would probably be dead by now.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw08xbe","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"joshp23","body":"> If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniouses\n\nAll they have at their disposal are unfalsifiable claims. You can't prove that the invisible dragon in my garage doesn't exist either. The rest is a con act to attribute personal experience to the dragon. \n\nBut unfalsifiability and con tactics aside, wouldn't a genius be able to construct an effective argument *and* compile an internally consistent document at the same time? You have to do mental gymnastics to apologize for the ignorance and inconsistencies in the Bible.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw09c2d","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Crookwell","body":"OR you just aren't a very good critic?\nBecause I can rebuke shitty religious claims all day","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw09wvx","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"redstar15551","body":"Maybe you should give up then? You're not gonna \"Gotcha\" Christianity so leave them alone. Your lack of faith and overabundance of cynicism does not bug anyone the slightest. Don't trap yourself because you view this as an unwinnable battle against some dogmatic close minded religion, when that in and of itself is close minded. There's a modern pushback against religion, Christianity specifically, that has been pushed hard; but Christianity has and will continue to endue.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0a4wk","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Various_Succotash_79","body":"When my brothers were young, they played a game that was very much like Calvinball (if you've never read the comic Calvin and Hobbes, this is a game they made up on the fly). So it was all stuff like \"now the floor is lava so you burn up!\" \"Oh yeah? I throw 60 million tons of dry uce on it and that cools it off\", \"well that was too much and now you're frozen solid!\" Etc. \n\nThat's pretty much what religion is. Your mistake is in trying to make any sense of it.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0b260","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">When my brothers were young, they played a game that was very much like Calvinball (if you've never read the comic Calvin and Hobbes, this is a game they make up on the fly, so it never has the same rules). So it was all stuff like \"now the floor is lava so you burn up!\" \"Oh yeah? I throw 60 million tons of dry ice on it and that cools it off\", \"well that was too much and now you're frozen solid!\" Etc. \n\n!delta\n\nAs you show, you can't get anywhere trying to defend yourself from a religion which is designed to dodge accountability and make opponents lose. It's not designed for a debate, it's designed to be inescapable.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw25sdi","parent_id":"jw0b260","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Collective82","body":"If you are having such a hard time debating it, shouldn’t you consider it’s right and maybe you should look at converting?","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0bbov","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"I have. The problem is no matter how hard I try, I have zero spirituality and a complete inability to be sincerely connected with any religion. I see this as a disability comparable to being unable to because it's such a drag on my life.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw263jo","parent_id":"jw0bbov","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Fluffy_Candle6800","body":"I'll give you a quote from a book I read - \"God is omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent. However, bad things still happen. This means God cannot stop the bad things - he is not omnipotent, God does not know the things are happening - he is not omniscient, or he allows the bad things to happen - he is not benevolent.\"","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0bhc0","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"I've accepted the last one. How can I possibly believe in a benevolent god, when he gives miracles to some and neglects genuine victims, or when the religion he designed has endless excuses and loopholes to dodge all accountability?","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw26dbi","parent_id":"jw0bhc0","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"ItsAll42","body":"I do feel as though you too quickly concede many points that are not accurate or honest, but stated with such confidence they are difficult to rebutt just as confidently without sufficient background knowledge. In fact, some of these claims are just straight up racist, such as claiming altruism is not only a strictly christian virtue, but that many values such as caring for the sick and needy or having basic human decency are strictly Western practices and values.\n\n This is wildly inaccurate to claim, knowledge of history can easily debunk such ludicrous statments, especially considering much of the Western ideology is more focused on individualism where confucianism is more focused on the community as a whole. Buddhism stresses that all beings have inherent worth and challenges the strictly heiarchichal values of confucianism, yet still plenty of emphasis is placed on how to better the community as a whole and being kind for the sake of altruism and kindness without any expectation of personal rewards. You do not have to be a historian or theologian to debunk so much of what this person is claiming, especially in regard to other Abrahamic religions which are incredibly similar to the teachings of Christianity, you know, because they share a common historical and biblical root. While modern interpretations of Abrahamic faiths run the gamut, they are more alike than many of their subscribers would like to admit. \n\nIn fact, I'd argue that Christianity and most of its branches contain more self-serving motives than many religious beliefs, promising prosperity and wealth in heaven as a reward for good behavior. As an agnostic person I do not need a reward for my good behavior. \n\nAs you tried to point out, when this person claims pagans did not care for the sick or other absurd claims, the burden of proof is on them to substantiate such a ridiculous assumption. \n\nThis person comes across as making many intellectually dishonest arguments, and you more or less concede or gloss many of these points without pushback.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0cszb","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">This person comes across as making many intellectually dishonest arguments, and you more or less concede or gloss many of these points without pushback.\n\nThat's because I didn't study history at a tertiary level. See how I'm a frequent visitor to r/AskHistorians - because I'm not smart or knowledgeable about history. Are you suggesting that to defeat Christianity, I'll need a university degree in history?","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw26yyz","parent_id":"jw0cszb","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"FerdinandTheGiant","body":"Most, if not all of the Western values people like to claim are “Judeo-Christian” in origin simply aren’t. For one “Judeo-Christian values” aren’t a thing as these groups have different values, however let’s consider a few things we value in the west. \n\n#Democracy\n\nIn the Bible, democracy is never extolled or even articulated. Instead, there are endless stories of theocratic, authoritarian rule and the divine right of kings. Power is always concentrated; it’s never distributed. In classical Greece, however, Athenians established what is generally recognized as the world’s first democracy around 500 BCE. This predates Christianity and arose with no Jewish influence.\n\n#Common Humanity/ Equality\n\nThis is simply not biblical. In the New Testament, women are forbidden from holding authority over a man, told to be silent in church, and instructed to be obedient and submissive to their husbands. The same word used for submissive in Colossians also is used to describe how slaves should be to their masters. Women can be killed if they’re suspected of having premarital sex; the tenth commandment forbids coveting property, which includes women in the same sentence as houses and oxen; if a woman was raped, she was forced to marry her rapist if the offender paid her father, and on and on it goes.\n\nNon-Israelites or gentiles were forced into slavery and treated as property. This is seen in Leviticus and all over the Hebrew Bible. Slavery was condoned and justified for thousands of years using the Bible. \n\n#10 Commandments\n\nA common argument is that these “laws” are where we derive most of our morals and values in the west. This is rather silly. \n\nFor starters, a lot of the commandments are about idolatry, however other Rules like “thou shall not kill” predate Christianity and Judaism by hundreds of years. Literally any and all functional societies require this rule to be in place. And all over the world you see non-Christian nations follow similar “laws”. This is because they are beneficial for building a society. \n\n#Other religions\n\nOther religions have much stronger moral codes that Christanity. Jainism believes so much in the value of life that they won’t even talk at night because they could accidentally harm an insect. Buddhists have a deep personal desire to self improve while also improving the lives of those around them. Same could be said for taoists.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0dbxm","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"That's the problem though. You assume that Christianity is pro-democracy and pro-equality when history has shown us that they'd gladly throw these concepts under the bus if it were in the way of their religion.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw27njn","parent_id":"jw0dbxm","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Circular360Angles90","body":"People often conflate these two completely separate ideas. God/Higher Power - whatever you want to call it, with - Religion. \n\nReligion, in its limited ability tries to use the concept of God in an attempt to sway your reasoning capabilities towards their doctrine. God, however is completely separate from Religion.\n\nReligion just seems to have a Monopoly on the word. People feel as though believing in a God or Gods means they should adhere to some way of “knowing” their God. - which is all that a religion really does. But rest assured that it is someone elses ideas you are digesting. Theres nothing wrong with consulting people whom you believe to be wise or have more experience, but if you start feeling like they have some sort of answer that you cant quite grasp, then your talking to the wrong people. \n\nThis is not something that anyone can “show” you or “debate” you about. \n\nGod isnt in a book. God isnt an idea you learn from the pulpit. God isnt reason nor logic. God isnt bad. God isnt good. \n\nYou are engaging in a debate where their is nothing to debate, thus you always be “outwitted.”\n\nThink for yourself, walk your own path. You’ll fall flat on your face initially, perhaps for many years and, if you can muster up strength to get up on your own and not ask anybody why you fell and why it hurts so bad - you’ll stop feeling “outwitted.”","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0f9fa","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">You are engaging in a debate where their is nothing to debate, thus you always be “outwitted.”\n\n>Think for yourself, walk your own path. You’ll fall flat on your face initially, perhaps for many years and, if you can muster up strength to get up on your own and not ask anybody why you fell and why it hurts so bad - you’ll stop feeling “outwitted.”\n\nIsn't this the problem though? Most people can earn external respect being just who they are. In contrast, I have to prove my respectability, and prove why I have valid views, and I always lose.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw2llv2","parent_id":"jw0f9fa","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"CIABrainBugs","body":"If God was real, his actions would prevent me from giving him any respect. I don't care if he's real.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0fl5d","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Nghtmare-Moon","body":"Read Carl Sagan’s demon haunted world. It’s the best essay to counter all religious arguments","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0g6mu","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"GainPornCity","body":"It's not that there's a rebuttle for everything. There's just a different lens to look through. \n\nSay an atheist has blue shades on and sees everything as blue. Christian sees everything as red. However, the one commonality between the Athiest and the Christian is the human construct..thereby despite being in different mindsets, they both acknowledge phenomena as they unfold in the world\n\nNo matter how much blue you speak regarding world phenomena, the Christian will respond to *each* phenomenon with a red response. \n\n\nThis phenomenon, you look at through a blue lens and say: \"The Christian has an excuse for everything, no matter how blue, there's always gonna be some red to speak on from their side.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0gw4r","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Realistic-Cat4116","body":"The only rebuttal you need is: \"Prove it.\" Keep repeating that over and over again. They can't, you win, end of argument.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0h3pm","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Okami_The_Agressor_0","body":"Debating things that are designed to explain all with a basis in non-falsifiable statements is impossible. Religions are all memetic viruses that are meant to superimpose a false sense of the world on their followers, there are other belief systems that do the same that don't involve god but a well designed memetic virus can't be successful with out being impervious to logic or ways to side step rational thinking. That being said many modern political beliefs are structured similarly and operate in a similar fashion to religions. \n\nReligion imparts a base line culture and morality to people that allows for a more respectful and peaceful society. Part of what make that possible is ideological sanitation of a populace. Diversity of ways of life sparks conflict and religion solves that a good portion of the time. You could potentially see how many recent events have been the result of diverse culture and belief systems, so any derivation of heterogenization of society would logically be rejected by such belief systems with understandable cause.\n\nI believe people should be able to do what ever they please but when there is no respect in society people seek control from government to maintain the peace. So the easiest way for a country to stay free is to remain an ethno/ideological-state, or very slow and controlled change. When accounting these things you must satisfy for the lowest common denominator which will inevitable reject things on the basis of tribal instinct.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0k3j1","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"ApeMummy","body":"You’re outwitted because you lack wit not because christianity is special.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0k3sk","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"SeymoreButz38","body":"1st is a citation needed. Second was a semantic argument. Third is a no true scotsman fallacy.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0kns0","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Ecoronel1989","body":"I think the issue here is your brother does a few things to confuse you.\n1. Switching between defending spirituality and Christianity.\n2. Berating you with words so it's hard for you to rebuttal everything that is said (an overwhelming tactic).\n3. Throws out unprovable claims that are opinions as facts.\n\nFor #1, there's a big difference between spirituality and Christianity. Christianity asserts it is the one true religion, all others are wrong and lead to a wrong lifestyle. Spirituality is a general idea about believing in something outside oneself. To Christians, spirituality is paganism (unless it's Christianity itself) and therefore wrong and cannot be accepted or celebrated. So your brother can't simply pick and choose to say spirituality is good for the health and then switch to say Islam is not a good religion as these are contradictory statements.\n\nBut this issue is linked to #2, he berates arguments with a ton of words and makes multiple \"points\" at once. This is a similar tactic to what Donald Trump has used during his time as a politician. Simply overload the other side with a word soup, throwing out multiple arguments that are each wrong, but takes effort to debate each of them. By the time you gather your thoughts about the first wrong statement, he's moved on to the next 3, it's overwhelming.\n\nWhich leads to the last point, that is throwing out unprovable claims in the midst of his word soup. Claims such as there would be no morality without religion are unprovable for modern science since we have had religion in all cultures for over 2000 years, so it's hard to test this \"fact\". Another one that comes to mind is saying there's objective morality in the Bible, which you argued is not because of the Bible. Another counterargument is that the interpretation to the Bibles teachings changes across generations (i.e. slavery allowed for priests) and is therefore not objective, but his claim is unprovable in general as you can only offer up counter examples he can claim we're people not following the \"truth\".\n\nOverall, I think you're doing better than you think at debating this issue. The larger issue is what others have pointed out, that you don't have to win this argument, simply live by what you believe is true like they do.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0m923","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"TimeFliesFaster","body":"It doesn’t have a good rebuttal as to why Jesus is the prophesied messiah of a religion that believes in a single unitary god. Especially when Jesus didn’t have the right ancestors and failed to meet the applicable prophesies (ie dead all coming back to life, temple being restored for all time, diaspora returning, war coming to permanent end, and entire world embracing scripture in messiah’s lifetime)","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0sjyl","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"David_Warden","body":"You are trying to prove a negative which is a waste of time.\n\nThey are the ones making the improbable claims so the burden of proof lies with them. \n\nIf they continue to pester you, ask them to prove it.\n\nI think you will find that it boils down to belief in the highly improbable that is not adequately supported by either evidence or reasoning.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw1cnr9","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"SaltiestRaccoon","body":"Sure. They have rebuttals. They're just not as good as you think they are. And they tend to be the same rebuttals over and over.\n\nI mean just to refute the ones you were hit with... In the first example, he paints the 'pagan' world monolithically while citing the worst examples from many different cultures, while kind of also ignoring that many of those things also apply to Christian nations. Pretty sure the weak and poor weren't running Medieval England, for instance. Likewise slaves were absolutely still a thing among Christians... the slaves just couldn't also be Christian. There were Christian Germanic warriors pillaging right along with the rest of them. Finally virtually any civilization that has kept slaves does in fact have laws about how they can be treated. It can certainly even be argued that serfdom is still just slavery but called something else to make it acceptable, as people can still be bought and sold, they just count as part of the land instead and likewise must work for their lord or face abuse or death. Sounds a lot like slavery to me.\n\nAltruism is in fact a part of human nature. It evolved because we are a social species and we are inclined to act for the good of our group, as our group is beneficial to our survival. There's a [great example](https://www.upi.com/Archives/1987/11/04/Cavemen-took-care-of-physically-disabled/5137563000400/) of a cave man skeleton with some pretty crippling deformities, who could not have hunted for himself that lived to old age. That means his tribe or his family unit was caring for him despite the fact he was a burden. And this is humanity in the stone age, at our least civilized. The Gauls, as well routinely collected a portion of taxes to help pay for their disabled citizens (though in Rome, it was preached if not always practiced that disabled children should be put to death.)\n\nIn a lot of instances he just seems ignorant on history and expects you to go along with it. A lot of it is very gish-gallupy too. He says so many wrong things that there's no way to correct them all without getting so bogged down with corrections that you can never make a point of your own, or even refute all of his errors. Don't allow that. Insist on arguing one point at a time.\n\nReally I think it's gaps in your knowledge more than Christianity being particularly difficult to criticize. I find it quite easy.","date":"2023-08-14","id":"jw3kj7g","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}]],"string":"[\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"DeadCupcakes23\",\n \"body\": \"Why does it matter if Christianity has a rebuttal for something? You can criticise the bible and Christianity based on what it says and the actions done in its name (context depending).\\n\\nPeople have moral values without Christianity and most things people appreciate nowadays are not inherent to Christianity, for example the bible allows slavery.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzggd4\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">Why does it matter if Christianity has a rebuttal for something? You can criticise the bible and Christianity based on what it says and the actions done in its name (context depending).\\n\\nBecause losing a debate due to their rebuttals makes me look stupid. Also, if you follow the links to their arguments, even the atrocities done in its name don't count because those fall under \\\"false prophets\\\". \\n\\nIt's like the Bible was written with this possibility in mind to entrap us.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzh2ui\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzggd4\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"tipoima\",\n \"body\": \"Christianity *was* fabricated, but not by geniuses. \\nYou're fighting against over two thousand years worth of apologetics, where all the weakest arguments have been pruned away. \\nHowever, as expected of something that isn't actually true, those arguments are often plainly wrong, be it due to logical fallacies, appeals to unknown, obtuse philosophy you probably don't know you don't subscribe to, no-true-scotsmanning, e.t.c.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzh8ep\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">However, as expected of something that isn't actually true, those arguments are often plainly wrong, be it due to logical fallacies, appeals to unknown, obtuse philosophy you probably don't know you don't subscribe to, no-true-scotsmanning, e.t.c.\\n\\nThis is exactly what they do. The problem is that \\\"I don't know\\\" is not an acceptable answer to them ([see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvhr81y/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)), whereas they already have something up their sleeve to entrap me. \\n\\nAs you mentioned, with 2000 years of experience creating answers, I even if I am able to point out something wrong or intellectually dishonest, they'll still have an answer for that, forcing me to spend yet more time and effort to come up with an answer. And I am not intelligent enough to create an answer for everything they throw at me, so I'm trapped.\\n\\nIt's an uphill battle, and one that can easily be lost. Until we can come up with a rebuttal they can't defeat, there will always be a risk that secular society and LGBT rights might be defeated.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzhurp\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzh8ep\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Watchyobackistan\",\n \"body\": \"Not really, most of their \\\"rebuttals\\\" are stuff like \\\"god doesn't give us all the answers\\\" and \\\"Don't worry jesus loves you\\\" Non-answers.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzhdab\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"MercurianAspirations\",\n \"body\": \"But why should you give a shit? If you have conviction in your own beliefs, it shouldn't matter whether or not you can convince others using your super debater skillz or not. After all, if somebody were sufficiently dumb or insane, it would be impossible to convince them of the truth, no matter how clear and apparent the truth were; therefore, whether or not a thing is widely believed and people are readily convinced of its truth is not a guide to truth. When there was only one person on the earth who believed in heliocentrism they were still right, and the geocentrists were still wrong. The geocentrists had answers for every single objection, and they won every single debate, yet, they were still wrong. \\n\\nMoreover, it isn't that Christianity is super well designed or anything. It's just that people who have strongly held convictions are not available to be convinced by facts and logic. That's just how people are: they do not actually change their minds that much.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzhezx\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">But why should you give a shit?\\n\\nBecause I don't want my stances to look stupid. I was once likened to an anti-vaxxer for not being able to provide evidence to back my lack of faith.\\n\\n> If you have conviction in your own beliefs, it shouldn't matter whether or not you can convince others using your super debater skillz or not. \\n\\nConviction in your own beliefs doesn't make one right. Besides, their side also has a firm conviction in their beliefs.\\n\\n>When there was only one person on the earth who believed in heliocentrism they were still right, and the geocentrists were still wrong. The geocentrists had answers for every single objection, and they won every single debate, yet, they were still wrong.\\n\\nScience doesn't care about number of believers, what matters is the evidence. And in the case of heliocentrism, it was proven right by overwhelming evidence. I wish I had overwhelming evidence to back my lack of faith.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzih4p\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzhezx\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Mr-Bitter\",\n \"body\": \"Send your brother my way. I know of a way to convince him that it was Satan that wrote the Bible and can kill every single one of his arguments. I would thoroughly enjoy a civilized religious debate.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzhg91\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"ApocalypseYay\",\n \"body\": \">CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\\n\\nThis makes zero sense. Rebuttals require logic and facts, and there are only apologia and special pleasing fallacy described herein. \\n\\nLet's start from the basic - where is the evidence for chris, the alleged son of god, and somehow also god, that killed himself to please himself? There is zero historical evidence for this event, before we even get to the easily debunked claims of miracles, or the plainly immoral laws being promulgated as divine commandments.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzhig9\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">where is the evidence for chris,\\n\\n[Most historians accept that Jesus Christ existed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus). The rest of the biblical story isn't accepted by historians.\\n\\n>before we even get to the easily debunked claims of miracles,\\n\\n[I miserably failed at convincing someone that I don't believe in miracles](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvai6qm/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). How would you convince him?\\n\\n> or the plainly immoral laws being promulgated as divine commandments.\\n\\nHow would you convince them that their side is immoral? They have methods up their sleeve to dismiss the malice conducted in the name of Christianity, and justify the anti-LGBT commandments.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzj8qx\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzhig9\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"physioworld\",\n \"body\": \"The most important concept you have to remember is the burden of proof. It’s not up to you to prove the Christianity ISNT TRUE, it’s up to them to prove that it IS TRUE. So if they can’t prove their own religion you need to accept it, you don’t have to worry about disproving their beliefs. \\n\\nA good way to illustrate this, is whether they would accept comparable claims with comparable evidence from other religions. So if they claim that Christianity is true because it says so in the bible, ask whether you should also accept Islam because it says so in the Quran.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzhlry\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">The most important concept you have to remember is the burden of proof. It’s not up to you to prove the Christianity ISNT TRUE, it’s up to them to prove that it IS TRUE. So if they can’t prove their own religion you need to accept it, you don’t have to worry about disproving their beliefs.\\n\\nBut that's the problem - they consider themselves as proving it is true. For example, one guy who told me of miracles he received - [and I lacked a sufficient rebuttal to convince him he's wrong](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvai6qm/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzjexi\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzhlry\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Adam__B\",\n \"body\": \"You don’t have to defend not believing in something that is invisible, utterly silent, immeasurable, illogical, unscientific, undetectable and untestable. The burden is on them to prove a positive, not you a negative.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzi1gp\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"OrangeBlancmange\",\n \"body\": \"Why do you think you are losing? They obviously haven’t convinced you in these arguments and just falling back to faith (which is all they really have) doesn’t ‘win’ anything in any meaningful way. You won’t be able to argue them out of their faith so you can’t ‘win’ either. Ultimately it’s not an argument in the philosophical sense - they aren’t engaging in good faith and simply will not change their minds regardless of what you say.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzi24f\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"> they aren’t engaging in good faith and simply will not change their minds regardless of what you say.\\n\\nBad faith arguments are like doping in sports - they make it easier for them to win. You just need to be a good enough debater to win despite the disadvantage.\\n\\n>Why do you think you are losing? \\n\\nBecause I failed to be that \\\"good enough debater\\\". Any argument I can throw at them is utterly crushed and thrown back at me.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzk4ge\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzi24f\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Cayowin\",\n \"body\": \"How did you lose that debate?\\n\\nSlavery - Christians used the bible to promote the slave trade\\n\\n[https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/01/a-harvard-exhibit-on-slavery-and-christianity/#:\\\\~:text=In%20the%20modern%20era%2C%20Christianity,often%20used%20to%20justify%20slavery](https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/01/a-harvard-exhibit-on-slavery-and-christianity/#:~:text=In%20the%20modern%20era%2C%20Christianity,often%20used%20to%20justify%20slavery).\\n\\nYes there were abolitionists, but if the same text can be used to both justify and condemn an action how is that text a good moral guide?\\n\\nThe bible explicitly allows the owning of humans as property. So either god is not unchanging or he changed his mind. \\n\\n1 Peter 2:18, Saint Peter writes \\\"Slaves, be subject to your masters with all reverence, not only to those who are good and equitable but also to those who are perverse.\\\"\\n\\nYes they have prepared apologetics, it just means you need to do more research. Remember they have no evidence for their claims beyond personal gut feelings and a collection of contradictory, fictional and historic works.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzi8a8\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">Slavery - Christians used the bible to promote the slave trade\\n\\nI've miserably failed when using the \\\"what about slavery argument\\\" - it's in the link following \\\"It all started 3 years ago\\\". Sure, I could point out the pro-slavery parts, but they'll have a reason why that bit is irrelevant or misinterpreted. It's exhausting, finding every argument to throw at them, and having each one of those utterly crushed with more rebuttals thrown your way.\\n\\n>Yes they have prepared apologetics, it just means you need to do more research. Remember they have no evidence for their claims beyond personal gut feelings and a collection of contradictory, fictional and historic works.\\r \\n\\r\\n\\nI tried pointing out to someone that I don't believe in his \\\"miracle\\\". [My attempt failed miserably](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvai6qm/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzkhnt\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzi8a8\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Augnelli\",\n \"body\": \"What is the rebuttal for the Ark? What did the carnivores eat? How did the Kangaroos and Koalas make it up from Australia? What about fresh water fish? How much space was designated for JUST the elephants food?\\n\\nYou don't need to debate every detail, just enough to invalidate the core; the truth on which they base their faith.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzikz2\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">What is the rebuttal for the Ark? What did the carnivores eat? How did the Kangaroos and Koalas make it up from Australia? What about fresh water fish? How much space was designated for JUST the elephants food?\\n\\nThat's the problem - even since the medieval era, most Christians disavowed biblical literalism, because biblical literalism is easier to poke holes into. Instead, they've come up with apologia, and now, with over 2000 years of apologia to defend against, it's become an unwinnable fight.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzlcvy\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzikz2\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"ch0cko\",\n \"body\": \"No. I am a frequent debater on subs like r/DebateReligion and r/DebateAnAtheist and everything you've said here is just... no. The vast majority of arguments for theism or counterarguments against arguments against theism, generally lead to special pleading or other fallacies.\\n\\nHere's one post I recently made: [https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/15pjew5/extraordinary\\\\_claims\\\\_need\\\\_extraordinary\\\\_evidence/](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/15pjew5/extraordinary_claims_need_extraordinary_evidence/) which then links to another one of my posts that goes more in-depth: [https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/15ey939/if\\\\_religious\\\\_beliefs\\\\_were\\\\_subject\\\\_to\\\\_consistent/](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/15ey939/if_religious_beliefs_were_subject_to_consistent/)\\n\\nA lot of what Christianity said is very similar to other religions and old mythologies. It has a generic reward-punishment system/carrot and stick system, that is, a hell and heaven. On top of that, all of the claims in Christianity hold no good evidence with most being anecdotal. Most arguments for Christianity are not Christian-specific and more so just theism in general. Even then, those thesitic arguments lead to either, 1. fallacies, or 2. only making theism \\\"more likely,\\\" but even then, these arguments have counters.\\n\\nThey were not geniuses. A little clever, but they essentially copied other religions and mythologies and is a cookie-cutter religion. Christianity isn't wide spread just because of how \\\"logical\\\" and \\\"sound\\\" it is; indoctrination or generationally passing the idea down is a big part of it. There are also contradictions in the Bible which can be found at this website: [https://www.lyingforjesus.org/Bible-Contradictions/](https://www.lyingforjesus.org/Bible-Contradictions/)\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzirf5\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">They were not geniuses. A little clever, but they essentially copied other beliefs and mythologies and is a cookie-cutter religion. Christianity isn't widespread just because of how \\\"logical\\\" and \\\"sound\\\" it is; indoctrination or generationally passing the idea down is a big part of it. There are also contradictions in the Bible which can be found at this website: https://www.lyingforjesus.org/Bible-Contradictions/\\n\\nI wasn't implying that Christianity was \\\"logical\\\" and \\\"sound\\\". I was implying it was successful because it has so many tricks up its sleeve. It may be full of lies, but for every one I point out, I'll get one or more rebuttals thrown my way.\\n\\nThink of it as being like in the middle of a dense minefield. Whoever laid the minefield might not have a \\\"logical\\\" and \\\"sound\\\" reason for it, but any step you could take will blow up in your face.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzlzr1\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzirf5\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"xper0072\",\n \"body\": \"Just because someone has an answer for everything doesn't mean that the answer is a good answer. Your inability to properly debate the topic does not mean that the other side is correct in any way.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzj07m\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">Your inability to properly debate the topic does not mean that the other side is correct in any way.\\n\\nI wasn't saying the other side was correct. My point is that they are impossible to defeat and are good at ensnaring their critics.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzmc3l\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzj07m\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"razvanght\",\n \"body\": \"In my experience, Christian s believe that God is real because they feel He is real. Then you can ask them whether a person of a different religion can also use the same method (I feel Zeus is real because I feel Him) to conclude that a different god is real. Christians generally agree that that person used the same method (feeling based) to reach an opposite conclusion (Zeus, not God, is real). In my discussions at least, this argument works in that it gives people pause. Of course, it does not change their belief immediately because they have been holding it for some time but I feel like it adds a seed of doubt.\\n\\nDo you know the official Christian response against this line of argument?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzj0m8\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">In my experience, Christian s believe that God is real because they feel He is real. Then you can ask them whether a person of a different religion can also use the same method (I feel Zeus is real because I feel Him) to conclude that a different god is real. \\n\\nHow can I get them to accept the argument that \\\"oh I don't feel God is real, so don't force me to go to church\\\"? Because that argument always failed me in the past. Also, on a tangent, how are you able to \\\"feel\\\" Zeus?\\n\\n>adds a seed of doubt.\\n\\nPlanting seeds of doubt is a great political strategy. For example, in Australia, we have an upcoming referendum on constitutional indigenous recognition - and because the No side is so good at planting seeds of doubt, the Yes side is losing despite having academia and the arts sector on its side. \\n\\nBut back to the point, I tried planting seeds of doubt and failed miserably. The Christians I've had to defend my opinions from don't merely consider themselves as \\\"feelings based\\\", they consider their views as backed by literature (the Bible).\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzmy3i\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzj0m8\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Apprehensive_Box3199\",\n \"body\": \"I dropped my Catholicism at 21 after learning basic logic at University. In year 6 whilst at a Catholic school, we were given a Catholic Catechism - literally the manual for being a good Catholic. Most of the book is written in question-and-answer format. This is indoctrination 101. The first 3 questions are, and I quote:\\n\\n>1. Question: Who made the world? \\n Answer: God made the world. \\n> \\n>2. Q. Who is God? \\n> \\n> A. God is the Creator of heaven and earth and of all things and the Supreme Lord of all. \\n> \\n>3. Q. How do we know there is a God? \\n> \\n> A. We know that there is a God by the things that He made.\\n\\nRight there; in the first 3 question-and-answers is a Circular Argument. The entire basis of the Catechism is premised on a Circular Argument. If nothing else, the entire point of Catholicism is to justify the original statement that God exists.\\n\\nI looked through the whole of the Catechism highlighting anything I still believed. I highlighted a single sentence in the preface about doing unto others etc... NOTHING else.\\n\\nBefore you have a go at me for not knowing what a circular argument until I was 21 - I went to Catholic schools for all of high school and it is in their best interests NOT to teach that and it was the 80s. That's my excuse and I sticking to it.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzjc23\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">Right there; in the first 3 question-and-answers is a Circular Argument. The entire basis of the Catechism is premised on a Circular Argument. If nothing else, the entire point of Catholicism is to justify the original statement that God exists. \\n> \\n>I looked through the whole of the Catechism highlighting anything I still believed. I highlighted a single sentence in the preface about doing unto others etc... NOTHING else. \\n> \\n>Before you have a go at me for not knowing what a circular argument until I was 21 - I went to Catholic schools for all of high school and it is in their best interests NOT to teach that and it was the 80s. That's my excuse and I sticking to it.\\n\\nIn my experience, pointing out the circular argument leads to one of 2 outcomes:\\n\\n1. Getting more apologia that I am unable to defeat\\n2. The \\\"*Do you have a better explanation?*\\\" rebuttal\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvznrln\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzjc23\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Simbabz\",\n \"body\": \"The most important story of the bible is Jesus ressurecction, the gospels contradict each other in the telling of the story, hardly designed by geniuses.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzktxv\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">The most important story of the bible is Jesus ressurecction, the gospels contradict each other in the telling of the story, hardly designed by geniuses.\\n\\nNot sure what Protestants say, but Catholicism claims that slight differences with the same overall story prove it's written by real people observing the same things. We can accuse them of using a dodgy argument, but it still wouldn't undermine their side.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzp1ei\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzktxv\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"vote4bort\",\n \"body\": \"I think you're just trying way too hard in these debates and starting from the wrong point. You're coming at them like religion is something that can be proved through debate when it fundamentally can't. \\nThe religious rebuttal for every point will always be essentially the same. That is they'll say \\\"well I believe this I so\\\". And you can't argue with that because its not a statement that can be argued against.\\n\\nWhat can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzkuyc\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.\\n\\nThe problem is when they think they have evidence and you think they don't. [Here's an example with a Protestant](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jv9g3kt/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3), and we can't agree on anything.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzp2i6\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzkuyc\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"sapphireminds\",\n \"body\": \"You seem to be a poor debater. You are accepting a lot of arguments as true when they aren't. \\n\\nAll children are born atheists. Coincidentally, they just happen to usually believe in the god(s) their parents/community believes it. \\n\\nAnd personally, if there is a god with the power ascribed to it by the bible, I would refuse to worship it. \\n\\nYou also need to educate yourself about the null hypothesis.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzl8ri\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">You seem to be a poor debater. You are accepting a lot of arguments as true when they aren't.\\r\\n\\nI don't accept their arguments as true. I accept them as difficult to defeat.\\n\\n>And personally, if there is a god with the power ascribed to it by the bible, I would refuse to worship it.\\n\\nI wouldn't want to worship such a God either. [I've told a Protestant that if I were to accept that he indeed received a miracle, it would still prove that the Christian god is unjust](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvkkegk/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). But that argument still failed to sway him.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzqf91\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzl8ri\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"-paperbrain-\",\n \"body\": \"What you seem to be saying is just that you are not able, with the mere power of logic, to get Christians to abandon their belief.\\n\\nI hate to break it to you, but this is not a particular quality of Christianity. Anything people are dug in on will face this hill. Not only will you encounter it with every religion, but you won't argue many people out of their political doctrine, flat earth belief, or whether they side with Ross or Rachel on friends. People have rebuttals for everything about many totally conflicting positions. It's part of having strong beliefs and giving it some thought. And religions in particular have had a long time and tons of resources to give it thought.\\n\\nThat doesn't mean there's no room for criticism. Just that your expectation about change is ridiculously optimistic.\\n\\nHowever, regardless of how your personal debates are going, people are leaving Christianity in droves, partly because they don't find those rebuttals to critique to be logically, morally or emotionally satisfying. The fastest growing religious affiliation is \\\"none\\\".\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzlzcb\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">That doesn't mean there's no room for criticism. Just that your expectation about change is ridiculously optimistic.\\n\\nSometimes, I'm challenged to debate when I'm not looking for one (see my first link in the post details). I wasn't expecting to change anyone's views, just successfully defend my decision, and I failed even that.\\n\\n>However, regardless of how your personal debates are going, people are leaving Christianity in droves, partly because they don't find those rebuttals to critique to be logically, morally or emotionally satisfying. The fastest growing religious affiliation is \\\"none\\\".\\n\\n[Christianity is still growing overall](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_population_growth). Even if it's not growing in the Western World, this shrinkage is negated by growth outside the Western World.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzs5r5\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzlzcb\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"wrongfulness\",\n \"body\": \"What a waste of time\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzmu4k\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 2,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"The_White_Ram\",\n \"body\": \"This isn't hard. Christianity literally endorses slavery.\\n\\nIf you believe slavery is wrong then that's the only argument you need.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzniyg\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">This isn't hard. Christianity literally endorses slavery. \\n> \\n>If you believe slavery is wrong then that's the only argument you need.\\n\\nI tried using such an argument. [It backfired](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvztyn7\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzniyg\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"ElPwnero\",\n \"body\": \"I like the one Muslims use:\\\\\\nThe word of allah is perfect and if you find inconsistencies, then it’s your human brain that’s incapable of understanding the true meaning.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzoket\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">I like the one Muslims use:\\r \\n> \\n>The word of allah is perfect and if you find inconsistencies, then it’s your human brain that’s incapable of understanding the true meaning.\\n\\nI mean, they're basically insulting your intelligence. But isn't that a great bad faith tactic, dodging accountability by accusing your opponent of being too dumb to understand? I can't imagine myself faring any better debating a Muslim than debating a Christian.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzvglo\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzoket\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"indigoneutrino\",\n \"body\": \"The interesting thing is I've had the opposite experience. Plenty of experiences online and in person where they can barely rebut *anything* to the point that I've had a minister apologise she can't answer my questions satisfactorily. I've seen no-one rebut or even explain why the crucifixion makes sense without legitimising blood sacrifice. It just constantly defaults to \\\"Jesus paid for our sins,\\\" without explaining why the death of an innocent third party was accepted as a valid payment within a supposedly just system.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzppfh\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Pichkuchu\",\n \"body\": \">It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted\\n\\nJust because you got outwitted doesn't mean the other side was right, they were, in fact, blatantly wrong. Christianity is just as guilty of atrocities as any religion. Keep in mind that Christianity is 2000 years old and they enslaved people until 1860 and they had to be \\\"convinced\\\" by war to give it up. They genocided native populations in America and colonized Asia and Africa. There was inquisition. They burned people for heresy, including scientists. They weren't different from other big religions or even pagans. The modern view of the world and humanity encompasses non Christian populations too and one could argue that it's in fact the result of secularism.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzqu5n\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"StrangeAssonance\",\n \"body\": \"I’m curious why you think one has to prove God exists? \\n\\nAlso, when Jesus was on earth the Jews kept asking for a sign from Him. They were blind to what he was doing with His ministry. The world is blind, so when you try to have these arguments that you feel you can’t win, I think you aren’t ever going to win them. I can show you God through my words and deeds but if you are blind to that, you won’t see what’s there to see.\\n\\nJesus repeatedly talks about how blind and deaf people are to God and his word.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzr1ue\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">Also, when Jesus was on earth the Jews kept asking for a sign from Him. They were blind to what he was doing with His ministry. The world is blind, so when you try to have these arguments that you feel you can’t win, I think you aren’t ever going to win them. I can show you God through my words and deeds but if you are blind to that, you won’t see what’s there to see.\\n\\nThis is why I see my inability to believe as a disability comparable to being unable to read.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzzkhs\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzr1ue\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"mo_ff\",\n \"body\": \"You can have faith that your monthly bills will be paid whilst you have no money or means to do so OR you can actually have the money. One will work. The other will leave you with no utilities. Full stop.\\n\\nIn a debate with a Christian you would encounter, \\\"Oh, but have you no faith a brother in Christ would not help you?\\\" And then a large quantity of scriptural examples would be brought forth from whatever version of the bible they are most familiar with.\\n\\nAs others have stated, the deck is stacked. If you can approach the conversation with your family in a civil manor, stop going to church. Believe what makes you happy and mentally healthy so long as it doesn't hurt others.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzr2rx\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"HansPGruber\",\n \"body\": \"You need to read some Thomas Paine my friend. A renegade if the atomic age.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzrn0v\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Morasain\",\n \"body\": \"Couple things.\\n\\nThe first thing is that burden of proof is with the person making a claim - Christians in this case.\\n\\nThe second thing is - you don't need to refute the religion itself, because you can't.\\n\\nUsually, if you bring up things like pastors being molesters, or the crusades, or witch burnings, Christians will commit a No True Scotsman fallacy. \\\"These pastors aren't *real* Christians.\\\" You don't need to refute that argument because it is in itself wrong - but if you want, you can always go the path of saying that everyone in the church is, in the end, appointed by God.\\n\\nThe easiest way to reject Christianity is to instead reject God, though. You don't even need to prove that he's bad or anything - you need to use your own morality to reject the idea that a god like depicted in Christianity can be a god you want to believe in.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzrwx0\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"hdhddf\",\n \"body\": \"you don't need to convince them, they're arguing from a position of ignorance and indoctrination, you can't argue with that because their arguments aren't built on logic or sound reasoning.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzs63u\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Huffers1010\",\n \"body\": \"Let's do it by example. What did they have a rebuttal for that you couldn't respond to?\\n\\nMy suspicion is that they really didn't.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzt6nt\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"misersoze\",\n \"body\": \"Just say: “hey I also met a Muslim, a Mormon, a Jew and a Hindu. They all make the exact same arguments as you do about why their religion is the correct one and they all say they have the one true religion. So why should I join yours over their’s”.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvztpz1\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Potential_Cod_8473\",\n \"body\": \"They might win a debate but the world still is a shitty place full of diseases, suffering, birth defeacts. \\n\\nIt only prove how dishonest someone is to defend a claim it was created my omnipotent and omniscient being. \\n\\nChristianity was falsified many times\\nAdam and Eve? Fairytale\\nGreat Flood? Fairytale\\nBabel's tower? Fairytale\\nExocus? Fairytale \\nRessurection? Really improbable\\n\\nThe fact that the scripture has to be interpreted in the face of new evidence like why would omnipotent God need 4 bilions years to create highly imperfect and miserable beings or why universe is 93 bilion light years wide and we are limited by a speed of light is a powerful evidence against revelation.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvztt3e\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"the_internet_clown\",\n \"body\": \"Just because someone says something in response doesn’t make it a good rebuttal\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzugyn\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Relevant_Maybe6747\",\n \"body\": \"Christianity doesn’t have a rebuttal against Judaism - they’ve tried and tried to kill us and never succeeded\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzuj4l\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Is that really a good argument though? By that logic, Islam doesn't have a rebuttal against Christianity either (or vice versa).\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw075ml\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzuj4l\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Scott_The_Protogen\",\n \"body\": \"Why \\\"debate\\\" someone's faith anyways? Unless they're being a jerk about it like in the last part. I always just have that whole live and let live thing (Even if some fanatics might not be that way either). I know you say some of these people come to you with the debates, but I feel like just giving a solid \\\"I don't want to talk about it\\\" or \\\"My views aren't going to change\\\" might work, even if they do continue to badger you regarding it, It doesn't have to be a winning-losing game.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzullx\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">Why \\\"debate\\\" someone's faith anyways? \\n\\nIn the first link, I was challenged to a debate out of the blue when I requested not to go to church anymore. He wanted me to read his spiel and change my views, or give a counter-argument strong enough to defend my views.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw07dt4\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzullx\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Key-Extension1458\",\n \"body\": \"2000 years ago there was a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem that took animal sacrifice from the people. This was fulfilling the Mosaic Covenant, and sustained Israel called \\\"Judea\\\". Like Jesus said it would happen, the temple was thrown down to the last stone and the sacrificial rite was \\\"nailed to the cross\\\" in the words of Paul the Apostle. This leaves us without redemption under the law, and everyone is guilty of sin everywhere. \\n\\nHence the figure of Christ intervenes, and made the ultimate sacrifice, putting death and guilt and hell itself into the fire. Now we have grace and mercy, and redemption by faith. It seems to work, since 2000 years of Christian history represented the general improvement of life everywhere. At the same time, the movement was hijacked by earthly forces resulting in \\\"churchianty\\\" and roman catholicism. All \\\"debates\\\" are just scholastic noise from that time, arguing in circles about nothing relevant. It is what it is, the temple of jerusalem was destroyed 2000 years ago and the levitical rites were nailed to the Cross.\\n\\nNow everything is a free gift, the more we cast off the old man and put on the new. Strong enough faith loses fear of everything and moves mountains, it is divine power given to mankind. God loves the children of this world and Israel in dispersion, which means everyone.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzur3s\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Key-Extension1458\",\n \"body\": \"2000 years ago there was a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem that took animal sacrifice from the people. This was fulfilling the Mosaic Covenant, and sustained Israel called \\\"Judea\\\". Like Jesus said it would happen, the temple was thrown down to the last stone and the sacrificial rite was \\\"nailed to the cross\\\" in the words of Paul the Apostle. This leaves us without redemption under the law, and everyone is guilty of sin everywhere. \\n\\nHence the figure of Christ intervenes, and made the ultimate sacrifice, putting death and guilt and hell itself into the fire. Now we have grace and mercy, and redemption by faith. It seems to work, since 2000 years of Christian history represented the general improvement of life everywhere. At the same time, the movement was hijacked by earthly forces resulting in \\\"churchianty\\\" and roman catholicism. All \\\"debates\\\" are just scholastic noise from that time, arguing in circles about nothing relevant. It is what it is, the temple of jerusalem was destroyed 2000 years ago and the levitical rites were nailed to the Cross.\\n\\nNow everything is a free gift, the more we cast off the old man and put on the new. Strong enough faith loses fear of everything and moves mountains, it is divine power given to mankind. God loves the children of this world and Israel in dispersion, which means everyone.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzurg6\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">2000 years ago the Temple in Jerusalem took animal sacrifice from the people. It was fulfilling the Mosaic Covenant, and sustained Israel called \\\"Judea\\\" at the time. Like Jesus said it would happen, the temple was thrown down to the last stone and the sacrificial rite was \\\"nailed to the cross\\\" in the words of Paul the Apostle. This leaves us without redemption under the law, and everyone is guilty of sin everywhere. \\n> \\n>Hence the figure of Christ intervenes, and made the ultimate sacrifice, putting death and guilt and hell itself into the fire. Now we have grace and mercy, and redemption by faith. It seems to work, since 2000 years of Christian history represented the general improvement of life everywhere. At the same time, the movement was hijacked by earthly forces resulting in \\\"churchianty\\\" and roman catholicism. All \\\"debates\\\" are just scholastic noise from that time, arguing in circles about nothing relevant. It is what it is, the temple of jerusalem was destroyed 2000 years ago and the levitical rites were nailed to the Cross. \\n> \\n>Now everything is a free gift, the more we cast off the old man and put on the new. Strong enough faith loses fear of everything and moves mountains, it is divine power given to mankind. God loves the children of this world and Israel in dispersion, which means everyone.\\n\\nIs this supposed to be a promotion of Protestantism?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw07io1\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzurg6\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"danmilligan\",\n \"body\": \"One thing I'm sensing is that you're thinking of Christianity as a monolith, and while that was once true, it hasn't been for a long, long time. So many types of Christianity exist that there will be Christians on opposite sides of nearly any given issue. The true non-negotiables of the religion are extremely minimal, and highly interpretive. Because of this, you can't really say \\\"Christians are like this\\\" or \\\"Christians do that\\\", because this will apply to SOME Christians, but certainly not all. For a good example, the majority of American Christians are extremely unique from a global perspective, being far more individualistic, and reading the Bible in a slavishly literal fashion, among other things. So if you say \\\"Christians are anti-LGBTQ\\\", there are millions and millions of other Christians ready to counter that.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzusf6\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">One thing I'm sensing is that you're thinking of Christianity as a monolith, and while that was once true, it hasn't been for a long, long time. So many types of Christianity exist that there will be Christians on opposite sides of nearly any given issue. The true non-negotiables of the religion are extremely minimal, and highly interpretive.\\n\\nI'm well aware of the splits within Christianity. What I mention in my post detail is that I have tried and miserably failed to defend my lack of faith from both Catholics and Protestants. I understand that they'd have different ways of thinking regarding lack of faith, but at the end of the day, both defeated me.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw07u6h\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzusf6\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"GreasyPorkGoodness\",\n \"body\": \"You need to dismantle the church hierarchy and not the “existence of god”. \\n\\nIt’s not that you don’t believe in god, you don’t believe in Christianities following of god. Their church is corrupt, opulent, child molesters, hypocritical, child marriage, judgmental, in Christ like etcetera. \\n\\nGod very well might exist, if he does he certainly won’t approve of christianity.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzuv92\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CutiePopIceberg\",\n \"body\": \"Christianity is Middle Eastern mythology. Christians hate when you remind them of this.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzv7py\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"JustSomeDude0605\",\n \"body\": \"\\\"I don't believe in that bullshit\\\"\\n\\nDebate over.\\n\\nContrary to your brother's or pastor's wishes, you don't owe them any sort of debate or explanation. Live your life as you want to, not based on what they think you should do. If that means, no religion then stop going to church. \\n\\nFuck em.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzvaah\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CriticalThinkingAT\",\n \"body\": \"The thing is, there are a mountain of atheist rebuttals as well. Like literally there are so many atheist channels out there to rebutting every Christian argument that it's just a matter of searching and looking for them. Lol. You'll be fine.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzvipb\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">The thing is, there are a mountain of atheist rebuttals as well. Like literally there are so many atheist channels out there to rebutting every Christian argument that it's just a matter of searching and looking for them. Lol. You'll be fine.\\n\\nCounterpoint: Only a few of these are useful. Most channels appear to be useful only against Protestant pastors who rely on charisma. Catholicism is much harder to debate against as they have 2000 years of church tradition, intellectuals and apologia on their side.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw09z3v\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzvipb\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"OpenByTheCure\",\n \"body\": \"I don't want to be harsh, but I just think you're not very good at debating\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzvw3c\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"I am bad at debating (and most other things). Maybe that's why I always get challenged to debates, because I will lose.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0b11j\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzvw3c\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Dr_Keyser_Soze\",\n \"body\": \"You need to listen to David C. Smalley. Take in a few podcasts and you won’t be disappointed.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzvzk2\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Wintermute815\",\n \"body\": \"It’s really not. It depends on circular logic and faith, both of which are critical flaws.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzx8zv\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"j3rdog\",\n \"body\": \"Stop trying to debate facts by point counter point. Learn street epistemology. There’s good YouTube channels and subreddits on it.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzxa1z\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Unable-Food7531\",\n \"body\": \"You're:\\n\\n1. Bad at debating in general\\n\\n2. An unskilled rhetorician \\n\\n3. Uneducated on the topic you're debating.\\n\\nThose Three things together mean than any attempt to draw generally-appliable conclusions from your debating losses is doomed to produce bs.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzxmej\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"How can I get all 3 skills when I'm up against people who have so much more knowledge than me? I hate it when I give others a reason to criticise me.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw05k0t\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jvzxmej\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"DangForgotUserName\",\n \"body\": \"Christians don't have arguments, just elaborate evasions of criticism.\\n\\nIn order to be religious, or believe in a supernatural god, to some extent, one has to deny certain aspects of science, and also have to deny the foundations of reason and logic. \\n\\n\\nThere are major undemonstrated claims that come with theism:\\n\\n-a spiritual, divine, or otherwise supernatural realm exists \\n\\n-there are nonphysical spiritual forces and entities \\n -some kind of afterlife exists\\n\\n-at least humans have souls, which are the spiritual essence \\\"attached\\\" to a physical body\\n\\nEven if all these were demonstrated, we would still have no way of determining which deities were real. These claims are also far from being demonstrated, likely, or even possible. \\n\\nEven then, we have no way to link such deities to any religion that anyone worships.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzxv11\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Electrical-Rabbit157\",\n \"body\": \"It’s not well designed. It’s the worst designed religion in the world actually. The success of Christianity is based around keeping people from learning about other faiths. The moment that happens the VAST majority of them leave christianity for something else. Myself included. \\n\\nYou have to go at the fundamental hypocrisy of it. The average Christian rants and raves about the Ten Commandments and yet every single one of them break the first 2 commandments daily and most break 3 commandments every Sunday. The average priest breaks the first 4. Then there’s the fact that the Bible is a corrupt text and Christianity as a whole was founded by Paul, a man who is not a prophet, not a disciple, not an apostle, just a random guy who comes out of nowhere and starts preaching that Jesus is God.\\n\\nThey worship a trinity which is paganism. There is no excuse for it. It’s the same exact belief system as Hindus which are literally the original pagans that Abraham fought against. This trinity also includes a man. That man is considered a prophet but still. This breaks the first commandment. \\n\\nThey idolize said man and the cross he died on. They wear necklaces with it. They put big gold crosses at the front of their churches and big wooden ones on the outside of them. This breaks the second commandment \\n\\nThey go to church on Sunday and the vast majority of them believe this is the sabbath. Which directly breaks the fourth commandment.\\n\\nThe priesthood commits extortion and sometimes even rape in either the name of God or what they lead people to believe is a house of God. This breaks the third commandment \\n\\nThen you get to the Bible and it’s non existent integrity. There are about 5 major sects of Christianity. Each one has about 40 versions of the Bible. And the average Christian may think this is normal, it’s not. Jews have 1 version of the Torah. Muslims have 1 version of the Quran. Hell even the Hindus only have 1 version of most of their texts. The new testemant is more written by Paul, who is again, not a prophet, than any actual apostle. All of Paul’s letters are included in the vast majority of bibles yet the book of Enoch, book of Jesus Christ, and lost gospel to Peter are considered “uncanon” by the church and have been removed for centuries. That is not a holy text. It may have been a couple thousand years ago but out of 200+ in circulation today, I’d seriously doubt any can be considered uncorrupted.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzyqtq\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"malorane\",\n \"body\": \"Isn't this other person either straight up lying or totally misinformed about the Christianity/Catholicism? Like I could be misremembering but I'm pretty sure there are passages that literally give you guidelines about how to treat your slaves and this dude said both have always been against slavery?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzz7x7\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CantKeepMeOutYo\",\n \"body\": \"You will never win against someone with faith. They will always always always have some other bullshit excusw up their sleeves. That's what makes religion so fucking dangerous: it uses logic when it works and then completely disregards it when logic doesn't work. Don't bother debating christians, they've accepted a parasite into their body that will defend its ability to feed off the host, even if it means killing the host, or YOU.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzzg1h\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"wibbly-water\",\n \"body\": \">If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\r \\n\\r \\nIf you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\\n\\nIgnoring the second proposition for a second I want to propose 2 more reasonable secular arguments;\\n\\n1. This is true of all religions because their axioms and methods for diving truth are different. They believe, want to believe, will tie all phenomena in with their argument, will ignore Occam's Razor to do so. \\n2. If Christianity is better than (some) other religions at doing this it may be because it is a highly evolved system of memes. A meme is the idea equivalent to a gene. Religions are memetic in nature - they are ideologies, ideas about how the world works. Memes compete for space and survival much like genes do. And every time one of its memes is threatened it is forced to either drop that meme and adapt or bolster it to do the same. Look at the iterations of historical Christianity. Where are the puritans today? Even Protestantism evolved out of Catholicism - many will claim that they are barely the same religion.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzzk96\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"DangForgotUserName\",\n \"body\": \"The salvation of man is dependent on the suffering of Jesus Christ. His 'blood sacrifice magic' supposedly forgives original sin - doctrine that we know though biology is utterly wrong. (A couple of garden nudists were guilty of rebellious fruit munching, so everyone deserves death or eternal torment?) This makes the theological story around Jesus one where he is scapegoat of a nonexistent forebear. This should undermine the value of Jesus as well as the foundational basis for belief in God.\\n\\n \\n\\nFurther, the idea that the only way to forgive is through ritualized punishment? That is petty and immoral. No forgiveness without bloodshed or death. Horrible, ignorant and outdated ideas.\\n\\n\\nThe idea of a messiah, one who will deliver us from the tribulations of the present, is an ancient idea that distracts us from the hard work that must be done to build a better world.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jvzzkww\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Emotional_platypuss\",\n \"body\": \"The problem here is both sides trying to impose beliefs on others. What you believe or don't believe is your problem. You don't need to explain why you don't follow a religion, specially to religious people. Is like them telling you why their religion is so good. Break out of that circle and move on\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0052z\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"notjuan_f_m\",\n \"body\": \"This Is the problem with everything lately. \\\"I am right, you are wrong, and I will continue to tell you until you accept that i am right\\\"\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw00l9j\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jw0052z\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"JackedLilJill\",\n \"body\": \"If anything, just from your text and title, the fact that Christians explain themselves fully in the face of debate, should be the reason to change your view.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw00vuq\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"FerdinandTheGiant\",\n \"body\": \"For your first debate with your brother, he was just straight up wrong on so much. Christianity is not and does not serve as the basis for morality in the western world or the world as a whole. \\n\\nMost of the non-western world like in Asia is not heavily Christian and wasn’t for most of their history. They of course are doing just fine. Christian morals have not been consistent nor are they the basis for a basic society. \\n\\nAdditionally, you don’t need Christianity to explain altruism as it already has a natural explanation. It’s called kin selection and essentially means that it is beneficial to help out family since they carry your genes. This means more of your genes will get passed on. This is likely how it evolved in humans and then developed into what we consider today. Animals do this. Altruism isn’t human alone. \\n\\nThen you have slavery which the Bible openly says is fine. Leviticus 25:44-46\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw013nj\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"-Strawdog-\",\n \"body\": \"Taking a quick look at one or two of these examples, you have a very noticeable habit of accepting a lot of the other person's premises and arguments without pushing back on them at all. As an example, your brother mentions multiple times that altruistic behavior is the direct result of the Christian faith, an argument that is absolutely ridiculous for a bunch of reasons, not the least of which that our closest genetic relatives (chimpanzees and bonobos) exhibit all kinds of altruistic behaviors as part of their highly social lifestyles (and they also don't sacrifice eachother, something he seems weirdly hung up on).\\n\\nTo be honest, it doesn't look like the people you're debating have good arguments or are good at expressing them, it seems that you are just very new to debate, particularly on this topic. If debating religious folks is something you want to do (you are incredibly unlikely to change their minds even with very good arguments), you can find plenty of solid resources online that break down and refute just about any apologetics you are likely to encounter.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw01pm9\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"lamabaronvonawesome\",\n \"body\": \"I have found the opposite to be true. I would recommend reading some books on logic and debate. Having an answer doesn't make it a good answer. I had a debate teacher that used to day \\\"the definition of a reason is anything I put forth as a reason.\\\" This essentially means you SAY anything, that doesn't mean it will hold up under scrutiny. You mentioned miracles that a person had given you examples of in their own life. Debate in essence is about definitions, how we define things. Get them to give you the definition of a miracle. I personally would define that as any event that is ONLY explainable by divine intervention. See if their miracles hold up to that.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw02avd\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"kountze\",\n \"body\": \"The Church did have some good effects on political and cultural development in Europe - for example the separation of powers came from the Church being a strong counter force to the government for so long, church limited the government in ways that led to values of separation of powers and limited government, unlike China which was much more state dominated and still is today. Protestantism represented not only a change in religion but also a change in how humans think logically - so yeah a lot of good things can be tied to how Protestantism changed how people think. \\n\\nThat being said, the above certainly is a far cry from saying that Protestantism values will work in every situation or that it can address all of today’s modern problems. Protectionism ideally is something that should be open to interpretation, which modern Christianity has moved away from that. \\n\\nIn terms of science the Church does not have credible arguments - that’s the main problem. If you think they do, you really haven’t encountered anyone who actually knows the science and microbiology. \\n\\nAlso, do not confuse correlation and causation. Certain positive developments in society may correlate, but that correlation does not prove causation. \\n\\n\\nThe issue with\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw035en\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Jaderholt439\",\n \"body\": \"If I’m debating Christianity, I like to go straight to the main topic- the Resurrection.\\n\\nMost people I know and love are Christians; I don’t have a problem w/ their religion. I love these people. But what I don’t like are apologists. Every single one that I’ve ever seen is dishonest. Especially when it comes to the Resurrection.\\n\\nIt’s not hard to believe that a guy named Yeshua, who had a religious following, was crucified. I can even believe he was put in his own tomb, although most were put in a mass grave, it’s wasn’t unheard of. The stone being put to block the tomb and guards sound like they were plot holes being fixed in Matthew, but for arguments sake, I’ll agree to that too.\\n\\nJesus wasn’t in the tomb when they went to him 3 days later. What is the most likely explanation? Is it, “he must’ve overcome death and ascended, bc he’s God”? I think a Guy Ritchie style heist is way more plausible. ‘They forgot which cave’ is more plausible. Literally anything is more plausible. If they are being honest, they have to say, “I believe it on faith”. Yet, apologists will not say this, therefore they are dishonest, therefore they don’t have an answer for everything.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw03fxs\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Entropy_Drop\",\n \"body\": \"LOL on the first link. Christianity didn't opposed slavery, and doesn't have a monopoly on being a good person. It actually was the ideological fundation of american slavery.\\n\\nHypocrates wasn't christian, gandi neither, and personal freedom, democracy and equality of genders aren't christian values.\\n\\nThe golden rule (\\\"don't do to other what you dont want done to yourself\\\") and the silver rule (\\\"do to others what you want to recieve from them\\\" (bdsm, for example)) are not creation of christianity. \\n\\nSome christian are propagandiced all their life into the worldview of \\\"all good comes from christ\\\", which is clearly a big lie. Is kinda justified for them to sell that lie, tho.\\n\\nAlso, that motto has a counter-part: \\\"No bad comes from christ\\\" which is my only explanation to how incredible bigoted people justify their behavior without ever thinking \\\"are we the badies?\\\". Anita \\\"pie-face\\\" Bryant comes to mind, who, in her own words \\\"loved homosexuals\\\".\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw04f2l\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Jade_Skie\",\n \"body\": \"TJ Kirk (aka The Amazing Atheist) on YouTube once mentioned \\\"unfalsifiable hypothesis.\\\" In other words, Christians spout the argument that miracles, what is said in the Bible, Satan, and God all exist and are as the answer to everything because immediate evidence to the contrary can normally not be produced by their opponent, thus no argument against them can be made. So in their minds, they are right. That is, of course, not how the world/universe actually works.\\n\\nTo quote Carl Sagan: \\\"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.\\\"\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw04j73\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"JuliusErrrrrring\",\n \"body\": \"Remember the following truths: most people who claim they are Christians are good people; most people who are good people and claim they are Christian are good because of their ignorance of the Bible, not because of the Bible. The Bible is an awful immoral book and the religion is completely silly. It is pro slavery, pro genocide, pro forced abortion and pro incest. If you are debating anyone who isn't in favor of those things, they may be actually non believers too, they are just too ignorant of their religion to know any better.\\n\\n​\\n\\nIt is completely silly and does not hold up to debate. Just some quick obvious random thoughts off the top of my head: They suck at math - claim to have one god yet believe in a holy trinity as well as an evil god. Many Christians claim to be against abortion, yet the Bible actually gives an abortion recipe, god murdered pregnant women in his Noah's Arc genocide, and Jesus forced abortions on Jezebel. Many Christians are anti-trans and anti gay - yet Eve transitioned from a male rib and now they worship a dress wearing dude with two fathers who identifies as bread and wine. Cain and Abel were the original motherfuckers. The whole bible was written by people who never met Jesus and there is zero historical proof that there even was a man named Jesus pretending to be god. It's just a gigantic hoax that's been accepted due to peer pressure because life is easier and you can make more money and get laid easier if you simply play along with this silly marketing scheme.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw05bz4\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Loose-Technology7787\",\n \"body\": \"Christianity is designed that way. Christians are programmed in a way via church and such where they hold their belief to a much higher standard than any facts or logic despite a lack of evidence. On of christianity's main taglines is to just have faith in god even though hes done nothing to show you hes there.\\n\\nDebating a religious person on religion is an unwinnable debate. You cant argue against someones opinion when the only points they will accept are those that align with said opinion. For example, many christians say good and evil only exist because god decides whats good and bad. I might say that life is meaningless, therefore our thoughts and feelings are all that exist making them all that matters. Meaning we get to choose whats moral; however the christian would then just say life isnt meaningless because god gives meaning to life. This will go on for any length of time.\\n\\nThe only reason atheists win those official televised debates is because theres a mediator keeping nonsense out of it. They keep the religious side from using unreasonable and illogical arguments, which leads to them losing.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw05l8j\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"BuzzyShizzle\",\n \"body\": \"That's funny because, I have yet to hear them lose an argument/debate on the atheist experience yet. \\n\\nIf you haven't heard of it, there is a call-in radio show called \\\"the atheist experience\\\" and the entire show is welcoming any religious to call in and challenge them. If you want your view changed, that show will do a much better job than anything else.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw06l99\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Sad_Confidence8941\",\n \"body\": \"I agree, Christianity is very well designed. The smartest people alive for many centuries spent their lives defending Christianity (Thomas Aquinas, Saint Augustine, etc). They have been philosophically attacked for years and years and are still here\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw06orq\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"nomad5926\",\n \"body\": \"Homie out here saying the altruism isn't a natural thing without Christianity..... 🤣 Bro be saying Meerkats are all Christians? Or Naked Mole Rats?\\n\\nI will never understand why people have to force religion upon others. But essentially an easy way out is to ask them to provide solid proof that God existed. Logically you cannot not prove a belief. (Like others have said before me). Typically the ones making the claim \\\"god exists\\\" have the burden of proof. \\n\\nAlso in my experience you're not going to convince anyone to stop believing. It's the same reason kids believe in Santa it gives them something. For most people, religion is a source of comfort. It's why, from what I see, older folks are more religious. (Cause you know.... Closer to death... Heaven seems nicer).\\n\\nIf you just want them to stop harassing you, you can just say that your relationship with God is personal and need not be on disability for others. (You don't have to say the bit that the relationship is non-existent).\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0753r\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Moraulf232\",\n \"body\": \"Christianity has an answer for any criticism but the answers are silly and unconvincing just like the religion.\\n\\nJust ask yourself “has this answer explained why I should believe these assertions with no evidence or has it just made more assertions with no evidence?” and “could this answer be used to justify the existence of a Flying Spaghetti Monster or literally any other deity?” or “is there any evidence that the person I am talking to can imagine that would cause them to change their mind?” etc.\\n\\nThe philosophical arguments (apologetics) religions use are just fancy noise. There’s nothing there.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw07atx\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"lpuckeri\",\n \"body\": \"Theres many reasons why christianity is absolutely absurd, at a childlike and comical level imo. I have equal belief in it than i do Santa. The apologetics for christianity are just excuses for something as rediculous as believing in flying to heaven on a winged horse.\\n\\nLets remember, we are arguing about. A cosmic jewish god zombie who is his own father and was born a virgin birth to a women impregnated by a holy ghost. \\n\\nThere is zero evidence for this that is not heresay. Not a single item or record or peice of evidence contemporary to jesus exists. To confirm this laughably absurd story all we have is stories that contradict each other, written in the wrong language, written decades to centuries after the fact, much of which we know was straight up forged and copied from surrounding greek myths and people.\\n\\nGetting lost in abologetics is exacty meant to make you forget you are proving an absurd thing eith zero evidence, and get caught up in the weeds.\\n\\n\\nReasons. \\n\\n1. Supernatural events in the bible are empirically impossible to prove. Christians may use awful arguments like minimal facts etc, but these are all comically bad and fallacious. Abuductive reasoning is all we have access to, and that can never demonstrate supernatural events... This alone is enough, as it is logicalltly impossible to demonstrate christianity through our resources.\\n\\n2. The bible is self contradictory, the trinity and more is exceedingly illogical. By this i mean it literslly violates the laws of logic... and is isnanely stupid.\\n\\n3. The bible is obvious myth taken from surrounding cultures.\\n\\n4. There are no decent biblical scholars who think Moses wrote the old testament. Moses clearly never existed and exodus never happened. This is extremely confirmed... there is extreme evidence the base of both judeaism and christianity is 100% made up.\\n\\n5. People that claim supernatural events or whatever... 1. Does not prove god, or their god... it proves they had something special happen and nothing more. 2. These are nothing more than claims. 3. People claim this shit for every religion, thousands... if you apply this standard as evidence for one... you must for thousands of gods. 4. Once you understand psychology you realize how the brain works snd how easy it is for people to misnterpret things visually and auditory.\\n\\n6. Religions are not one off inventions. They are all representations and copyings of popular myths at the time. This can be seen in thousands of religions. Just as it is in christianity... the devil and hell doesnt become a thing until Greek influence, things like rising and dying saviours were popular greek myths too at the time of the bible etc. In fact the bible was wirtten in greek, not aramaic, the language Jesis and his follower would have spoken. You see babylonian myths copied into the parts of the bible, when they were written there...you see the bibles hell and devil and apocalyptic influences copying greek myth during the hellenistic period. Religions are copies of surrounding myth and cultures.\\n\\n7. Apologists often use arguments to prove god that are diestic. Things like the ontological srgument, teleological argument... aside from these being bad arguments, they only prove A God... not christianity. Even if the Kalam is true... the odds of christianity bring true is still zero... it gets you no closer.\\n\\n8. The bible wasnt written by geniuses. It was written by copying and adapting popular myths, cultures, and laws at the time. From copying ancient semetic religions and near eastern traditions 4000 tears ago, to adapting greek myths 2000 years ago. It also was written of centuries, adapted, edited, revised, forged, faked, reinterpreted thousands of times by hundeds of people. This idea some geniuses wrote this thing like you see it now is childishly ignorant of scholarship and history.\\n\\n9. There are actually about 94 gospels. 90 of which christians will admit are 100% bullshit mythological stories... yet they somehow think these are the special true 4, because the church leaders centuries ago simply decided so. \\n\\n10. These excuses and arguments for christianity are no better and no different than the ones Jews will use, or muslims, or Sikhs. You just live in a place around christians most likely. \\n\\nIts interesting because i have never heard a christian argument to me than is not childishly rediculous imo.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw07u2w\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Inevitable_Spare_777\",\n \"body\": \"You can’t have a factual, logical debate with a person who’s worldview doesn’t subscribe to facts and logic\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw08ays\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"drzowie\",\n \"body\": \"There is no direct way to argue a Christian out of Christianity, because it is a faith-based system of beliefs. But you *can* demand respect for your own beliefs.\\n\\nA couple of years ago, I wrote about just how incompatible Christian beliefs are with the scientific worldview. That line of argument is (like any other argument) unlikely to convince a fervent believer -- but may help you to understand that there are real weaknesses in the edifice of Christian thought. \\n\\nBelow is [copypasta from an early CMV post I made](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/7zy9wp/cmv_you_can_accept_todays_scientific_theory/durqqmi/):\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw08i8h\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"DouglerK\",\n \"body\": \"I mean if they didn't the religion would probably be dead by now.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw08xbe\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"joshp23\",\n \"body\": \"> If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniouses\\n\\nAll they have at their disposal are unfalsifiable claims. You can't prove that the invisible dragon in my garage doesn't exist either. The rest is a con act to attribute personal experience to the dragon. \\n\\nBut unfalsifiability and con tactics aside, wouldn't a genius be able to construct an effective argument *and* compile an internally consistent document at the same time? You have to do mental gymnastics to apologize for the ignorance and inconsistencies in the Bible.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw09c2d\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Crookwell\",\n \"body\": \"OR you just aren't a very good critic?\\nBecause I can rebuke shitty religious claims all day\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw09wvx\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"redstar15551\",\n \"body\": \"Maybe you should give up then? You're not gonna \\\"Gotcha\\\" Christianity so leave them alone. Your lack of faith and overabundance of cynicism does not bug anyone the slightest. Don't trap yourself because you view this as an unwinnable battle against some dogmatic close minded religion, when that in and of itself is close minded. There's a modern pushback against religion, Christianity specifically, that has been pushed hard; but Christianity has and will continue to endue.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0a4wk\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Various_Succotash_79\",\n \"body\": \"When my brothers were young, they played a game that was very much like Calvinball (if you've never read the comic Calvin and Hobbes, this is a game they made up on the fly). So it was all stuff like \\\"now the floor is lava so you burn up!\\\" \\\"Oh yeah? I throw 60 million tons of dry uce on it and that cools it off\\\", \\\"well that was too much and now you're frozen solid!\\\" Etc. \\n\\nThat's pretty much what religion is. Your mistake is in trying to make any sense of it.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0b260\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">When my brothers were young, they played a game that was very much like Calvinball (if you've never read the comic Calvin and Hobbes, this is a game they make up on the fly, so it never has the same rules). So it was all stuff like \\\"now the floor is lava so you burn up!\\\" \\\"Oh yeah? I throw 60 million tons of dry ice on it and that cools it off\\\", \\\"well that was too much and now you're frozen solid!\\\" Etc. \\n\\n!delta\\n\\nAs you show, you can't get anywhere trying to defend yourself from a religion which is designed to dodge accountability and make opponents lose. It's not designed for a debate, it's designed to be inescapable.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw25sdi\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jw0b260\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Collective82\",\n \"body\": \"If you are having such a hard time debating it, shouldn’t you consider it’s right and maybe you should look at converting?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0bbov\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"I have. The problem is no matter how hard I try, I have zero spirituality and a complete inability to be sincerely connected with any religion. I see this as a disability comparable to being unable to because it's such a drag on my life.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw263jo\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jw0bbov\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Fluffy_Candle6800\",\n \"body\": \"I'll give you a quote from a book I read - \\\"God is omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent. However, bad things still happen. This means God cannot stop the bad things - he is not omnipotent, God does not know the things are happening - he is not omniscient, or he allows the bad things to happen - he is not benevolent.\\\"\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0bhc0\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"I've accepted the last one. How can I possibly believe in a benevolent god, when he gives miracles to some and neglects genuine victims, or when the religion he designed has endless excuses and loopholes to dodge all accountability?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw26dbi\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jw0bhc0\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"ItsAll42\",\n \"body\": \"I do feel as though you too quickly concede many points that are not accurate or honest, but stated with such confidence they are difficult to rebutt just as confidently without sufficient background knowledge. In fact, some of these claims are just straight up racist, such as claiming altruism is not only a strictly christian virtue, but that many values such as caring for the sick and needy or having basic human decency are strictly Western practices and values.\\n\\n This is wildly inaccurate to claim, knowledge of history can easily debunk such ludicrous statments, especially considering much of the Western ideology is more focused on individualism where confucianism is more focused on the community as a whole. Buddhism stresses that all beings have inherent worth and challenges the strictly heiarchichal values of confucianism, yet still plenty of emphasis is placed on how to better the community as a whole and being kind for the sake of altruism and kindness without any expectation of personal rewards. You do not have to be a historian or theologian to debunk so much of what this person is claiming, especially in regard to other Abrahamic religions which are incredibly similar to the teachings of Christianity, you know, because they share a common historical and biblical root. While modern interpretations of Abrahamic faiths run the gamut, they are more alike than many of their subscribers would like to admit. \\n\\nIn fact, I'd argue that Christianity and most of its branches contain more self-serving motives than many religious beliefs, promising prosperity and wealth in heaven as a reward for good behavior. As an agnostic person I do not need a reward for my good behavior. \\n\\nAs you tried to point out, when this person claims pagans did not care for the sick or other absurd claims, the burden of proof is on them to substantiate such a ridiculous assumption. \\n\\nThis person comes across as making many intellectually dishonest arguments, and you more or less concede or gloss many of these points without pushback.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0cszb\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">This person comes across as making many intellectually dishonest arguments, and you more or less concede or gloss many of these points without pushback.\\n\\nThat's because I didn't study history at a tertiary level. See how I'm a frequent visitor to r/AskHistorians - because I'm not smart or knowledgeable about history. Are you suggesting that to defeat Christianity, I'll need a university degree in history?\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw26yyz\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jw0cszb\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"FerdinandTheGiant\",\n \"body\": \"Most, if not all of the Western values people like to claim are “Judeo-Christian” in origin simply aren’t. For one “Judeo-Christian values” aren’t a thing as these groups have different values, however let’s consider a few things we value in the west. \\n\\n#Democracy\\n\\nIn the Bible, democracy is never extolled or even articulated. Instead, there are endless stories of theocratic, authoritarian rule and the divine right of kings. Power is always concentrated; it’s never distributed. In classical Greece, however, Athenians established what is generally recognized as the world’s first democracy around 500 BCE. This predates Christianity and arose with no Jewish influence.\\n\\n#Common Humanity/ Equality\\n\\nThis is simply not biblical. In the New Testament, women are forbidden from holding authority over a man, told to be silent in church, and instructed to be obedient and submissive to their husbands. The same word used for submissive in Colossians also is used to describe how slaves should be to their masters. Women can be killed if they’re suspected of having premarital sex; the tenth commandment forbids coveting property, which includes women in the same sentence as houses and oxen; if a woman was raped, she was forced to marry her rapist if the offender paid her father, and on and on it goes.\\n\\nNon-Israelites or gentiles were forced into slavery and treated as property. This is seen in Leviticus and all over the Hebrew Bible. Slavery was condoned and justified for thousands of years using the Bible. \\n\\n#10 Commandments\\n\\nA common argument is that these “laws” are where we derive most of our morals and values in the west. This is rather silly. \\n\\nFor starters, a lot of the commandments are about idolatry, however other Rules like “thou shall not kill” predate Christianity and Judaism by hundreds of years. Literally any and all functional societies require this rule to be in place. And all over the world you see non-Christian nations follow similar “laws”. This is because they are beneficial for building a society. \\n\\n#Other religions\\n\\nOther religions have much stronger moral codes that Christanity. Jainism believes so much in the value of life that they won’t even talk at night because they could accidentally harm an insect. Buddhists have a deep personal desire to self improve while also improving the lives of those around them. Same could be said for taoists.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0dbxm\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"That's the problem though. You assume that Christianity is pro-democracy and pro-equality when history has shown us that they'd gladly throw these concepts under the bus if it were in the way of their religion.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw27njn\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jw0dbxm\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Circular360Angles90\",\n \"body\": \"People often conflate these two completely separate ideas. God/Higher Power - whatever you want to call it, with - Religion. \\n\\nReligion, in its limited ability tries to use the concept of God in an attempt to sway your reasoning capabilities towards their doctrine. God, however is completely separate from Religion.\\n\\nReligion just seems to have a Monopoly on the word. People feel as though believing in a God or Gods means they should adhere to some way of “knowing” their God. - which is all that a religion really does. But rest assured that it is someone elses ideas you are digesting. Theres nothing wrong with consulting people whom you believe to be wise or have more experience, but if you start feeling like they have some sort of answer that you cant quite grasp, then your talking to the wrong people. \\n\\nThis is not something that anyone can “show” you or “debate” you about. \\n\\nGod isnt in a book. God isnt an idea you learn from the pulpit. God isnt reason nor logic. God isnt bad. God isnt good. \\n\\nYou are engaging in a debate where their is nothing to debate, thus you always be “outwitted.”\\n\\nThink for yourself, walk your own path. You’ll fall flat on your face initially, perhaps for many years and, if you can muster up strength to get up on your own and not ask anybody why you fell and why it hurts so bad - you’ll stop feeling “outwitted.”\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0f9fa\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \">You are engaging in a debate where their is nothing to debate, thus you always be “outwitted.”\\n\\n>Think for yourself, walk your own path. You’ll fall flat on your face initially, perhaps for many years and, if you can muster up strength to get up on your own and not ask anybody why you fell and why it hurts so bad - you’ll stop feeling “outwitted.”\\n\\nIsn't this the problem though? Most people can earn external respect being just who they are. In contrast, I have to prove my respectability, and prove why I have valid views, and I always lose.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw2llv2\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jw0f9fa\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"CIABrainBugs\",\n \"body\": \"If God was real, his actions would prevent me from giving him any respect. I don't care if he's real.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0fl5d\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Nghtmare-Moon\",\n \"body\": \"Read Carl Sagan’s demon haunted world. It’s the best essay to counter all religious arguments\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0g6mu\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"GainPornCity\",\n \"body\": \"It's not that there's a rebuttle for everything. There's just a different lens to look through. \\n\\nSay an atheist has blue shades on and sees everything as blue. Christian sees everything as red. However, the one commonality between the Athiest and the Christian is the human construct..thereby despite being in different mindsets, they both acknowledge phenomena as they unfold in the world\\n\\nNo matter how much blue you speak regarding world phenomena, the Christian will respond to *each* phenomenon with a red response. \\n\\n\\nThis phenomenon, you look at through a blue lens and say: \\\"The Christian has an excuse for everything, no matter how blue, there's always gonna be some red to speak on from their side.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0gw4r\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Realistic-Cat4116\",\n \"body\": \"The only rebuttal you need is: \\\"Prove it.\\\" Keep repeating that over and over again. They can't, you win, end of argument.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0h3pm\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Okami_The_Agressor_0\",\n \"body\": \"Debating things that are designed to explain all with a basis in non-falsifiable statements is impossible. Religions are all memetic viruses that are meant to superimpose a false sense of the world on their followers, there are other belief systems that do the same that don't involve god but a well designed memetic virus can't be successful with out being impervious to logic or ways to side step rational thinking. That being said many modern political beliefs are structured similarly and operate in a similar fashion to religions. \\n\\nReligion imparts a base line culture and morality to people that allows for a more respectful and peaceful society. Part of what make that possible is ideological sanitation of a populace. Diversity of ways of life sparks conflict and religion solves that a good portion of the time. You could potentially see how many recent events have been the result of diverse culture and belief systems, so any derivation of heterogenization of society would logically be rejected by such belief systems with understandable cause.\\n\\nI believe people should be able to do what ever they please but when there is no respect in society people seek control from government to maintain the peace. So the easiest way for a country to stay free is to remain an ethno/ideological-state, or very slow and controlled change. When accounting these things you must satisfy for the lowest common denominator which will inevitable reject things on the basis of tribal instinct.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0k3j1\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"ApeMummy\",\n \"body\": \"You’re outwitted because you lack wit not because christianity is special.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0k3sk\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"SeymoreButz38\",\n \"body\": \"1st is a citation needed. Second was a semantic argument. Third is a no true scotsman fallacy.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0kns0\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Ecoronel1989\",\n \"body\": \"I think the issue here is your brother does a few things to confuse you.\\n1. Switching between defending spirituality and Christianity.\\n2. Berating you with words so it's hard for you to rebuttal everything that is said (an overwhelming tactic).\\n3. Throws out unprovable claims that are opinions as facts.\\n\\nFor #1, there's a big difference between spirituality and Christianity. Christianity asserts it is the one true religion, all others are wrong and lead to a wrong lifestyle. Spirituality is a general idea about believing in something outside oneself. To Christians, spirituality is paganism (unless it's Christianity itself) and therefore wrong and cannot be accepted or celebrated. So your brother can't simply pick and choose to say spirituality is good for the health and then switch to say Islam is not a good religion as these are contradictory statements.\\n\\nBut this issue is linked to #2, he berates arguments with a ton of words and makes multiple \\\"points\\\" at once. This is a similar tactic to what Donald Trump has used during his time as a politician. Simply overload the other side with a word soup, throwing out multiple arguments that are each wrong, but takes effort to debate each of them. By the time you gather your thoughts about the first wrong statement, he's moved on to the next 3, it's overwhelming.\\n\\nWhich leads to the last point, that is throwing out unprovable claims in the midst of his word soup. Claims such as there would be no morality without religion are unprovable for modern science since we have had religion in all cultures for over 2000 years, so it's hard to test this \\\"fact\\\". Another one that comes to mind is saying there's objective morality in the Bible, which you argued is not because of the Bible. Another counterargument is that the interpretation to the Bibles teachings changes across generations (i.e. slavery allowed for priests) and is therefore not objective, but his claim is unprovable in general as you can only offer up counter examples he can claim we're people not following the \\\"truth\\\".\\n\\nOverall, I think you're doing better than you think at debating this issue. The larger issue is what others have pointed out, that you don't have to win this argument, simply live by what you believe is true like they do.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0m923\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"TimeFliesFaster\",\n \"body\": \"It doesn’t have a good rebuttal as to why Jesus is the prophesied messiah of a religion that believes in a single unitary god. Especially when Jesus didn’t have the right ancestors and failed to meet the applicable prophesies (ie dead all coming back to life, temple being restored for all time, diaspora returning, war coming to permanent end, and entire world embracing scripture in messiah’s lifetime)\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0sjyl\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"David_Warden\",\n \"body\": \"You are trying to prove a negative which is a waste of time.\\n\\nThey are the ones making the improbable claims so the burden of proof lies with them. \\n\\nIf they continue to pester you, ask them to prove it.\\n\\nI think you will find that it boils down to belief in the highly improbable that is not adequately supported by either evidence or reasoning.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw1cnr9\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ],\n [\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"SaltiestRaccoon\",\n \"body\": \"Sure. They have rebuttals. They're just not as good as you think they are. And they tend to be the same rebuttals over and over.\\n\\nI mean just to refute the ones you were hit with... In the first example, he paints the 'pagan' world monolithically while citing the worst examples from many different cultures, while kind of also ignoring that many of those things also apply to Christian nations. Pretty sure the weak and poor weren't running Medieval England, for instance. Likewise slaves were absolutely still a thing among Christians... the slaves just couldn't also be Christian. There were Christian Germanic warriors pillaging right along with the rest of them. Finally virtually any civilization that has kept slaves does in fact have laws about how they can be treated. It can certainly even be argued that serfdom is still just slavery but called something else to make it acceptable, as people can still be bought and sold, they just count as part of the land instead and likewise must work for their lord or face abuse or death. Sounds a lot like slavery to me.\\n\\nAltruism is in fact a part of human nature. It evolved because we are a social species and we are inclined to act for the good of our group, as our group is beneficial to our survival. There's a [great example](https://www.upi.com/Archives/1987/11/04/Cavemen-took-care-of-physically-disabled/5137563000400/) of a cave man skeleton with some pretty crippling deformities, who could not have hunted for himself that lived to old age. That means his tribe or his family unit was caring for him despite the fact he was a burden. And this is humanity in the stone age, at our least civilized. The Gauls, as well routinely collected a portion of taxes to help pay for their disabled citizens (though in Rome, it was preached if not always practiced that disabled children should be put to death.)\\n\\nIn a lot of instances he just seems ignorant on history and expects you to go along with it. A lot of it is very gish-gallupy too. He says so many wrong things that there's no way to correct them all without getting so bogged down with corrections that you can never make a point of your own, or even refute all of his errors. Don't allow that. Insist on arguing one point at a time.\\n\\nReally I think it's gaps in your knowledge more than Christianity being particularly difficult to criticize. I find it quite easy.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-14\",\n \"id\": \"jw3kj7g\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n ]\n]","isConversational":false},"2":{"kind":"string","value":"challenge"}}},{"rowIdx":59,"cells":{"0":{"kind":"list like","value":[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"FaceInJuice","body":"To begin, I want to clarify that I have not reviewed the full scope of the context you have provided here. I've read a fair bit of it, but it's definitely possible that you may have already addressed some of my point. If that is the case, please forgive me. \nThat being said, there are a few different points I'd like to raise. \n1. First and foremost, you shouldn't feel obligated to defend your position in these scenarios at all. Correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I'm reading, it doesn't sound like any of these Christian arguments are actually persuading you of anything. You're admiring the thoroughness of the ideology, but it doesn't sound like you're getting any closer to actually believing it. That being the case – I'm not sure what you're gaining by engaging. \nYou've talked a little bit about being 'forced' to defend your view. And I know that it can feel that way in life. But you can also say this, or paraphrase this: “I acknowledge your beliefs, and I respect that I will not be able to change your mind about them. However, I also don't believe you will be able to persuade me of them. I thank you for your interest in sharing them with me, but I politely decline to discuss them further.” And if they press beyond that – they are being disrespectful, and you should feel no guilt about just walking away. \nNow, I don't know how old you are. From your notes, it sounds like your brother is pressuring you into going to Church, and if you're too young to be able to just say no – I'm sorry. That really sucks. But I stand by this point – pick a fight with your brother if you want to. He's pressuring you into obeying a doctrine you do not support or believe, and as far as I am concerned, that is deeply immoral. \n2. If you do choose to engage, as is obviously your right – you may want to reexamine your approach to those conversations. You talk about 'winning' and 'losing', but the truth is, outside of very structured debate stages with moderators and judges, most arguments aren't really 'won' and 'lost' that cleanly. Especially not when it comes to topics like this. People's religious beliefs are often deeply entrenched. \nSo if you want to have these conversations, I would encourage you to consider a different mentality. Instead of thinking 'I want to beat this person in a debate', think 'I would like to learn more about this person's perspective, and expand my understanding of my own perspective with that context in mind.' That way, you're not spending so much energy on pushing toward potentially unrealistic conclusions, and instead you can focus on trying to make something productive happen. \n3. If you do insist on looking at these in terms of winning and losing – don't just think about your goals; think about theirs. Presumably, their goal is to inspire faith in you. It seems they have failed to do so. That being the case, how can you say that they won? \n4. If you do choose to try to 'win' these arguments – you may want to reexamine your definition of 'winning' and 'losing'. \nYou talk about how Christians have an answer to everything. This is probably true, but keep in mind that not all answers are created equal. Just because they have an argument doesn't mean it is a good argument. \nFor example, consider the following snippet from your screenshot: \n“And as you know, from people who are climate change denialists and antivaxxers, simply saying that 'you do not have evidence' for something does not disprove it. It's just something you say to fit a situation to your point of view on a quasi rational sounding way.” \nThis is a bad argument, and a pretty blatant effort to sidestep the fact that they do not, in fact, have any evidence. If they DID have evidence, they could simply present it. But instead, they dismiss their lack of evidence and imply that you are somehow at fault for expecting evidence. If your position is that you struggle with faith because there is no evidence, that is a completely valid position, and their rebuttal has done absolutely nothing to challenge it. \nTheir arguments also rely on semantic distinctions that I think are very dubious. \nFor example, they draw a distinction between moral issues (slavery) and the traditions and rituals of the Church (celibacy), saying that the pope can make changes to disciplines but not to moral issues. This is theoretically a fair distinction, except that these lines are often heavily blurred in the actual presentation of Catholic doctrine. \nAnd to me, even if we accept that distinction between moral truth and discipline, that's actually a CHALLENGE of the Catholic church, not a defense of it. Because it begs the question – why should anyone be beholden to these traditions and rituals, or to the Pope's guidance in general, if these teachings can change and are separate from God's actual moral truth? \nSimilarly, look at their argument for the historical context of Christianity as a basis for morality. They say that altruism is not a natural human behavior. That's (probably) true. However, some measure of altruism and empathy is a functional necessity for the development of societies and civilizations. \nAs living beings, we have a biological imperative to protects ourselves and our families. This is essentially a natural behavior. By default, we don't necessarily have the same biological imperative to protect those outside our families. \nBut at a certain point in the development of humanity, we started moving toward the idea of society. By working together outside of our family units, we are able to pool resources and achieve greater stability for everyone under the umbrella. But in order for that to work, we need to agree on some common ground in terms of acceptable behaviors – it is not natural, but it is a functional necessity. And from there, laws and ethics develop naturally as societal contracts to maintain the bond and prevent collapse. \nAnd the more we work together and pool resources, the more opportunities there are to expand the scope of our 'protective' instincts beyond our families. Empathy has more room to develop because there is less strife. That happens with or without religion. \nAnd here's the thing – even if you argue that the functional presence of the Church expedited that process (an argument which seems to ignore the dark ages and the inquisition, incidentally), that still doesn't make any progress toward proving that GOD was necessary to arrive at these morals. I could just as easily argue that the early religions invented God to justify their growing senses of moral empathy in a world dominated by mythology, and then got caught up in their own delusions. \nI've rambled a lot more than I meant to here. But I want to illustrate that to me, the arguments presented by the Christian in your screenshot are entirely unconvincing, dubiously semantic, and often blatantly misleading. \nThis all ties into my larger point. Your stated view is that because Christians have an answer to everything, their belief system must therefore be extremely clever. \nBut actually, all that really proves is that people have been desperately clinging to this ideology. \nYou see the same thing with hardcore doomsday sayers and hardcore conspiracy theorists – including, ironically, the antivaxxers and climate change deniers cited in the screenshot. These people all cling to their beliefs, and they all make a wide variety of arguments to support their positions. Oftentimes, you'll see a direct correlation between the absurdity of the belief and the commitment of the believer, because the sunken cost fallacy starts to creep in. And so you see flat earthers run tests which accidentally prove that the Earth is not flat, and then immediately find some reason to discredit the results of their own test. \nIt's not genius. It's just commitment. You and I could put our heads together and invent a complex deity if we really dedicated ourselves to it. \nSo, with this, I think I've challenged a few facets of your stated views. \nTl;dr summary: \nYou don't have to try to argue with these people. \nIf you do, you don't have to worry about whether you are successful in convincing them of anything. \nIf you do worry about that, be fair to yourself, and pay equal consideration to whether they are successful in convincing you of anything. \nIf you feel that they have successfully convinced you of anything, consider holding their point to higher scrutiny and research. Are you sure it is convincing? \nAnd, finally – I don't mean to discredit the value of faith. If you do find it, I'm happy for you. But in the meantime, don't feel like you need to have answers to everything. No one really does, and if they claim to, they've probably made some of them up.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw00fq9","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"!delta\n\nI should consider such debates as lose-lose because neither side convinced the other to fold and join their side.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0fue4","parent_id":"jw00fq9","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"DeltaBot","body":"Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/FaceInJuice ([8∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/FaceInJuice)).\n\n^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0fxi3","parent_id":"jw0fue4","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],"string":"[\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\\n\\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\\n\\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \\\"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\\\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\\n\\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\\n\\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\\n\\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\\n\\nSo to conclude:\\n\\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"parent_id\": null,\n \"score\": 26,\n \"subreddit\": \"changemyview\",\n \"title\": \"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\",\n \"url\": \"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/\"\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"FaceInJuice\",\n \"body\": \"To begin, I want to clarify that I have not reviewed the full scope of the context you have provided here. I've read a fair bit of it, but it's definitely possible that you may have already addressed some of my point. If that is the case, please forgive me. \\nThat being said, there are a few different points I'd like to raise. \\n1. First and foremost, you shouldn't feel obligated to defend your position in these scenarios at all. Correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I'm reading, it doesn't sound like any of these Christian arguments are actually persuading you of anything. You're admiring the thoroughness of the ideology, but it doesn't sound like you're getting any closer to actually believing it. That being the case – I'm not sure what you're gaining by engaging. \\nYou've talked a little bit about being 'forced' to defend your view. And I know that it can feel that way in life. But you can also say this, or paraphrase this: “I acknowledge your beliefs, and I respect that I will not be able to change your mind about them. However, I also don't believe you will be able to persuade me of them. I thank you for your interest in sharing them with me, but I politely decline to discuss them further.” And if they press beyond that – they are being disrespectful, and you should feel no guilt about just walking away. \\nNow, I don't know how old you are. From your notes, it sounds like your brother is pressuring you into going to Church, and if you're too young to be able to just say no – I'm sorry. That really sucks. But I stand by this point – pick a fight with your brother if you want to. He's pressuring you into obeying a doctrine you do not support or believe, and as far as I am concerned, that is deeply immoral. \\n2. If you do choose to engage, as is obviously your right – you may want to reexamine your approach to those conversations. You talk about 'winning' and 'losing', but the truth is, outside of very structured debate stages with moderators and judges, most arguments aren't really 'won' and 'lost' that cleanly. Especially not when it comes to topics like this. People's religious beliefs are often deeply entrenched. \\nSo if you want to have these conversations, I would encourage you to consider a different mentality. Instead of thinking 'I want to beat this person in a debate', think 'I would like to learn more about this person's perspective, and expand my understanding of my own perspective with that context in mind.' That way, you're not spending so much energy on pushing toward potentially unrealistic conclusions, and instead you can focus on trying to make something productive happen. \\n3. If you do insist on looking at these in terms of winning and losing – don't just think about your goals; think about theirs. Presumably, their goal is to inspire faith in you. It seems they have failed to do so. That being the case, how can you say that they won? \\n4. If you do choose to try to 'win' these arguments – you may want to reexamine your definition of 'winning' and 'losing'. \\nYou talk about how Christians have an answer to everything. This is probably true, but keep in mind that not all answers are created equal. Just because they have an argument doesn't mean it is a good argument. \\nFor example, consider the following snippet from your screenshot: \\n“And as you know, from people who are climate change denialists and antivaxxers, simply saying that 'you do not have evidence' for something does not disprove it. It's just something you say to fit a situation to your point of view on a quasi rational sounding way.” \\nThis is a bad argument, and a pretty blatant effort to sidestep the fact that they do not, in fact, have any evidence. If they DID have evidence, they could simply present it. But instead, they dismiss their lack of evidence and imply that you are somehow at fault for expecting evidence. If your position is that you struggle with faith because there is no evidence, that is a completely valid position, and their rebuttal has done absolutely nothing to challenge it. \\nTheir arguments also rely on semantic distinctions that I think are very dubious. \\nFor example, they draw a distinction between moral issues (slavery) and the traditions and rituals of the Church (celibacy), saying that the pope can make changes to disciplines but not to moral issues. This is theoretically a fair distinction, except that these lines are often heavily blurred in the actual presentation of Catholic doctrine. \\nAnd to me, even if we accept that distinction between moral truth and discipline, that's actually a CHALLENGE of the Catholic church, not a defense of it. Because it begs the question – why should anyone be beholden to these traditions and rituals, or to the Pope's guidance in general, if these teachings can change and are separate from God's actual moral truth? \\nSimilarly, look at their argument for the historical context of Christianity as a basis for morality. They say that altruism is not a natural human behavior. That's (probably) true. However, some measure of altruism and empathy is a functional necessity for the development of societies and civilizations. \\nAs living beings, we have a biological imperative to protects ourselves and our families. This is essentially a natural behavior. By default, we don't necessarily have the same biological imperative to protect those outside our families. \\nBut at a certain point in the development of humanity, we started moving toward the idea of society. By working together outside of our family units, we are able to pool resources and achieve greater stability for everyone under the umbrella. But in order for that to work, we need to agree on some common ground in terms of acceptable behaviors – it is not natural, but it is a functional necessity. And from there, laws and ethics develop naturally as societal contracts to maintain the bond and prevent collapse. \\nAnd the more we work together and pool resources, the more opportunities there are to expand the scope of our 'protective' instincts beyond our families. Empathy has more room to develop because there is less strife. That happens with or without religion. \\nAnd here's the thing – even if you argue that the functional presence of the Church expedited that process (an argument which seems to ignore the dark ages and the inquisition, incidentally), that still doesn't make any progress toward proving that GOD was necessary to arrive at these morals. I could just as easily argue that the early religions invented God to justify their growing senses of moral empathy in a world dominated by mythology, and then got caught up in their own delusions. \\nI've rambled a lot more than I meant to here. But I want to illustrate that to me, the arguments presented by the Christian in your screenshot are entirely unconvincing, dubiously semantic, and often blatantly misleading. \\nThis all ties into my larger point. Your stated view is that because Christians have an answer to everything, their belief system must therefore be extremely clever. \\nBut actually, all that really proves is that people have been desperately clinging to this ideology. \\nYou see the same thing with hardcore doomsday sayers and hardcore conspiracy theorists – including, ironically, the antivaxxers and climate change deniers cited in the screenshot. These people all cling to their beliefs, and they all make a wide variety of arguments to support their positions. Oftentimes, you'll see a direct correlation between the absurdity of the belief and the commitment of the believer, because the sunken cost fallacy starts to creep in. And so you see flat earthers run tests which accidentally prove that the Earth is not flat, and then immediately find some reason to discredit the results of their own test. \\nIt's not genius. It's just commitment. You and I could put our heads together and invent a complex deity if we really dedicated ourselves to it. \\nSo, with this, I think I've challenged a few facets of your stated views. \\nTl;dr summary: \\nYou don't have to try to argue with these people. \\nIf you do, you don't have to worry about whether you are successful in convincing them of anything. \\nIf you do worry about that, be fair to yourself, and pay equal consideration to whether they are successful in convincing you of anything. \\nIf you feel that they have successfully convinced you of anything, consider holding their point to higher scrutiny and research. Are you sure it is convincing? \\nAnd, finally – I don't mean to discredit the value of faith. If you do find it, I'm happy for you. But in the meantime, don't feel like you need to have answers to everything. No one really does, and if they claim to, they've probably made some of them up.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw00fq9\",\n \"parent_id\": \"15purrs\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"Real_Carl_Ramirez\",\n \"body\": \"!delta\\n\\nI should consider such debates as lose-lose because neither side convinced the other to fold and join their side.\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0fue4\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jw00fq9\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n },\n {\n \"author\": \"DeltaBot\",\n \"body\": \"Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/FaceInJuice ([8∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/FaceInJuice)).\\n\\n^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)\",\n \"date\": \"2023-08-13\",\n \"id\": \"jw0fxi3\",\n \"parent_id\": \"jw0fue4\",\n \"score\": 1,\n \"subreddit\": null,\n \"title\": null,\n \"url\": null\n }\n]","isConversational":false},"1":{"kind":"list like","value":[[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"DeadCupcakes23","body":"Why does it matter if Christianity has a rebuttal for something? You can criticise the bible and Christianity based on what it says and the actions done in its name (context depending).\n\nPeople have moral values without Christianity and most things people appreciate nowadays are not inherent to Christianity, for example the bible allows slavery.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzggd4","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">Why does it matter if Christianity has a rebuttal for something? You can criticise the bible and Christianity based on what it says and the actions done in its name (context depending).\n\nBecause losing a debate due to their rebuttals makes me look stupid. Also, if you follow the links to their arguments, even the atrocities done in its name don't count because those fall under \"false prophets\". \n\nIt's like the Bible was written with this possibility in mind to entrap us.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzh2ui","parent_id":"jvzggd4","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"tipoima","body":"Christianity *was* fabricated, but not by geniuses. \nYou're fighting against over two thousand years worth of apologetics, where all the weakest arguments have been pruned away. \nHowever, as expected of something that isn't actually true, those arguments are often plainly wrong, be it due to logical fallacies, appeals to unknown, obtuse philosophy you probably don't know you don't subscribe to, no-true-scotsmanning, e.t.c.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzh8ep","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">However, as expected of something that isn't actually true, those arguments are often plainly wrong, be it due to logical fallacies, appeals to unknown, obtuse philosophy you probably don't know you don't subscribe to, no-true-scotsmanning, e.t.c.\n\nThis is exactly what they do. The problem is that \"I don't know\" is not an acceptable answer to them ([see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvhr81y/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)), whereas they already have something up their sleeve to entrap me. \n\nAs you mentioned, with 2000 years of experience creating answers, I even if I am able to point out something wrong or intellectually dishonest, they'll still have an answer for that, forcing me to spend yet more time and effort to come up with an answer. And I am not intelligent enough to create an answer for everything they throw at me, so I'm trapped.\n\nIt's an uphill battle, and one that can easily be lost. Until we can come up with a rebuttal they can't defeat, there will always be a risk that secular society and LGBT rights might be defeated.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzhurp","parent_id":"jvzh8ep","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Watchyobackistan","body":"Not really, most of their \"rebuttals\" are stuff like \"god doesn't give us all the answers\" and \"Don't worry jesus loves you\" Non-answers.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzhdab","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"MercurianAspirations","body":"But why should you give a shit? If you have conviction in your own beliefs, it shouldn't matter whether or not you can convince others using your super debater skillz or not. After all, if somebody were sufficiently dumb or insane, it would be impossible to convince them of the truth, no matter how clear and apparent the truth were; therefore, whether or not a thing is widely believed and people are readily convinced of its truth is not a guide to truth. When there was only one person on the earth who believed in heliocentrism they were still right, and the geocentrists were still wrong. The geocentrists had answers for every single objection, and they won every single debate, yet, they were still wrong. \n\nMoreover, it isn't that Christianity is super well designed or anything. It's just that people who have strongly held convictions are not available to be convinced by facts and logic. That's just how people are: they do not actually change their minds that much.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzhezx","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">But why should you give a shit?\n\nBecause I don't want my stances to look stupid. I was once likened to an anti-vaxxer for not being able to provide evidence to back my lack of faith.\n\n> If you have conviction in your own beliefs, it shouldn't matter whether or not you can convince others using your super debater skillz or not. \n\nConviction in your own beliefs doesn't make one right. Besides, their side also has a firm conviction in their beliefs.\n\n>When there was only one person on the earth who believed in heliocentrism they were still right, and the geocentrists were still wrong. The geocentrists had answers for every single objection, and they won every single debate, yet, they were still wrong.\n\nScience doesn't care about number of believers, what matters is the evidence. And in the case of heliocentrism, it was proven right by overwhelming evidence. I wish I had overwhelming evidence to back my lack of faith.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzih4p","parent_id":"jvzhezx","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Mr-Bitter","body":"Send your brother my way. I know of a way to convince him that it was Satan that wrote the Bible and can kill every single one of his arguments. I would thoroughly enjoy a civilized religious debate.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzhg91","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"ApocalypseYay","body":">CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.\n\nThis makes zero sense. Rebuttals require logic and facts, and there are only apologia and special pleasing fallacy described herein. \n\nLet's start from the basic - where is the evidence for chris, the alleged son of god, and somehow also god, that killed himself to please himself? There is zero historical evidence for this event, before we even get to the easily debunked claims of miracles, or the plainly immoral laws being promulgated as divine commandments.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzhig9","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">where is the evidence for chris,\n\n[Most historians accept that Jesus Christ existed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus). The rest of the biblical story isn't accepted by historians.\n\n>before we even get to the easily debunked claims of miracles,\n\n[I miserably failed at convincing someone that I don't believe in miracles](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvai6qm/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). How would you convince him?\n\n> or the plainly immoral laws being promulgated as divine commandments.\n\nHow would you convince them that their side is immoral? They have methods up their sleeve to dismiss the malice conducted in the name of Christianity, and justify the anti-LGBT commandments.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzj8qx","parent_id":"jvzhig9","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"physioworld","body":"The most important concept you have to remember is the burden of proof. It’s not up to you to prove the Christianity ISNT TRUE, it’s up to them to prove that it IS TRUE. So if they can’t prove their own religion you need to accept it, you don’t have to worry about disproving their beliefs. \n\nA good way to illustrate this, is whether they would accept comparable claims with comparable evidence from other religions. So if they claim that Christianity is true because it says so in the bible, ask whether you should also accept Islam because it says so in the Quran.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzhlry","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">The most important concept you have to remember is the burden of proof. It’s not up to you to prove the Christianity ISNT TRUE, it’s up to them to prove that it IS TRUE. So if they can’t prove their own religion you need to accept it, you don’t have to worry about disproving their beliefs.\n\nBut that's the problem - they consider themselves as proving it is true. For example, one guy who told me of miracles he received - [and I lacked a sufficient rebuttal to convince him he's wrong](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvai6qm/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzjexi","parent_id":"jvzhlry","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Adam__B","body":"You don’t have to defend not believing in something that is invisible, utterly silent, immeasurable, illogical, unscientific, undetectable and untestable. The burden is on them to prove a positive, not you a negative.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzi1gp","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"OrangeBlancmange","body":"Why do you think you are losing? They obviously haven’t convinced you in these arguments and just falling back to faith (which is all they really have) doesn’t ‘win’ anything in any meaningful way. You won’t be able to argue them out of their faith so you can’t ‘win’ either. Ultimately it’s not an argument in the philosophical sense - they aren’t engaging in good faith and simply will not change their minds regardless of what you say.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzi24f","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"> they aren’t engaging in good faith and simply will not change their minds regardless of what you say.\n\nBad faith arguments are like doping in sports - they make it easier for them to win. You just need to be a good enough debater to win despite the disadvantage.\n\n>Why do you think you are losing? \n\nBecause I failed to be that \"good enough debater\". Any argument I can throw at them is utterly crushed and thrown back at me.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzk4ge","parent_id":"jvzi24f","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Cayowin","body":"How did you lose that debate?\n\nSlavery - Christians used the bible to promote the slave trade\n\n[https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/01/a-harvard-exhibit-on-slavery-and-christianity/#:\\~:text=In%20the%20modern%20era%2C%20Christianity,often%20used%20to%20justify%20slavery](https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/01/a-harvard-exhibit-on-slavery-and-christianity/#:~:text=In%20the%20modern%20era%2C%20Christianity,often%20used%20to%20justify%20slavery).\n\nYes there were abolitionists, but if the same text can be used to both justify and condemn an action how is that text a good moral guide?\n\nThe bible explicitly allows the owning of humans as property. So either god is not unchanging or he changed his mind. \n\n1 Peter 2:18, Saint Peter writes \"Slaves, be subject to your masters with all reverence, not only to those who are good and equitable but also to those who are perverse.\"\n\nYes they have prepared apologetics, it just means you need to do more research. Remember they have no evidence for their claims beyond personal gut feelings and a collection of contradictory, fictional and historic works.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzi8a8","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">Slavery - Christians used the bible to promote the slave trade\n\nI've miserably failed when using the \"what about slavery argument\" - it's in the link following \"It all started 3 years ago\". Sure, I could point out the pro-slavery parts, but they'll have a reason why that bit is irrelevant or misinterpreted. It's exhausting, finding every argument to throw at them, and having each one of those utterly crushed with more rebuttals thrown your way.\n\n>Yes they have prepared apologetics, it just means you need to do more research. Remember they have no evidence for their claims beyond personal gut feelings and a collection of contradictory, fictional and historic works.\r \n\r\n\nI tried pointing out to someone that I don't believe in his \"miracle\". [My attempt failed miserably](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvai6qm/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzkhnt","parent_id":"jvzi8a8","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Augnelli","body":"What is the rebuttal for the Ark? What did the carnivores eat? How did the Kangaroos and Koalas make it up from Australia? What about fresh water fish? How much space was designated for JUST the elephants food?\n\nYou don't need to debate every detail, just enough to invalidate the core; the truth on which they base their faith.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzikz2","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">What is the rebuttal for the Ark? What did the carnivores eat? How did the Kangaroos and Koalas make it up from Australia? What about fresh water fish? How much space was designated for JUST the elephants food?\n\nThat's the problem - even since the medieval era, most Christians disavowed biblical literalism, because biblical literalism is easier to poke holes into. Instead, they've come up with apologia, and now, with over 2000 years of apologia to defend against, it's become an unwinnable fight.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzlcvy","parent_id":"jvzikz2","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"ch0cko","body":"No. I am a frequent debater on subs like r/DebateReligion and r/DebateAnAtheist and everything you've said here is just... no. The vast majority of arguments for theism or counterarguments against arguments against theism, generally lead to special pleading or other fallacies.\n\nHere's one post I recently made: [https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/15pjew5/extraordinary\\_claims\\_need\\_extraordinary\\_evidence/](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/15pjew5/extraordinary_claims_need_extraordinary_evidence/) which then links to another one of my posts that goes more in-depth: [https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/15ey939/if\\_religious\\_beliefs\\_were\\_subject\\_to\\_consistent/](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/15ey939/if_religious_beliefs_were_subject_to_consistent/)\n\nA lot of what Christianity said is very similar to other religions and old mythologies. It has a generic reward-punishment system/carrot and stick system, that is, a hell and heaven. On top of that, all of the claims in Christianity hold no good evidence with most being anecdotal. Most arguments for Christianity are not Christian-specific and more so just theism in general. Even then, those thesitic arguments lead to either, 1. fallacies, or 2. only making theism \"more likely,\" but even then, these arguments have counters.\n\nThey were not geniuses. A little clever, but they essentially copied other religions and mythologies and is a cookie-cutter religion. Christianity isn't wide spread just because of how \"logical\" and \"sound\" it is; indoctrination or generationally passing the idea down is a big part of it. There are also contradictions in the Bible which can be found at this website: [https://www.lyingforjesus.org/Bible-Contradictions/](https://www.lyingforjesus.org/Bible-Contradictions/)","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzirf5","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">They were not geniuses. A little clever, but they essentially copied other beliefs and mythologies and is a cookie-cutter religion. Christianity isn't widespread just because of how \"logical\" and \"sound\" it is; indoctrination or generationally passing the idea down is a big part of it. There are also contradictions in the Bible which can be found at this website: https://www.lyingforjesus.org/Bible-Contradictions/\n\nI wasn't implying that Christianity was \"logical\" and \"sound\". I was implying it was successful because it has so many tricks up its sleeve. It may be full of lies, but for every one I point out, I'll get one or more rebuttals thrown my way.\n\nThink of it as being like in the middle of a dense minefield. Whoever laid the minefield might not have a \"logical\" and \"sound\" reason for it, but any step you could take will blow up in your face.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzlzr1","parent_id":"jvzirf5","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"xper0072","body":"Just because someone has an answer for everything doesn't mean that the answer is a good answer. Your inability to properly debate the topic does not mean that the other side is correct in any way.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzj07m","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">Your inability to properly debate the topic does not mean that the other side is correct in any way.\n\nI wasn't saying the other side was correct. My point is that they are impossible to defeat and are good at ensnaring their critics.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzmc3l","parent_id":"jvzj07m","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"razvanght","body":"In my experience, Christian s believe that God is real because they feel He is real. Then you can ask them whether a person of a different religion can also use the same method (I feel Zeus is real because I feel Him) to conclude that a different god is real. Christians generally agree that that person used the same method (feeling based) to reach an opposite conclusion (Zeus, not God, is real). In my discussions at least, this argument works in that it gives people pause. Of course, it does not change their belief immediately because they have been holding it for some time but I feel like it adds a seed of doubt.\n\nDo you know the official Christian response against this line of argument?","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzj0m8","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">In my experience, Christian s believe that God is real because they feel He is real. Then you can ask them whether a person of a different religion can also use the same method (I feel Zeus is real because I feel Him) to conclude that a different god is real. \n\nHow can I get them to accept the argument that \"oh I don't feel God is real, so don't force me to go to church\"? Because that argument always failed me in the past. Also, on a tangent, how are you able to \"feel\" Zeus?\n\n>adds a seed of doubt.\n\nPlanting seeds of doubt is a great political strategy. For example, in Australia, we have an upcoming referendum on constitutional indigenous recognition - and because the No side is so good at planting seeds of doubt, the Yes side is losing despite having academia and the arts sector on its side. \n\nBut back to the point, I tried planting seeds of doubt and failed miserably. The Christians I've had to defend my opinions from don't merely consider themselves as \"feelings based\", they consider their views as backed by literature (the Bible).","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzmy3i","parent_id":"jvzj0m8","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Apprehensive_Box3199","body":"I dropped my Catholicism at 21 after learning basic logic at University. In year 6 whilst at a Catholic school, we were given a Catholic Catechism - literally the manual for being a good Catholic. Most of the book is written in question-and-answer format. This is indoctrination 101. The first 3 questions are, and I quote:\n\n>1. Question: Who made the world? \n Answer: God made the world. \n> \n>2. Q. Who is God? \n> \n> A. God is the Creator of heaven and earth and of all things and the Supreme Lord of all. \n> \n>3. Q. How do we know there is a God? \n> \n> A. We know that there is a God by the things that He made.\n\nRight there; in the first 3 question-and-answers is a Circular Argument. The entire basis of the Catechism is premised on a Circular Argument. If nothing else, the entire point of Catholicism is to justify the original statement that God exists.\n\nI looked through the whole of the Catechism highlighting anything I still believed. I highlighted a single sentence in the preface about doing unto others etc... NOTHING else.\n\nBefore you have a go at me for not knowing what a circular argument until I was 21 - I went to Catholic schools for all of high school and it is in their best interests NOT to teach that and it was the 80s. That's my excuse and I sticking to it.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzjc23","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">Right there; in the first 3 question-and-answers is a Circular Argument. The entire basis of the Catechism is premised on a Circular Argument. If nothing else, the entire point of Catholicism is to justify the original statement that God exists. \n> \n>I looked through the whole of the Catechism highlighting anything I still believed. I highlighted a single sentence in the preface about doing unto others etc... NOTHING else. \n> \n>Before you have a go at me for not knowing what a circular argument until I was 21 - I went to Catholic schools for all of high school and it is in their best interests NOT to teach that and it was the 80s. That's my excuse and I sticking to it.\n\nIn my experience, pointing out the circular argument leads to one of 2 outcomes:\n\n1. Getting more apologia that I am unable to defeat\n2. The \"*Do you have a better explanation?*\" rebuttal","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvznrln","parent_id":"jvzjc23","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Simbabz","body":"The most important story of the bible is Jesus ressurecction, the gospels contradict each other in the telling of the story, hardly designed by geniuses.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzktxv","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">The most important story of the bible is Jesus ressurecction, the gospels contradict each other in the telling of the story, hardly designed by geniuses.\n\nNot sure what Protestants say, but Catholicism claims that slight differences with the same overall story prove it's written by real people observing the same things. We can accuse them of using a dodgy argument, but it still wouldn't undermine their side.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzp1ei","parent_id":"jvzktxv","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"vote4bort","body":"I think you're just trying way too hard in these debates and starting from the wrong point. You're coming at them like religion is something that can be proved through debate when it fundamentally can't. \nThe religious rebuttal for every point will always be essentially the same. That is they'll say \"well I believe this I so\". And you can't argue with that because its not a statement that can be argued against.\n\nWhat can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzkuyc","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.\n\nThe problem is when they think they have evidence and you think they don't. [Here's an example with a Protestant](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jv9g3kt/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3), and we can't agree on anything.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzp2i6","parent_id":"jvzkuyc","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"sapphireminds","body":"You seem to be a poor debater. You are accepting a lot of arguments as true when they aren't. \n\nAll children are born atheists. Coincidentally, they just happen to usually believe in the god(s) their parents/community believes it. \n\nAnd personally, if there is a god with the power ascribed to it by the bible, I would refuse to worship it. \n\nYou also need to educate yourself about the null hypothesis.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzl8ri","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">You seem to be a poor debater. You are accepting a lot of arguments as true when they aren't.\r\n\nI don't accept their arguments as true. I accept them as difficult to defeat.\n\n>And personally, if there is a god with the power ascribed to it by the bible, I would refuse to worship it.\n\nI wouldn't want to worship such a God either. [I've told a Protestant that if I were to accept that he indeed received a miracle, it would still prove that the Christian god is unjust](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvkkegk/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). But that argument still failed to sway him.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzqf91","parent_id":"jvzl8ri","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"-paperbrain-","body":"What you seem to be saying is just that you are not able, with the mere power of logic, to get Christians to abandon their belief.\n\nI hate to break it to you, but this is not a particular quality of Christianity. Anything people are dug in on will face this hill. Not only will you encounter it with every religion, but you won't argue many people out of their political doctrine, flat earth belief, or whether they side with Ross or Rachel on friends. People have rebuttals for everything about many totally conflicting positions. It's part of having strong beliefs and giving it some thought. And religions in particular have had a long time and tons of resources to give it thought.\n\nThat doesn't mean there's no room for criticism. Just that your expectation about change is ridiculously optimistic.\n\nHowever, regardless of how your personal debates are going, people are leaving Christianity in droves, partly because they don't find those rebuttals to critique to be logically, morally or emotionally satisfying. The fastest growing religious affiliation is \"none\".","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzlzcb","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">That doesn't mean there's no room for criticism. Just that your expectation about change is ridiculously optimistic.\n\nSometimes, I'm challenged to debate when I'm not looking for one (see my first link in the post details). I wasn't expecting to change anyone's views, just successfully defend my decision, and I failed even that.\n\n>However, regardless of how your personal debates are going, people are leaving Christianity in droves, partly because they don't find those rebuttals to critique to be logically, morally or emotionally satisfying. The fastest growing religious affiliation is \"none\".\n\n[Christianity is still growing overall](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_population_growth). Even if it's not growing in the Western World, this shrinkage is negated by growth outside the Western World.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzs5r5","parent_id":"jvzlzcb","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"wrongfulness","body":"What a waste of time","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzmu4k","parent_id":"15purrs","score":2,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"The_White_Ram","body":"This isn't hard. Christianity literally endorses slavery.\n\nIf you believe slavery is wrong then that's the only argument you need.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzniyg","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">This isn't hard. Christianity literally endorses slavery. \n> \n>If you believe slavery is wrong then that's the only argument you need.\n\nI tried using such an argument. [It backfired](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvztyn7","parent_id":"jvzniyg","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"ElPwnero","body":"I like the one Muslims use:\\\nThe word of allah is perfect and if you find inconsistencies, then it’s your human brain that’s incapable of understanding the true meaning.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzoket","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">I like the one Muslims use:\r \n> \n>The word of allah is perfect and if you find inconsistencies, then it’s your human brain that’s incapable of understanding the true meaning.\n\nI mean, they're basically insulting your intelligence. But isn't that a great bad faith tactic, dodging accountability by accusing your opponent of being too dumb to understand? I can't imagine myself faring any better debating a Muslim than debating a Christian.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzvglo","parent_id":"jvzoket","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"indigoneutrino","body":"The interesting thing is I've had the opposite experience. Plenty of experiences online and in person where they can barely rebut *anything* to the point that I've had a minister apologise she can't answer my questions satisfactorily. I've seen no-one rebut or even explain why the crucifixion makes sense without legitimising blood sacrifice. It just constantly defaults to \"Jesus paid for our sins,\" without explaining why the death of an innocent third party was accepted as a valid payment within a supposedly just system.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzppfh","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Pichkuchu","body":">It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted\n\nJust because you got outwitted doesn't mean the other side was right, they were, in fact, blatantly wrong. Christianity is just as guilty of atrocities as any religion. Keep in mind that Christianity is 2000 years old and they enslaved people until 1860 and they had to be \"convinced\" by war to give it up. They genocided native populations in America and colonized Asia and Africa. There was inquisition. They burned people for heresy, including scientists. They weren't different from other big religions or even pagans. The modern view of the world and humanity encompasses non Christian populations too and one could argue that it's in fact the result of secularism.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzqu5n","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"StrangeAssonance","body":"I’m curious why you think one has to prove God exists? \n\nAlso, when Jesus was on earth the Jews kept asking for a sign from Him. They were blind to what he was doing with His ministry. The world is blind, so when you try to have these arguments that you feel you can’t win, I think you aren’t ever going to win them. I can show you God through my words and deeds but if you are blind to that, you won’t see what’s there to see.\n\nJesus repeatedly talks about how blind and deaf people are to God and his word.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzr1ue","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">Also, when Jesus was on earth the Jews kept asking for a sign from Him. They were blind to what he was doing with His ministry. The world is blind, so when you try to have these arguments that you feel you can’t win, I think you aren’t ever going to win them. I can show you God through my words and deeds but if you are blind to that, you won’t see what’s there to see.\n\nThis is why I see my inability to believe as a disability comparable to being unable to read.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzzkhs","parent_id":"jvzr1ue","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"mo_ff","body":"You can have faith that your monthly bills will be paid whilst you have no money or means to do so OR you can actually have the money. One will work. The other will leave you with no utilities. Full stop.\n\nIn a debate with a Christian you would encounter, \"Oh, but have you no faith a brother in Christ would not help you?\" And then a large quantity of scriptural examples would be brought forth from whatever version of the bible they are most familiar with.\n\nAs others have stated, the deck is stacked. If you can approach the conversation with your family in a civil manor, stop going to church. Believe what makes you happy and mentally healthy so long as it doesn't hurt others.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzr2rx","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"HansPGruber","body":"You need to read some Thomas Paine my friend. A renegade if the atomic age.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzrn0v","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Morasain","body":"Couple things.\n\nThe first thing is that burden of proof is with the person making a claim - Christians in this case.\n\nThe second thing is - you don't need to refute the religion itself, because you can't.\n\nUsually, if you bring up things like pastors being molesters, or the crusades, or witch burnings, Christians will commit a No True Scotsman fallacy. \"These pastors aren't *real* Christians.\" You don't need to refute that argument because it is in itself wrong - but if you want, you can always go the path of saying that everyone in the church is, in the end, appointed by God.\n\nThe easiest way to reject Christianity is to instead reject God, though. You don't even need to prove that he's bad or anything - you need to use your own morality to reject the idea that a god like depicted in Christianity can be a god you want to believe in.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzrwx0","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"hdhddf","body":"you don't need to convince them, they're arguing from a position of ignorance and indoctrination, you can't argue with that because their arguments aren't built on logic or sound reasoning.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzs63u","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Huffers1010","body":"Let's do it by example. What did they have a rebuttal for that you couldn't respond to?\n\nMy suspicion is that they really didn't.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzt6nt","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"misersoze","body":"Just say: “hey I also met a Muslim, a Mormon, a Jew and a Hindu. They all make the exact same arguments as you do about why their religion is the correct one and they all say they have the one true religion. So why should I join yours over their’s”.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvztpz1","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Potential_Cod_8473","body":"They might win a debate but the world still is a shitty place full of diseases, suffering, birth defeacts. \n\nIt only prove how dishonest someone is to defend a claim it was created my omnipotent and omniscient being. \n\nChristianity was falsified many times\nAdam and Eve? Fairytale\nGreat Flood? Fairytale\nBabel's tower? Fairytale\nExocus? Fairytale \nRessurection? Really improbable\n\nThe fact that the scripture has to be interpreted in the face of new evidence like why would omnipotent God need 4 bilions years to create highly imperfect and miserable beings or why universe is 93 bilion light years wide and we are limited by a speed of light is a powerful evidence against revelation.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvztt3e","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"the_internet_clown","body":"Just because someone says something in response doesn’t make it a good rebuttal","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzugyn","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Relevant_Maybe6747","body":"Christianity doesn’t have a rebuttal against Judaism - they’ve tried and tried to kill us and never succeeded","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzuj4l","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Is that really a good argument though? By that logic, Islam doesn't have a rebuttal against Christianity either (or vice versa).","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw075ml","parent_id":"jvzuj4l","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Scott_The_Protogen","body":"Why \"debate\" someone's faith anyways? Unless they're being a jerk about it like in the last part. I always just have that whole live and let live thing (Even if some fanatics might not be that way either). I know you say some of these people come to you with the debates, but I feel like just giving a solid \"I don't want to talk about it\" or \"My views aren't going to change\" might work, even if they do continue to badger you regarding it, It doesn't have to be a winning-losing game.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzullx","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">Why \"debate\" someone's faith anyways? \n\nIn the first link, I was challenged to a debate out of the blue when I requested not to go to church anymore. He wanted me to read his spiel and change my views, or give a counter-argument strong enough to defend my views.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw07dt4","parent_id":"jvzullx","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Key-Extension1458","body":"2000 years ago there was a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem that took animal sacrifice from the people. This was fulfilling the Mosaic Covenant, and sustained Israel called \"Judea\". Like Jesus said it would happen, the temple was thrown down to the last stone and the sacrificial rite was \"nailed to the cross\" in the words of Paul the Apostle. This leaves us without redemption under the law, and everyone is guilty of sin everywhere. \n\nHence the figure of Christ intervenes, and made the ultimate sacrifice, putting death and guilt and hell itself into the fire. Now we have grace and mercy, and redemption by faith. It seems to work, since 2000 years of Christian history represented the general improvement of life everywhere. At the same time, the movement was hijacked by earthly forces resulting in \"churchianty\" and roman catholicism. All \"debates\" are just scholastic noise from that time, arguing in circles about nothing relevant. It is what it is, the temple of jerusalem was destroyed 2000 years ago and the levitical rites were nailed to the Cross.\n\nNow everything is a free gift, the more we cast off the old man and put on the new. Strong enough faith loses fear of everything and moves mountains, it is divine power given to mankind. God loves the children of this world and Israel in dispersion, which means everyone.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzur3s","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Key-Extension1458","body":"2000 years ago there was a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem that took animal sacrifice from the people. This was fulfilling the Mosaic Covenant, and sustained Israel called \"Judea\". Like Jesus said it would happen, the temple was thrown down to the last stone and the sacrificial rite was \"nailed to the cross\" in the words of Paul the Apostle. This leaves us without redemption under the law, and everyone is guilty of sin everywhere. \n\nHence the figure of Christ intervenes, and made the ultimate sacrifice, putting death and guilt and hell itself into the fire. Now we have grace and mercy, and redemption by faith. It seems to work, since 2000 years of Christian history represented the general improvement of life everywhere. At the same time, the movement was hijacked by earthly forces resulting in \"churchianty\" and roman catholicism. All \"debates\" are just scholastic noise from that time, arguing in circles about nothing relevant. It is what it is, the temple of jerusalem was destroyed 2000 years ago and the levitical rites were nailed to the Cross.\n\nNow everything is a free gift, the more we cast off the old man and put on the new. Strong enough faith loses fear of everything and moves mountains, it is divine power given to mankind. God loves the children of this world and Israel in dispersion, which means everyone.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzurg6","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">2000 years ago the Temple in Jerusalem took animal sacrifice from the people. It was fulfilling the Mosaic Covenant, and sustained Israel called \"Judea\" at the time. Like Jesus said it would happen, the temple was thrown down to the last stone and the sacrificial rite was \"nailed to the cross\" in the words of Paul the Apostle. This leaves us without redemption under the law, and everyone is guilty of sin everywhere. \n> \n>Hence the figure of Christ intervenes, and made the ultimate sacrifice, putting death and guilt and hell itself into the fire. Now we have grace and mercy, and redemption by faith. It seems to work, since 2000 years of Christian history represented the general improvement of life everywhere. At the same time, the movement was hijacked by earthly forces resulting in \"churchianty\" and roman catholicism. All \"debates\" are just scholastic noise from that time, arguing in circles about nothing relevant. It is what it is, the temple of jerusalem was destroyed 2000 years ago and the levitical rites were nailed to the Cross. \n> \n>Now everything is a free gift, the more we cast off the old man and put on the new. Strong enough faith loses fear of everything and moves mountains, it is divine power given to mankind. God loves the children of this world and Israel in dispersion, which means everyone.\n\nIs this supposed to be a promotion of Protestantism?","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw07io1","parent_id":"jvzurg6","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"danmilligan","body":"One thing I'm sensing is that you're thinking of Christianity as a monolith, and while that was once true, it hasn't been for a long, long time. So many types of Christianity exist that there will be Christians on opposite sides of nearly any given issue. The true non-negotiables of the religion are extremely minimal, and highly interpretive. Because of this, you can't really say \"Christians are like this\" or \"Christians do that\", because this will apply to SOME Christians, but certainly not all. For a good example, the majority of American Christians are extremely unique from a global perspective, being far more individualistic, and reading the Bible in a slavishly literal fashion, among other things. So if you say \"Christians are anti-LGBTQ\", there are millions and millions of other Christians ready to counter that.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzusf6","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">One thing I'm sensing is that you're thinking of Christianity as a monolith, and while that was once true, it hasn't been for a long, long time. So many types of Christianity exist that there will be Christians on opposite sides of nearly any given issue. The true non-negotiables of the religion are extremely minimal, and highly interpretive.\n\nI'm well aware of the splits within Christianity. What I mention in my post detail is that I have tried and miserably failed to defend my lack of faith from both Catholics and Protestants. I understand that they'd have different ways of thinking regarding lack of faith, but at the end of the day, both defeated me.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw07u6h","parent_id":"jvzusf6","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"GreasyPorkGoodness","body":"You need to dismantle the church hierarchy and not the “existence of god”. \n\nIt’s not that you don’t believe in god, you don’t believe in Christianities following of god. Their church is corrupt, opulent, child molesters, hypocritical, child marriage, judgmental, in Christ like etcetera. \n\nGod very well might exist, if he does he certainly won’t approve of christianity.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzuv92","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"CutiePopIceberg","body":"Christianity is Middle Eastern mythology. Christians hate when you remind them of this.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzv7py","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"JustSomeDude0605","body":"\"I don't believe in that bullshit\"\n\nDebate over.\n\nContrary to your brother's or pastor's wishes, you don't owe them any sort of debate or explanation. Live your life as you want to, not based on what they think you should do. If that means, no religion then stop going to church. \n\nFuck em.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzvaah","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"CriticalThinkingAT","body":"The thing is, there are a mountain of atheist rebuttals as well. Like literally there are so many atheist channels out there to rebutting every Christian argument that it's just a matter of searching and looking for them. Lol. You'll be fine.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzvipb","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":">The thing is, there are a mountain of atheist rebuttals as well. Like literally there are so many atheist channels out there to rebutting every Christian argument that it's just a matter of searching and looking for them. Lol. You'll be fine.\n\nCounterpoint: Only a few of these are useful. Most channels appear to be useful only against Protestant pastors who rely on charisma. Catholicism is much harder to debate against as they have 2000 years of church tradition, intellectuals and apologia on their side.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw09z3v","parent_id":"jvzvipb","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"OpenByTheCure","body":"I don't want to be harsh, but I just think you're not very good at debating","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzvw3c","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"I am bad at debating (and most other things). Maybe that's why I always get challenged to debates, because I will lose.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0b11j","parent_id":"jvzvw3c","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Dr_Keyser_Soze","body":"You need to listen to David C. Smalley. Take in a few podcasts and you won’t be disappointed.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzvzk2","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Wintermute815","body":"It’s really not. It depends on circular logic and faith, both of which are critical flaws.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzx8zv","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"j3rdog","body":"Stop trying to debate facts by point counter point. Learn street epistemology. There’s good YouTube channels and subreddits on it.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzxa1z","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Unable-Food7531","body":"You're:\n\n1. Bad at debating in general\n\n2. An unskilled rhetorician \n\n3. Uneducated on the topic you're debating.\n\nThose Three things together mean than any attempt to draw generally-appliable conclusions from your debating losses is doomed to produce bs.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzxmej","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"How can I get all 3 skills when I'm up against people who have so much more knowledge than me? I hate it when I give others a reason to criticise me.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw05k0t","parent_id":"jvzxmej","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"DangForgotUserName","body":"Christians don't have arguments, just elaborate evasions of criticism.\n\nIn order to be religious, or believe in a supernatural god, to some extent, one has to deny certain aspects of science, and also have to deny the foundations of reason and logic. \n\n\nThere are major undemonstrated claims that come with theism:\n\n-a spiritual, divine, or otherwise supernatural realm exists \n\n-there are nonphysical spiritual forces and entities \n -some kind of afterlife exists\n\n-at least humans have souls, which are the spiritual essence \"attached\" to a physical body\n\nEven if all these were demonstrated, we would still have no way of determining which deities were real. These claims are also far from being demonstrated, likely, or even possible. \n\nEven then, we have no way to link such deities to any religion that anyone worships.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzxv11","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Electrical-Rabbit157","body":"It’s not well designed. It’s the worst designed religion in the world actually. The success of Christianity is based around keeping people from learning about other faiths. The moment that happens the VAST majority of them leave christianity for something else. Myself included. \n\nYou have to go at the fundamental hypocrisy of it. The average Christian rants and raves about the Ten Commandments and yet every single one of them break the first 2 commandments daily and most break 3 commandments every Sunday. The average priest breaks the first 4. Then there’s the fact that the Bible is a corrupt text and Christianity as a whole was founded by Paul, a man who is not a prophet, not a disciple, not an apostle, just a random guy who comes out of nowhere and starts preaching that Jesus is God.\n\nThey worship a trinity which is paganism. There is no excuse for it. It’s the same exact belief system as Hindus which are literally the original pagans that Abraham fought against. This trinity also includes a man. That man is considered a prophet but still. This breaks the first commandment. \n\nThey idolize said man and the cross he died on. They wear necklaces with it. They put big gold crosses at the front of their churches and big wooden ones on the outside of them. This breaks the second commandment \n\nThey go to church on Sunday and the vast majority of them believe this is the sabbath. Which directly breaks the fourth commandment.\n\nThe priesthood commits extortion and sometimes even rape in either the name of God or what they lead people to believe is a house of God. This breaks the third commandment \n\nThen you get to the Bible and it’s non existent integrity. There are about 5 major sects of Christianity. Each one has about 40 versions of the Bible. And the average Christian may think this is normal, it’s not. Jews have 1 version of the Torah. Muslims have 1 version of the Quran. Hell even the Hindus only have 1 version of most of their texts. The new testemant is more written by Paul, who is again, not a prophet, than any actual apostle. All of Paul’s letters are included in the vast majority of bibles yet the book of Enoch, book of Jesus Christ, and lost gospel to Peter are considered “uncanon” by the church and have been removed for centuries. That is not a holy text. It may have been a couple thousand years ago but out of 200+ in circulation today, I’d seriously doubt any can be considered uncorrupted.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzyqtq","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"malorane","body":"Isn't this other person either straight up lying or totally misinformed about the Christianity/Catholicism? Like I could be misremembering but I'm pretty sure there are passages that literally give you guidelines about how to treat your slaves and this dude said both have always been against slavery?","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzz7x7","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"CantKeepMeOutYo","body":"You will never win against someone with faith. They will always always always have some other bullshit excusw up their sleeves. That's what makes religion so fucking dangerous: it uses logic when it works and then completely disregards it when logic doesn't work. Don't bother debating christians, they've accepted a parasite into their body that will defend its ability to feed off the host, even if it means killing the host, or YOU.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzzg1h","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"wibbly-water","body":">If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\r \n\r \nIf you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics\n\nIgnoring the second proposition for a second I want to propose 2 more reasonable secular arguments;\n\n1. This is true of all religions because their axioms and methods for diving truth are different. They believe, want to believe, will tie all phenomena in with their argument, will ignore Occam's Razor to do so. \n2. If Christianity is better than (some) other religions at doing this it may be because it is a highly evolved system of memes. A meme is the idea equivalent to a gene. Religions are memetic in nature - they are ideologies, ideas about how the world works. Memes compete for space and survival much like genes do. And every time one of its memes is threatened it is forced to either drop that meme and adapt or bolster it to do the same. Look at the iterations of historical Christianity. Where are the puritans today? Even Protestantism evolved out of Catholicism - many will claim that they are barely the same religion.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzzk96","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"DangForgotUserName","body":"The salvation of man is dependent on the suffering of Jesus Christ. His 'blood sacrifice magic' supposedly forgives original sin - doctrine that we know though biology is utterly wrong. (A couple of garden nudists were guilty of rebellious fruit munching, so everyone deserves death or eternal torment?) This makes the theological story around Jesus one where he is scapegoat of a nonexistent forebear. This should undermine the value of Jesus as well as the foundational basis for belief in God.\n\n \n\nFurther, the idea that the only way to forgive is through ritualized punishment? That is petty and immoral. No forgiveness without bloodshed or death. Horrible, ignorant and outdated ideas.\n\n\nThe idea of a messiah, one who will deliver us from the tribulations of the present, is an ancient idea that distracts us from the hard work that must be done to build a better world.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jvzzkww","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Emotional_platypuss","body":"The problem here is both sides trying to impose beliefs on others. What you believe or don't believe is your problem. You don't need to explain why you don't follow a religion, specially to religious people. Is like them telling you why their religion is so good. Break out of that circle and move on","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw0052z","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null},{"author":"notjuan_f_m","body":"This Is the problem with everything lately. \"I am right, you are wrong, and I will continue to tell you until you accept that i am right\"","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw00l9j","parent_id":"jw0052z","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"JackedLilJill","body":"If anything, just from your text and title, the fact that Christians explain themselves fully in the face of debate, should be the reason to change your view.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw00vuq","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"FerdinandTheGiant","body":"For your first debate with your brother, he was just straight up wrong on so much. Christianity is not and does not serve as the basis for morality in the western world or the world as a whole. \n\nMost of the non-western world like in Asia is not heavily Christian and wasn’t for most of their history. They of course are doing just fine. Christian morals have not been consistent nor are they the basis for a basic society. \n\nAdditionally, you don’t need Christianity to explain altruism as it already has a natural explanation. It’s called kin selection and essentially means that it is beneficial to help out family since they carry your genes. This means more of your genes will get passed on. This is likely how it evolved in humans and then developed into what we consider today. Animals do this. Altruism isn’t human alone. \n\nThen you have slavery which the Bible openly says is fine. Leviticus 25:44-46","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw013nj","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"-Strawdog-","body":"Taking a quick look at one or two of these examples, you have a very noticeable habit of accepting a lot of the other person's premises and arguments without pushing back on them at all. As an example, your brother mentions multiple times that altruistic behavior is the direct result of the Christian faith, an argument that is absolutely ridiculous for a bunch of reasons, not the least of which that our closest genetic relatives (chimpanzees and bonobos) exhibit all kinds of altruistic behaviors as part of their highly social lifestyles (and they also don't sacrifice eachother, something he seems weirdly hung up on).\n\nTo be honest, it doesn't look like the people you're debating have good arguments or are good at expressing them, it seems that you are just very new to debate, particularly on this topic. If debating religious folks is something you want to do (you are incredibly unlikely to change their minds even with very good arguments), you can find plenty of solid resources online that break down and refute just about any apologetics you are likely to encounter.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw01pm9","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"lamabaronvonawesome","body":"I have found the opposite to be true. I would recommend reading some books on logic and debate. Having an answer doesn't make it a good answer. I had a debate teacher that used to day \"the definition of a reason is anything I put forth as a reason.\" This essentially means you SAY anything, that doesn't mean it will hold up under scrutiny. You mentioned miracles that a person had given you examples of in their own life. Debate in essence is about definitions, how we define things. Get them to give you the definition of a miracle. I personally would define that as any event that is ONLY explainable by divine intervention. See if their miracles hold up to that.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw02avd","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"kountze","body":"The Church did have some good effects on political and cultural development in Europe - for example the separation of powers came from the Church being a strong counter force to the government for so long, church limited the government in ways that led to values of separation of powers and limited government, unlike China which was much more state dominated and still is today. Protestantism represented not only a change in religion but also a change in how humans think logically - so yeah a lot of good things can be tied to how Protestantism changed how people think. \n\nThat being said, the above certainly is a far cry from saying that Protestantism values will work in every situation or that it can address all of today’s modern problems. Protectionism ideally is something that should be open to interpretation, which modern Christianity has moved away from that. \n\nIn terms of science the Church does not have credible arguments - that’s the main problem. If you think they do, you really haven’t encountered anyone who actually knows the science and microbiology. \n\nAlso, do not confuse correlation and causation. Certain positive developments in society may correlate, but that correlation does not prove causation. \n\n\nThe issue with","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw035en","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).\n\nTherefore, I must concede that Christianity is a well-designed religion because there is always a rebuttal at its disposal that will leave its critics trapped. For the TVTropers among you here, Christianity has a [Xanatos Gambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit) in its favour. No wonder Christianity has lasted 2000 years and is still growing.\n\nSociety may have appeared to have made gains against Christianity - but such gains are being reversed (both [inside](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-09/why-young-gym-bros-are-becoming-catholic-online-christianity/102457884) and [outside](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wFW9nPwmg) the Western world). No wonder we are seeing consequences like [declining acceptance of same-sex relations](https://news.gallup.com/poll/507230/fewer-say-sex-relations-morally-acceptable.aspx).\n\nAs for why I've been keeping notes of my debates, it's because I don't want to be constantly losing (and [I lose in non-religious debates too](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusPol/comments/xu1pad/question_how_to_deal_with_clashing/)). I keep notes so that I can analyse them in the hopes of improving my debating skills enough so that one day, I can finally win debates.\n\nSo to conclude:\n\n* If you believe that Christianity was fabricated by men, then these men were geniuses who made sure that the religion they designed has a rebuttal to dodge and entrap future critics\n* If you believe that Christianity was divinely inspired, then this God had the foresight to choose the right words to dodge and entrap future critics","date":"2023-08-13","id":"15purrs","parent_id":null,"score":26,"subreddit":"changemyview","title":"CMV: Christianity has a rebuttal for everything - and that leaves critics like myself trapped.","url":"/r/changemyview/comments/15purrs/cmv_christianity_has_a_rebuttal_for_everything/"},{"author":"Jaderholt439","body":"If I’m debating Christianity, I like to go straight to the main topic- the Resurrection.\n\nMost people I know and love are Christians; I don’t have a problem w/ their religion. I love these people. But what I don’t like are apologists. Every single one that I’ve ever seen is dishonest. Especially when it comes to the Resurrection.\n\nIt’s not hard to believe that a guy named Yeshua, who had a religious following, was crucified. I can even believe he was put in his own tomb, although most were put in a mass grave, it’s wasn’t unheard of. The stone being put to block the tomb and guards sound like they were plot holes being fixed in Matthew, but for arguments sake, I’ll agree to that too.\n\nJesus wasn’t in the tomb when they went to him 3 days later. What is the most likely explanation? Is it, “he must’ve overcome death and ascended, bc he’s God”? I think a Guy Ritchie style heist is way more plausible. ‘They forgot which cave’ is more plausible. Literally anything is more plausible. If they are being honest, they have to say, “I believe it on faith”. Yet, apologists will not say this, therefore they are dishonest, therefore they don’t have an answer for everything.","date":"2023-08-13","id":"jw03fxs","parent_id":"15purrs","score":1,"subreddit":null,"title":null,"url":null}],[{"author":"Real_Carl_Ramirez","body":"Reposted because it was taken down for Fresh Topic Friday\n\nI have a history of losing debates to defend my lack of faith:\n\n* It all started 3 years ago, when I requested to no longer go to church - and in response, my brother challenged me to a debate, which I lost because I was outwitted - [see here](https://imgur.com/a/jVrxqdd).\n* Earlier this year, I tried to explain my lack of faith to my local parish priest, and I lost again because I was outwitted - [see here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/14oerk4/cmv_some_people_are_spiritually_dead/).\n* Over the past few days, I've been trying to defend my support for LGBTs and lack of faith from a Protestant. Once again, I realised I was losing because I got outwitted, so I got desperate and quipped \"*is there any red line that would make you hold Christianity to account*\" - and what do you know, I still lost because [there are Christian rebuttals for that too](https://www.reddit.com/r/KnowingBetter/comments/15jo5wy/comment/jvmad6j/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&